Recently in Around L.A. Category

Back in August I posted here about a visit to the L.A. Times lobby, where among the historical items on display are a linotype machine and the last page set with hot type, only with explanatory plaques reversed -- the hot type page plaque reading "This is a linotype machine..." and the linotype machine plaque reading "This is the last plate of hot type set at the Los Angeles Times..." How long had this been wrong, I wondered?

Well, I went downtown last Friday on a day off to visit the City Hall observation deck, which is only accessible on business days. (Highly recommended, by the way.) While in the neighborhood, I decided to pop into the Times lobby to see if the plaques had been fixed.

They had. See photos!

I'll share credit with the LAObserved blog, which picked up on my item -- gratifying headline: "Times wrong about its own museum, says columnist" -- and gave it a much wider audience, evidently including whoever at the Times needed to know. Nice job, and schoolchildren and other visitors should no longer leave their educational visit more confused than when they entered.

There is no sign posted saying "The Times regrets the error." But I'm sure they do.

Why is it called the Globe Lobby? Its centerpiece, below, should make that clear.

I saw this framed advertisement in the Boddy House at Descanso Gardens in La Canada Flintridge on a recent visit. (Sorry for the poor photo.) Manchester Boddy not only wrote a column, he owned the old L.A. Daily News from 1926 to 1954.

His Daily News was the only L.A. paper to support FDR. Boddy ran unsuccessfully for senator against Helen Gahagan Douglas in 1950's Democratic primary, in which he labeled her the "Pink Lady," paving the way for Congressman Richard Nixon to defeat her in the general election.

Evidently Boddy was a columnist for his newspaper as well. I'd love to have the Daily Bulletin describe my column as "brilliant" and on everyone's lips -- but it might help if, like Boddy, I signed the promotional department's paychecks.

I saw this silent classic Wednesday night at the Orpheum Theater on Broadway in downtown L.A., the last film in this year's "Last Remaining Seats" series sponsored by the L.A. Conservancy. Harold Lloyd's 1923 film in the lovely 1926 theater made for a great combo.

Notes Wikipedia: "It includes one of the most famous images from the silent film era: Lloyd clutching the hands of a large clock as he dangles from the outside of a skyscraper above moving traffic."

The movie is highly recommended, and the clock scene -- filmed not far from the theater itself -- got an ovation.

Four of us from the newsroom left work Tuesday at a decent hour for a change and sped to Hollywood's Amoeba Music for an in-store performance by the Civil Wars, whose debut CD, "Barton Hollow," is recommended to fans of Robert Plant/Alison Kraus' "Raising Sand," Gram Parsons/Emmylou Harris or even the Everly Brothers. The close-harmony duo was playing at Largo that night and are also performing Thursday night at the El Rey.

Joy Williams and John Paul White, whose romantic ballads tend toward the serious, turned out to be playful and utterly charming in live performance. They performed for a half-hour as the audience stood in the record stacks.

Aside from a half-dozen of their own songs, they did a slow cover of "Billie Jean" (versions from other venues are posted to YouTube). They also challenged the audience to guess who was responsible for their final song and to find the CD. Here's an excerpt of that:

Wednesday night I attended the L.A. Conservancy's Last Remaining Seats program at downtown LA's Million Dollar Theater. The 1918 movie palace is unrestored and not in the best of condition, but it's still pretty neat, and the exterior is spectacular. We saw "Captain Blood," a 1935 pirate movie with Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. Great fun.

There are still three more movies in the series, each on Wednesday nights, at different theaters on Broadway. (Two of the three are already sold out.) Click here for a schedule. I've got a ticket for "Safety Last" on the 29th.

Remember how Ontario has been seeking (for almost two years now) a liquor license for its library cafe? One retired Ontario cop likes to reverse the idea of a bar in the library, joking: "Let's put a library in the bar."

I was reminded of all that on Sunday when I met friends at downtown LA's Library Bar.

LA's version isn't really in the library -- the Central Library is a block away -- but this gastropub has a wall of books in a cozy area with couches, rugs and a fireplace, akin to one of those personal libraries in a country estate, and drinks have literary names: the Scarlet Letter, the Tequila Mockingbird, the Odyssey, etc. My friends liked the drinks (I stuck to cranberry juice) and we all liked the food: burgers, fries, beet salad, edamame and pork belly sandwich.

The Library Bar. What will they think of next?

There's a downtown L.A. park under construction between Bunker Hill and City Hall, and one of the best places to get an overall glimpse is from the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, L.A.'s opera hall.

Here's a recent, if rainy, view from the fourth floor balcony level overlooking Grand Avenue. The nosebleed tier provides a better view of the construction than the swells get. That's the County Hall of Administration in the background.

Chandler, you may recall, was nicknamed Buff because of her maiden name, Buffum, and yes, her family owned the Buffum's department store chain.

The $56 million Grand Avenue Civic Park, set to open in May 2012, will include "lawns, performance spaces, seating areas, walking paths, vegetation, an upgraded fountain and even a dog park," says the L.A. Downtown News.

Mike Tanner, who produces the excellent L.A.-based blog Dinerwood with reviews of coffee shops (especially ones serving pie), and I met up for breakfast in Whittier. The site was Jack's. Is this Jack's connected with the one that used to be at 19th and Carnelian in Rancho Cucamonga? I suspect so, although I don't know.

