L.A. Charm Comes to Light in the Night

It was 2:45 a.m., and we were looking for something to love. We were embarking on an Insomniac’s Tour of L.A. We’d save L.A.-by-day for some future date.

Before finding each other in Los Angeles, my husband and I had independently moved here from San Francisco and had inherited the requisite arrogance that comes with such a move. Although it wasn’t a birthright--since neither of us was originally from either of the Californias--we were, nonetheless, of the belief that the south was inferior. We were sure that L.A. was nothing more than thick air and thin people. It lacked the grace and charm of the north, the clanging of cable car bells, and people who knew what their feet were for.

My motivation for coming was law school. I told all my classmates that I’d be heading back to San Francisco as soon as I finished school. That was 18 years ago.

About seven years ago, I booked the two of us--I was taking my husband on a mystery date--on this peculiar tour. I figured that if, after living here for more than a decade, we still couldn’t find anything attractive about the city, we needed a guide, and we needed to sleuth out L.A.’s hidden treasures while the city slept, while its flaws were cloaked in darkness.

My husband and I set off in the predawn murkiness and still found cars on the freeway. The meeting place was the parking lot of a Beverly Hills hotel, where a bus awaited our groggy arrival. Our leader was a spirited woman who had clearly prowled the city in its pre-alarm-clock hours many a day.

First stop was Union Station. It was ours for the taking. The sweet rolls and coffee we were offered helped to pry our baggy eyes open so we could marvel at the classic tile work. There was an eerie quietude to the place: a phantom train station with no trains whistling, no departure and arrival announcements and no passengers. I was intrigued to find such beauty in a train station and vowed to return one day to see the sun streaming through the windows.

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Next we headed over to the Grand Central Public Market, where the vendors were opening their stalls. We learned from a former produce inspector how to pick out a ripe melon and how to choose the sweetest pineapple.

Then our guide took us to the New Otani Hotel, where we visited the Japanese gardens, tranquil and dreamlike in the haze before daybreak. From there we hurried to reach the outdoor deck at the top of the Transamerica building, in time to witness the sun rising over the downtown panorama. I must admit, Los Angeles looked pretty spectacular bathed in the day’s first light.

We moved on to the Flower Market, which was dazzling in color and the ambrosia of fragrances. We bought a spring bouquet for our baby-sitter who had to sleep over so we could partake of this off-hours adventure.

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Even though much of the city was still asleep, we were ready for a hearty meal. Our guide introduced us to a local hangout that we never would have found on our own. In case the java didn’t wake us up, our last stop at the fish market worked like smelling salts. On the return bus ride, the smell of fresh seafood mingling with fragrant roses was a little overwhelming, but kept vivid the memory of our day. By about 10 a.m. we were back home, imbued with an emerging fondness for Los Angeles, the city.

We couldn’t wait to tout its assets to anyone who would listen. However, this enlightening experience was only a brief interruption in our regular disparagement of L.A.

As memories of our nighttime sojourn dimmed, I found myself focusing again on what vexed me about this city. It still annoyed me to have to ask for chopsticks in Chinese restaurants. The lack of pedestrian areas frustrated me. I longed for pasty-skinned people who never met a personal trainer. And I missed North Beach restaurants with steaming bowls of food served family style. But despite its deficiencies, L.A. has been creeping into my affections over the years.

The true test of her mettle came this June when I was a driver for my son’s third-grade field trip, a docent-led walking tour of Los Angeles offered by Angel City Tours. Did I dare take innocent babes downtown in broad daylight? L.A. would not be able to hide her imperfections in the shadows of early morning, like she did for me years ago. Swathed in the full light of day, would her inner beauty play hide-and-seek with us and let us find it?

She was up to the challenge. We saw Union Station. This time, passengers scrambled to catch trains, idlers dozed on waiting benches and feet pounded the lovely tile floors. We checked out the fountain. We saw a monument of discarded cans transformed into an objet d’art.

The kids were mesmerized by the dancing colored light stocks, depicting images as if glimpsed from a moving train. This computer-paced creation is called Atrain by an artist named Bell. I felt deficient when my eye could not catch Elvis racing by, while the 9-year-olds seemed to see him--and Marilyn Monroe too.

Behind the station, our tour guide/historian extraordinaire, Greg Fisher, called our attention to the Subway Terminal building. Using the side of the building as a canvas, an artist had rendered a likeness of building painters on a scaffold, giving the high-rise a new coat of paint. Only in L.A.

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Crossing the street from the station, we stood in the Olvera Street plaza--a place I had thought was simply famous for its cluster of stores selling schlocky Mexican souvenirs to tourists. Au contraire, it is the birthplace of Los Angeles and home to the old town Catholic church, which we wandered through, admiring the decorative gold leaf on the panel behind the altar. A lively mariachi band gave the center a festive atmosphere. L.A. was looking pretty good by day.

Scurrying through the Grand Central Public Market, we caught sight of the swift hands of tortilla makers, patting and flipping the rounds of white dough as they sped along the conveyor belt. It was a vision I wasn’t privy to when the market was dark.

From there we walked to the Bradbury building, which is host to one of the two remaining human-operated elevators downtown. The nondescript exterior hides a real pearl. The interior of the late 19th century building is done in an unusual-for-the-time atrium style, with a glass-paneled ceiling, iron staircases and fireplaces in the offices.

Looking across Broadway, we admired L.A.’s first movie palace, ornate in the grand old theater tradition, again showing first-run movies.

Then we boarded Angels Flight, the downtown trolley with the vertical ascent, which took us to the California Plaza. I couldn’t believe it. Here it was daylight; we were on foot; we were in downtown L.A. and before us was a stunning water court boasting interesting angles and lines--and free concerts.

On to the Central Library. World class is the only way to describe it: the gardens with inscriptions in every language and a fountain with lizard and eagle sculptures; the massive collection; the theater; the chandelier globe decorated with zodiac signs that was lowered during World War II to protect it from damage in case of bombing. It outclasses even the new San Francisco central library.

We returned to our starting point at Union Station via Metro Rail (L.A. even has a light rail system now like other big cities) and lunched in view of Olvera Street. The tour concluded, but my appreciation for Los Angeles by day had only just begun.