Mike and I had met up a couple of times before, once at Roady's in San Dimas, the other time at LeRoy's in Monrovia. He tossed out a couple of options for a third get-together and I picked Jack's based primarily on its amazing out-of-the-past sign. Love the Erector-set pole too.

There's a great, long counter inside with swivel seats in the classic style. We got a booth and hunkered down for what turned out to be an only average meal. The corned beef hash with my eggs was the best part and it was probably out of a can. The country potatoes were mushy, not crisp. Mike wasn't blown away by his waffle. Service was inattentive. We skipped the pie.

Conversation was the highlight. Well, that and the sign.

Here's Mike's take, with lots of photos. He was no more inspired by Jack's than I was.

I had dinner in Highland Park last weekend with the Bulletin's RC Now blogger, Wendy Leung. Not only is RC Now your top source for Rancho Cucamonga news and views, it's often darn funny even if you don't care about Rancho Cucamonga. Well, I can only imagine it would be -- who doesn't care about Rancho Cucamonga?

Wendy had a coupon from the Good Girl Dinette, a restaurant that is said to meld Vietnamese dishes with American comfort food. I'd been there a couple of times for lunch and liked it. Even better, it's only a couple of blocks from a Gold Line station.

We had Vietnamese spring rolls, spicy fries with garlic and a soy-based dipping sauce, and two pot pies, one chicken, one vegetarian. The pot pies are one of the restaurant's signature dishes. They were curry-like, came in a dish and had a biscuit-like top. We liked all our dishes.

Good Girl is on LA Weekly's LA99 list of great restaurants. We met there early and by the time we left, near 8 p.m., the place was nearly full.

I'll have a third and final (?) blogging-related meal in L.A. to post about as soon as the other blogger finishes his writeup and I can link to it.

A group of us single types from the Bulletin newsroom headed for Hollywood on Monday night for dinner at Village Pizzeria and a free (!) weekly show at the Bardot club sponsored by KCRW, dubbed "It's a School Night" and this time featuring the great Lucinda Williams.

Williams, one of my favorite singer-songwriters, performed for an hour in the small club, which held about 200 people, standing. Nobody was far from the stage but our group was a mere 12 feet from her. She sang a bunch of songs from her new album, "Blessed," which won't go on sale until March 1, and a few past songs, including "Out of Touch."

"This is cool," she exclaimed at one point. Nobody disagreed.

Last week I had dinner with Meg and K., the couple from the M-M-M-My Pomona blog. We've had such blogging summits before, but not often enough.

This time we went to L.A.'s Koreatown and tried out Park's BBQ, one of the LA99 restaurants as chosen by critic Jonathan Gold. We had bulgogi, short ribs and a kimchi pancake, as well as panchan, the side dishes most Korean restaurants give you for free (as did Park's). Pictured are the short ribs on the grill and some of the panchan. A delicious meal for about $30 each.

To bring in the almost inevitable public-transit angle, Meg and I took Metrolink and K. picked us up at Union Station. She and I talked blogging on the way in and I notice that after a long period of near-silence on her own blog, she's posted several times of late. Always interesting to read.

I'll have a second blogging-related meal to recount soon.

* Meg's more detailed take is here.

I had dinner Sunday with friends at Petrillo's, the famed San Gabriel Valley pizza chain. Two of us had never been while the other two grew up eating there. We went to the original on Valley Boulevard in San Gabriel. Motto: "Since 1954."

The pizza was thick crust, cut into squares and generously topped. It was terrific. A medium fed four of us (we also shared a spaghetti) and two of us took slices home.

The ambience is old-school Italian pizza parlor, reminiscent of Casa Bianca Pizza in Eagle Rock. The pressed-tin ceiling adds character, as does the lovely neon sign glowing outside.

There are other Petrillo's locations, including Glendora, and a couple of offshoots whose connection to the real thing I'm unclear on: Mama Petrillo's, with a location in La Verne, and Petrillii's, a takeout-only spot in Upland that may be a former Petrillo's.

A friend and I splurged on dinner Sunday at Red O, a high-profile new restaurant on Melrose Avenue in L.A. On the sidewalk, we passed a photographer chatting with the valets. Paparazzi? Wow. Don't think I've ever seen one, given that I don't frequent places a celebrity might be.

Disappointingly, he didn't even lift his camera. Hey, I could be Anthony Edwards! Or Jeff Zucker! Oh well. He was still there when we left. Was anyone famous inside, or was he just hoping there might be?

The meal, by the way, was very good: upscale takes on taquitos (with duck), shrimp cocktail and tamales, in a classy setting with pleasant service. Here's a blogger's very critical take, with multiple photos, and a verbal throwdown between chef Rick Bayless and critic Jonathan Gold.

After Westwood's National closed in 2008 and the Festival in 2009, without my ever having been there, I decided to catch movies at the Bruin and Village theaters, Westwood's two other vintage single-screen theaters, just in case. (There's also the Crest, where I saw "The Pursuit of Happyness" in 2006.) The Bruin and Village are now owned by the Regency chain, which vows to keep them going.

Early this year I saw "Invictus" (the Clint Eastwood rugby movie) at the Bruin (948 Broxton Ave.), and on Sunday I saw the latest Harry Potter movie at the Village (1036 Broxton), which is directly across the street. It's rare that my tastes, the mainstream fare at these theaters and my schedule all align.

The Bruin is nice enough, especially the wraparound marquee, but the Village is beautiful, and much larger than it seems from the exterior. I sat in the balcony. It was a pleasant spot from which to try to remember what happened in the last Potter movie and who all these Weasley family members were.

Cinema Treasures has pages on the history of the 1,300-seat Village, which opened in 1931 as a Fox theater (the same year as Pomona's), and the 700-seat Bruin, which opened in 1937.

Westwood also has the Regent, which from the exterior looks like a bland '60s theater (it opened in 1966) and hence less interesting, but I'll probably end up going there sometime too.

For you public transit buffs, I took Metrolink ($17 from Claremont) and availed myself of its free-transfer policy to ride the Purple Line subway to Wilshire/Western and then to ride the Metro Rapid 720 to Wilshire/Westwood, and then to repeat those steps on my way back to Union Station. The free transfers saved me the cost of a $6 transit day pass and public transit saved me from a $5 or $6 parking fee. Plus I could read the newspaper and part of a novel.

The 11:30 p.m. train waits to leave for the 909 from Union Station

On a day trip to L.A. on Saturday I picked up the latest timetable, the second new timetable this year. Heck, I'd only picked up the June 28 timetable in late October, on my last trip.

Anyway, for them that cares, the San Bernardino Line (the one most of us riders use) is unchanged on weekdays but has some interesting tweaks in the times on weekends. No trains were canceled, which is a relief.

Even better, the times for the Saturday and Sunday trains are generally spaced better now. For instance, rather than the later trains home from L.A. departing at 3:25, 4:45, 6:15, 9 and 11:30 p.m., they now leave at 4, 5:35, 7:10, 9 and 11:30 p.m. I've missed the 6:15 once or twice and had to find things to do for almost three hours, so a 7:10 train makes that less of a calamity.

Sundays, rather than the later trains leaving L.A. at 3:25, 5:25 and 7:45 p.m., the new departure times are 4, 5:35 and 9 p.m. Yes, Metrolink is giving us an extra hour and 15 minutes on Sunday night. (Final weeknight trains leave at 9:05 p.m. as before.)

I appreciate the later train and the retention of the 11:30 p.m. Saturday train. The Metrolink fare increase earlier this year, which raised the round-trip price from $11 to $17 from the Claremont station, was less appreciated, but if that's what it takes, that's what it takes.

Foothill Transit's round-the-clock Silver Streak bus remains a sensible alternative, and sensibly priced at only $2.75 each way.

Pomona is Everywhere, a continuing series: Reading a piece on Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky's website (via LA Observed) about the pending rehab of L.A. County's long-abandoned 1925 Hall of Justice at Temple and Spring in downtown L.A., I learned that the project manager, architect Alicia Ramos, is a Cal Poly Pomona grad.

The venerable downtown L.A. cafeteria, one of my favorite stops and perhaps one of yours too, has been sold -- but despite the end of almost 80 years of family ownership, it may not be such a bad thing. The new owner promises to keep the ambience and comfort food while making better use of the upstairs and restoring the exterior. I'll keep my fingers crossed. Read the L.A. Times story here -- and check out this amazing panorama of the interior.

Feel free to post a comment here about Clifton's.

A tray at Clifton's Cafeteria, shot in November 2009.

Strawberry milkshake from the Disney Ice Cream Parlor, next to El Capitan Theater in Hollywood, made from Dewar's ice cream trucked in weekly from Bakersfield. Shot Saturday, but perfect to share with you here on another 100-degree-plus day. Just unwrap a straw and plunge in.

On Sunday a group of us went to the Hollywood Bowl to see the Swell Season, She & Him and the Bird and the Bee in concert, each a male-female duo. We weren't in our seats long when a couple about eight seats away got my attention: It was Cherie Savoie and Lee Tintary, whom I know from downtown Pomona's Arts Colony.

Perhaps even odder, I had run into them at lunch a few hours before in Claremont. Obviously we have similar tastes in food and music. But what are the odds you'll run into somebody you know in a metropolis?

This alone would have made me think "small world." Minutes later, however, who should come walking up the steps past us but the dancing man from the Fox Theater concert in Pomona June 5. He's the one who stood in the balcony dancing furiously by himself until one of our group asked him to sit down. And here he was in Hollywood. We recognized him immediately.

Later we saw him take a seat in a box way down in front (in blue shirt). He sat still and enjoyed himself. Then, when She & Him launched into a spirited take on "Roll Over Beethoven," we saw, in the twilight, from 150 feet away, the dancing man stand and begin shaking his moneymaker.

I suggested to my friend who told him to sit down in Pomona that he ought to go down and ask him to sit down in Hollywood, just to rattle him. He'd have thought, "small world."

Here are videos from the Bowl of the Bird and the Bee performing "Polite Dance Song," She & Him performing a sultry, spooky rendition of "I Put a Spell on You" and the Swell Season doing "Falling Slowy."

Some friends and I attended the "Lost" finale party Sunday night at the Orpheum theater in downtown L.A. My seats were in the front row, a marvelous bit of luck (I got them through Ticketmaster like anyone else).

Before the finale aired, we heard from L. Scott Nadler, who played Rose, and Michael Emerson, who played Ben, as well as from a few minor players (Walt, young Ben, Kate's father and a Dharma guy). Emerson, who was the audience favorite, was particularly articulate and charming.

Asked how he played the duplicitous Benjamin Linus in the times when he didn't know whether his character was lying or not, Emerson said he simply said his lines earnestly and let the audience sort out fact from fiction.

Several people in the audience came in costume. The guy across the aisle from me was in a Hanso Corp. lab coat with the lottery numbers stitched on the back.

For an outing to L.A. on Sunday to the L.A. County Museum of Art, I used four types of public transit -- a personal best, not that I was keeping track:

* Locomotive (i.e., Metrolink, to get from Claremont to Union Station)

* Subway (i.e., the Purple Line, to get from Union Station to Wilshire and Western)

* Bus (i.e., Metro Rapid, to get from Wilshire and Western to Wilshire and Fairfax, LACMA's location)

* Light rail (i.e., the Gold Line, to get from Union Station to Little Tokyo for lunch)

The whole thing cost $11, with my $11 Metrolink ticket acting as an all-day pass for subway, light rail and bus, and of course I avoided parking fees.

The Metro Rapid bus is a wonder, by the way: The bus stops are stylish, the bus arrives every 10 minutes, it barrels along with very few stops and, as I said, it was free with my Metrolink ticket. It was my first time but I'll ride it again.

Last weekend a Highland Park friend and I met at L.A.'s Union Station, took the Red Line to Pershing Square and then walked to Grand Central Market, the indoor produce market and food-stall emporium that's sort of a Latin-flavored Farmers Market. We got pupusas (a Salvadoran dish) at Sarita's Pupuseria as well as an order of plantains. A pleasant time was had by all. This blog has been to GCM before, btw.

It's the oldest restaurant in Hollywood, yet it doesn't seem to be as well-known as, say, Philippe's; mentions of Musso and Frank to three friends brought blank looks. "It's been a long time since I've been to Hollywood," one said. I replied, "Have you been there since 1919?"

Like Philippe's and Cole's, Musso and Frank is steeped in L.A. history, numbering among the few holdovers from the era of Bogart and Chandler. Philip Marlowe would have frequented Musso's, if he weren't fictional, and Faulkner reportedly did. Musso's has a reputation for surliness and a menu that hasn't changed much from 90 years ago, dotted with bygone dishes like welsh rarebit, jellied consumme and diplomat pudding.

I was always intimidated about eating there. Once about 10 years ago a friend and I stopped in for Cokes in the middle of a Saturday afternoon. When we ordered our lowly soft drinks, the waiter snatched the menus out of our hands and banished us to the bar, despite the nearly empty dining room. Yikes.

Finally, after years of working up the nerve, I went in recently for dinner. Service was pleasant and professional, the steaks (from a coal-fired oven) excellent, the ambience thick. By golly, it's my new favorite L.A. restaurant (this week). Some weekend I'm going back for lunch to sit at the counter and order welsh rarebit.

Photo: Wendy Leung

The Museum of Neon Art in downtown L.A. (136 W. 4th), which already has Montclair's old Midway Building Materials sign with its animated bricklayer in its collection (albeit in storage), is now displaying a familiar sign from Pomona: County Fair Pie A La Mode.

It's on loan from James McDemas and John English and will be displayed indefinitely. Nice setting, too.

Museum executive director Kim Koga told me the duo "got all three of the pie-a-la-mode neon signage and all of the smaller hand-painted signs that went along with it." They apparently did not get any pie or ice cream, however.

Here's an earlier blog post about the museum.

Like I said in Wednesday's column, that singular downtown L.A. attraction is back. Here are two photos I took. This was covered more formally by the Los Angeles Downtown News and by the L.A. Times, which had a story and photos.

Related: Millard Sheets' painting "Angels Flight" is getting renewed attention. Here's a link to the image and a short writeup from LA Observed. It's my favorite Sheets painting too -- even if it does leave out Angels Flight!

A week after a Metrolink/Gold Line jaunt to try out Good Girl Dinette in Highland Park, Sunday saw me repeating the experiment, this time at Wurstkuche in downtown L.A.

I got off the Gold Line Extension at its first stop, at Alameda and 1st, and walked about four blocks to Wurstkuche, a well-regarded Belgian beer and housemade hot dog place in the Arts District. (Like Good Girl Dinette, it's on LA Weekly's LA 99 list.)

There was a line to get in, but that was fine, and an employee handed out copies of the menu. I had the sundried tomato and mozzarella dog of smoked chicken and turkey with caramelized onions and sweet peppers, plus Belgian fries with curry ketchup, a Manhattan Special cream soda and, for dessert, a toasted apple pie ice cream sandwich between oatmeal raisin cookies. Total: $19.48.

The bar/dining room, in exposed brick, features communal tables covered in butcher block paper. A nice ambience. As for the food, it was fine stuff. The dog had a good snap and it was cradled by a dense, crisped bun. The fries were disappointing, but maybe I'm not a Belgian fry guy. I like 'em better at Back Abbey in Claremont.

I got through another couple of chapters of "Roughing It" before heading for home. Another satisfying outing to a new-to-me part of L.A.

As regular readers know, I take Metrolink for day trips whenever I can, which isn't as often as I'd like, in part because it seems like a full-day thing and full days are rare. Sunday, though, I made it a half-day thing just for lunch.

There are numerous good restaurants near a transit stop in L.A. Why not just go have lunch somewhere new and fun? I decided to try Good Girl Dinette, a Highland Park cafe that bills itself as "American diner meets Vietnamese comfort food" and which made LA Weekly's LA 99 list of notable restaurants.

So I got on the 11:39 a.m. train from Claremont with an armful of reading material (Sunday papers, an LA Weekly, an IE Weekly, Westways magazine, two Record Collector News issues and Mark Twain's "Roughing It"), took the Gold Line light rail trolley to the Highland Park stop, walked two blocks in an unfamiliar part of L.A. to the restaurant, had a satisfying repast (beef stew, housemade lemon pop, bread pudding) for $24, walked back to the light rail stop, took the Gold Line back to Union Station and immediately got on Metrolink for the ride back home, arriving in Claremont at 4:20 p.m. carrying only the Twain book, having shed everything else as I read it.

Yes, the ride cost $11, making this a long and slightly pricey meal, but it was worth the extra time and cost to have a mini-adventure, one with almost no unproductive time. The smooth, air-conditioned ride certainly wasn't roughing it (ahem).

I spent Saturday afternoon visiting a friend in Eagle Rock, the town west of Pasadena.

We had lunch at Auntie Em's Kitchen, a funky breakfast-lunch bakery that's on Jonathan Gold's LA 99 list of notable restaurants. Getting a table required a 40-minute wait on the sidewalk, but the experience was worth the time. I had the skirt steak sandwich on foccacia and got a chocolate cupcake to go. (I'll have to return for the french toast and the meatloaf sandwich and...)

We followed up lunch with a visit to Galco's Soda Pop Stop in adjacent Highland Park, a family market that now devotes three aisles to bottled sodas and also has a large selection of candy bars. I picked up seven sodas and three candy bars. Which I haven't eaten -- the very rich cupcake took two days to finish.

Walking on Spring Street in downtown L.A. a while back, I noticed the mural on the exterior of City Hall East, the secondary City Hall building on the east side of Spring. Wondering if the mural might be by longtime Claremont and Pomona artist Millard Sheets, and in no hurry, I stepped closer. Indeed it is.

The 28-by-60-foot mural, "The Family of Man," was installed in 1972 and envisioned as a way to celebrate diversity. Click here to see more images of the mural and read a short explanation.

Southern California is known for wantonly erasing its past, so it's a pleasant surprise to find that multiple World War II-era air raid sirens still stand. Here are two in downtown L.A., one at Broadway and Temple near the old Hall of Justice, left, the other on Olive and Second by the Music Center parking structure, below, the tip of Disney Hall poking up behind.

Close to home, Claremont has one on Sixth Street east of Mills on the Claremont McKenna campus, next to the bottom. I'm relieved to know my city of residence is prepared in case of attack, perhaps by Montclair.

UPDATE: As commenters below brought to my attention, Claremont has a second air raid siren, on Oxford Avenue between 10th and 11th streets. I've added a photo of it at the bottom.

This website has photos of nine more in the L.A. area, including in Eagle Rock, MacArthur Park and near LACMA. This page has photos of 38 L.A.-area sirens, albeit without the locations identified. More than anyone would ever want to know about air raid sirens can be found on this Wikipedia page.

The beacon atop City Hall was located and restored a few years back and placed where it belong. It sweeps the sky at night, offering a Gothom City-type effect. Sorry the photo is blurry; I must have been excited by the cool sight.

I went to the Orpheum in downtown L.A. on Saturday for a concert by Ray Davies, frontman of the Kinks. It was probably my fifth time at the Orpheum, now primarily used for concerts. As you can see, it's a little like entering the Palace at Versailles.

(Although few people at Versailles can have dinner beforehand at Clifton's Cafeteria.)

If you're a fan of the Kinks' late '60s period, this was the concert of your dreams, as Davies played such beloved, if little-known, chestnuts as "Autumn Almanac," "See My Friends," "Shangri-La," "Do You Remember Walter," "Waterloo Sunset" and "Days," the latter two being among the most lovely pop songs of the 20th century. (If you don't know them, hie thee to a record shop.)

This was one of my favorite concerts ever. And the venue was no slouch either.

I'm not one for celebrating Halloween, but that evening a friend and I marked the occasion by seeing the 1922 silent vampire flick "Nosferatu" at Disney Concert Hall with live organ accompaniment. The movie is slightly campy at this point, but still creepy, and the organ added immeasurably to the impact.

It was my first time in Disney Hall and I enjoyed the look and feel of the place. Some patrons were dressed up for Halloween. And some employees in their formal white shirts, black vests and black pants also wore an accessory: glowing devil horns.

Beforehand we had dinner a block away at Kendall's Brasserie, a modestly upscale bistro. A party of four was clad in capes and at the bar a man, otherwise dressed formally, wore a spangled Green Hornet-type mask.

How was your Halloween?

As noted in Sunday's column, and here on this blog Thursday, I attended Thursday's Metropolitan Transportation Authority meeting in downtown L.A. Of course I traveled by Metrolink, the MTA HQ being right there at Union Station.

The Gold Line-related portion of the meeting ended right after 2 p.m. Finally, lunch. I could've, and perhaps should've, eaten at the MTA cafeteria, but I decided to do something else that's hard to do on a Saturday, and that's try Pitfire Pizza.

It's at 2nd and Main, immediately south of the new LAPD HQ, southwest of the Caltrans HQ and near the LA Times and City Hall. Jonathan Gold likes it. There are locations in North Hollywood and Westwood too. I keep meaning to try it. But the downtown Pitfire doesn't open until 3 p.m. on weekends, thwarting any lunch plans on my usual outings.

So, Pitfire it was. My meal lived up to expectations. The day's special pizza, New Haven clam ($10.25), was a white pizza (no tomato sauce) with roasted garlic, breadcrumbs, parsley, a cheese I've forgotten (sorry), plus clams, obviously. At four slices, it was just the right size for one person, and very tasty.

Instead of returning directly to Union Station, I stopped at Philippe's for an iced tea and a cup of tapioca pudding. (I believe commenter Shirley Wofford has praised the tapioca.) Well, it was nothing to get excited about, but it was a change from pie, and a nice way to kill some time before the train home.

We won't be getting the Gold Line for untold years, but at least we have Metrolink.

On Saturday I had two great meals in L.A.: lunch at Susan Feniger's Street and dinner at Jitlada.

Street, on Highland just north of Melrose, is a new restaurant by Feniger, the co-chef behind Border Grill and Ciudad. She's also a Claremont Colleges alumnus. Street is devoted to foodie versions of the world's street foods. Our table shared spinach varenyky (a Ukrainian dumpling), a half-size New Jerusalem bread salad, Hawaiian poke plate (ono fillet, Japanese style) and Egyptian basbousa cake, plus mango lassi to drink. We liked it all, and at lunchtime on a Saturday or Sunday, street parking is free. The meal came to $53 plus tip.

The only disappointment was that Street has an A from the Health Department. This is street food; the grade should be a C.

Jitlada, on Sunset in the Thai Town neighborhood, is another acclaimed restaurant. Besides the usual Thai options, there's a couple of pages of southern Thai dishes unknown to most of us, which is why there's such a buzz. Jitlada is in a minimall and there was a half-hour wait, but for a Saturday night, that's not bad.

We had fish cakes, a very good rice salad and, the clear winner, the crispy catfish and mango salad. Very good stuff indeed, and I'll have to go back to try some of the other dishes everyone raves about. The bill was about $38. The interior seems to have been furnished from someone's basement -- a Michelob lamp near framed portraits of Thailand's king and queen? -- but Jitlada is well worth a visit.

I can also endorse the movie "An Education," now playing at the ArcLight in Hollywood, and eventually to a theater near(ish) you.

As a followup to my recent post about Grand Central Market and the movie "(500) Days of Summer," here's information about a one-shot walking tour (via LA Observed):

"Author Harry Medved will lead a free walking tour of Downtown locations from the movie as a benefit (via donations and book sales) for the Los Angeles Conservancy on Sunday, August 30. Included is a screening of the film's music video, shot at the Farmers & Merchants Bank building, and location manager Marty Cummins will come along. Meet at Old Bank DVD at 400 S. Main Street at 3 p.m."

You can get there via Metrolink and the Pershing Square stop of the Red Line subway, plus a walk of about five blocks to 4th and Main.

I'd been wanting to see the indie romance movie "(500) Days of Summer," which was largely filmed in downtown L.A. and in which its classic architecture plays an important role, and had also been wanting to take the train to downtown L.A. again.

When I saw that the movie was playing at the obscure Laemmle Grande 4-Plex at 3rd and Figueroa, the idea of seeing the movie downtown proved irresistible, even though it's also playing in Claremont. So on Saturday I took the train to Union Station and the Red Line subway to the 4th and Hill stop.

I had lunch at the Grand Central Market, the 1917-founded mecca of food vendors and produce stands. I got a smoothie at La Adelita and two tacos at Maria's Fresh Seafood. Across the street is Angels Flight, the short railway dating to 1901 that hauls people up and down Bunker Hill. Alas, Angels Flight is still out of commission, as it's been since a fatality in 2001, although its return seems poised to happen.

I hoofed it up the stairs by the railway and took a break on a bench at Angelus Plaza. Not the right bench, as it turned out. A couple of crucial scenes in the movie, which I saw afterward, are set in the park, but the bench the characters sit on is a different one with a better view. Oh well.

Making your way through Bunker Hill as a pedestrian isn't simple, what with the varied elevations and fortress-like architecture, but the utopian-styled plazas seemed more lovable as I traversed them on foot. Eventually I located the subterranean theater next to a Marriott. The theater itself seems like a '70s relic with a musty smell and floor-to-ceiling curtains separating the thin-walled auditoriums.

Afterward, I walked up Figueroa past the Music Center and the weird new high school by the 101 to Chinatown, and then east to Union Station for the ride home.

How was the movie? Like Grand Central Market, Metrolink and downtown, highly recommended.

I really like Brand Boulevard, Glendale's main drag, and spent half a day there Saturday.

I saw "The King and I" at the Alex Theater, the restored 1925 theater, which occasionally shows old movies (live theater, musicals, etc., fill the rest of the schedule). I'm unsure if I'd ever seen the whole thing before, but knew I'd seen bits and pieces of it on TV as a child. Not that you need me to tell you, but it's a great movie with a surprising finale.

The same block is home to two excellent used bookstores, Bookfellows and Brand Books. At the latter, a browser in his 30s in the stacks seemed unfamiliar with the concept of used bookstores. He asked an employee, "Are these for sale or do you, like, rent them?"

My lunch was nothing special. Porto's Bakery is excellent but it's so crowded it's hard to relax, and the sushi bar I'd intended on patronizing had closed down. In retrospect I should have gone to Thai in L.A., the movie's Siam and modern-day Thailand being the same, but that thematic tie-in didn't occur to me. Instead, I went to the new Panera outlet for its amazing strawberry-poppyseed salad.

After all this, I walked a few blocks south to the Americana at Brand, the cutesy shopping area created by the developer of the Grove by the Farmers Market in L.A. I enjoyed a slice of cheese pizza at Richie Palmer's Pizzeria and a burger at Jewel City Diner, a small, circular diner with a bar looking out through plate-glass windows. Great for people-watching.

Americana is, like the Grove, too artificial for my tastes, but it's okay. Have any of you checked it out?

The question came up in the comments section the other day about whether it's still possible to transfer for free from a Metrolink train to the subway or bus. The policy had been under review but its resolution was unclear.

"Nothing changes for now," Metrolink spokesman Francisco Oaxaca said when I asked.

Metrolink reimburses 23 different transit agencies in six counties for lost revenue due to the free transfers, which obviously are a selling point for train riders. Some 56 percent of those transfers involve LA's MTA, which raised its reimbursement rate.

Metrolink could raise ticket prices or eliminate transfers in response but, other than a 3 percent fare increase, is holding the line for now. "Ultimately we're going to have to face that music," Oaxaca said. But that probably won't happen until July 2010, the start of the next fiscal year.

So that answers that. We Metrolink fans have at least another year of free transfers, which make the service both simpler and cheaper. Metrolink directors, we salute you.

Two-fisted eating at Bennett's Ice Cream. (Actually, he was holding the second cone for his mom while she pays.)

You've all been to the Farmers Market in L.A., right? Third and Fairfax? I certainly hope so, since you've had 75 years, as of today, to get there.

Yep, the Farmers Market opened on July 14, 1934, when 18 vendors parked their trucks on a large vacant lot that had been a dairy farm and an oil field. The market became a popular place and food stands sprouted, eventually rendering the farm part a rather small aspect compared to the international food offerings.

Today the market is somewhat overshadowed by the Grove shopping center next door, and I miss the days you could park for free on the acres of free asphalt. That was too good a deal to last, but at least the market survives. And the incursion of chains seems to have stopped at Johnny Rockets, Starbucks and Pinkberry.

Hearing about the anniversary -- activities are planned today and Thursday; read more at www.farmersmarketla.com -- I went to the market on Saturday with a friend. Busy as ever, it remains one of the great crossroads of L.A.

We split an oyster and shrimp po'boy from Gumbo Pot and a shrimp cocktail from Tusquella's and got ice cream cones at Bennett's. We also ogled the vintage toys at Shine Gallery, the imported and specialty groceries at Monsieur Marcel's and the hot sauces at, well, whatever the hot sauce place is called. Oh, to have gone to Bob's Doughnuts, Patsy's Pizza, Bryan's Barbecue, Singapore's Banana Leaf and any number of other delectable eateries.

Do you have a favorite Farmers Market routine or memory?

* The LA Times wrote a long, very good feature on the Market.

Saturday I climbed aboard a Metrolink train for an afternoon in the big city (no, not Upland). On the way I decided a good plan, since I was interested in hitting Virgin Megastore's sale at Hollywood and Highland, would be to try Skooby's for lunch. Skooby's is a well-regarded hot dog stand at Hollywood Boulevard at Cherokee.

I had a dog, fries and Coke for $7.59. The dog (natural casing, all beef) was grilled to perfection, the fries (Idaho potatoes, with zero trans-fat peanut oil, and seasoned), with a few potato chips mixed in, were even better, with the side of aioli dipping sauce proving addictive.

Virgin's closeout sale is now 50 percent off CDs and DVDs. I picked up two Van Morrison retrospectives, the deluxe edition of Love's "Forever Changes" and Los Campesinos' second album. They're playing the Glass House on Aug. 22, btw. I went to the Virgin in NYC's Union Square during my vacation, making me a bicoastal closeout shopper.

The Disney Soda Fountain by the Egyptian Theater was packed with (ugh) families, so I rode the Red Line back to Union Station and had a slice of apple pie and an iced tea at Philippe's before heading home.

One reason I do these outings is to give myself some distraction-free reading time. I took along Ray Bradbury's "Farewell Summer," his slim 2006 sequel to 1957's "Dandelion Wine." I recently reread "DW" for the first time in three decades. "FS" got mixed notices from fans, but if "DW" was a home run, I'd say "FS" was a triple. With two train rides, two subway rides and two restaurant stops, I read the book from start to finish.

Next!

Reader Frank Scimia e-mailed recently after reading about one of my L.A. excursions via Metrolink:

"I enjoy reading your blog and have a question regarding your day in L.A. It sounds like fun and something that I would like to do with my family. The only problem is that I have never ridden the Metrolink...gasp! Can you give a first-timer some tips? I live in Rancho and don't have a clue on what train to take and what station to get off at. Also, how far is the walk to Hollywood Blvd?"

I responded to his e-mail but figured I'd share my response here since others may have the same question. Taking the train isn't difficult, but I can see how it might be intimidating for a first-timer, especially since you kinda have to know the schedule in advance (it's not like trains are pulling in every 15 minutes) and there are no employees, just ticket machines.

Here's what I told him:

"Always happy to encourage riders on Metrolink. You can find the schedule at www.metrolinktrains.com. You'll want the schedule for the San Bernardino Line. You buy tickets at the station. The machines can be confusing at first but other riders can help.

"From Union Station, which is the end of the line, you would take the Red Line subway to either Hollywood and Vine or to Hollywood and Highland. No big walk -- you're right there!

"Transferring from Metrolink to the Red Line is free with your ticket (for now -- Metrolink officials are rethinking the free transfer policy)."

From Union Station, one can also take the Gold Line to Chinatown, Highland Park and Pasadena, or walk across the street to Olvera Street or walk about four blocks to Philippe's, not to mention walking or taking the Red Line to other downtown sites, etc.

I find a lot of people confuse Metrolink and the subway. It all makes sense (I think) if you actually go there, and then look at the maps at Union Station. After a trip or two, you start feeling like an urban expert, and for me it beats driving, paying for parking, etc. Just be cognizant of the times the trains depart for home and factor in the time you need to get back to Union Station.

Here's a link to Metrolink's official "How to Ride Guide."

Any other questions or comments?

On Sunday I traveled with a group from downtown Pomona to Dodger Stadium for the Dodgers-Angels game. The awkwardly named Downtown Pomona Owners Association (a business improvement district funded by property owners) arranged the getaway and chartered a bus. I paid my $42 ($32 for the ticket, $10 for the ride) and climbed aboard.

You can see photos on the Metro Pomona blog in the May 23 entry "Freeway Series."

I went through a baseball phase as a boy, one summer buying bubblegum packs right and left in my futile attempt to collect every Topps card, but my interest cooled by the early '80s. (The Cardinals were my team. These were the days when Joe Torre was a player.)

I've been to a total of four Dodgers games in my dozen years here -- although two have been this season, including Sunday's game, which was my first-ever day game. That's what made the invitation irresistible.

So I was there more for the experience than having any rooting interest. Dodgers, Angels, whichever. Most of the 40-some people in our group were Dodgers fans, leading to incessant kidding of DPOA executive director Larry Egan and his wife, who were in Angels caps. The kidding began sticking in everyone's throat as the Angels overcame a 4-0 deficit and eventually won 10-7.

Two Pomona council members, Tim Saunders and Danielle Soto, were in attendance. Saunders was cheering for the Dodgers while Soto was observed cheering for both teams. She was also overheard talking about "points." Maybe she was there more for the experience too.

Food-wise, some of us got our Dodger Dogs grilled; the stands for the grilled version are on the levels behind home plate, near where we were (blue reserved section). While I always get a hot dog at any ballpark, including the Epicenter, I'm going to be controversial by asserting the unspeakable: Dodger Dogs, grilled or boiled, are very standard, if not substandard, hot dogs. There, I've said it, and I feel better.

Speaking of insults, Dodger fans certainly can be boorish, if harmlessly so. As their team slipped to defeat, occasional pouting cries of "Angels suck!" rent the air. One has to wonder what it says about the Dodgers if a team that sucks was able to beat them.

But the experience was a lot of fun, the company splendid, and Dodger Stadium remains an old-school gem.

On the way to the bus, Saunders lent a hand to some strangers by taking their photo. The group of six was evenly split between Dodgers and Angels fans. Saunders was in a Dodger cap.

A passerby exclaimed, "You're not a real Dodger fan if you're taking photos of Angels fans!"

Tough crowd.

Metrolink trains and Union Station have posters for National Train Day, which is May 9. What's that? Curious, I looked it up.

It's an event in its second year to encourage train riding. It commemorates 140 years (minus one day) since the "golden spike" was driven to complete the transcontinental railroad. Amtrak is sponsoring Train Day and is hosting events in D.C., Philadelphia, Chicago and, surprisingly, L.A.

Or maybe not so surprisingly: Union Station opened in May 1939, or 70 years ago.

There'll be live music and other events at Union Station from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Visit the website to learn more. But don't drive to Union Station -- that kind of defeats the purpose.

On a weekday off last week, I did one of my favorite things, which is riding Metrolink into L.A. for an afternoon. I didn't go with a plan other than lunch somewhere. But I did go with a book, H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine," which at 126 pages looked like one I could read from start to finish.

I ended up having lunch at one of my favorite spots, even though I only go there perhaps once per year: Molly's Charbroiler on Vine Street between Hollywood and Sunset boulevards. I'll write more about that place sometime...like when I remember to bring my camera.

From there I hoofed it west on Hollywood Boulevard to soak up the day and the atmosphere. My destination was the Virgin Megastore at Highland, which will be closing. (This is a case where Ontario was way ahead of trendy Hollywood. Sorry, but Virgin Megastore closings are so 15 minutes ago.) The store hadn't yet begun discounting anything -- that was supposed to happen this week -- and presumably store personnel were busy raising all the CD and DVD prices before then. I browsed but didn't buy.

My final stop was going to be Philippe's for pie and a cold drink before heading home -- until I remembered the Disney Soda Fountain across the street from Virgin, next to the El Capitan Theater. Jonathan Gold said something nice about the milkshakes there and, unlike a recent Saturday when the place was packed with families and I kept walking, there was virtually no one inside at 3 p.m. on a Thursday. I sat at the counter and enjoyed a pricey but worth it chocolate chip shake.

From there, the subway took me back to Union Station and Metrolink whisked me home. And, yes, I finished my book. Did you know Wells came up with the phrase "time machine" and the idea of it too? It's an amazing little book.

There's an annual walk in Mt. Washington in honor of the Times' late columnist, Jack Smith, who lived in the L.A. neighborhood. I learned about this via the LAObserved blog. I only bring it up because of a small thrill I got while reading the announcement and clicking on the link for Smith's name. The link takes you to Smith's Wikipedia page, which was written by yours truly!

I wrote it in late 2007, surprised that the beloved Smith had no entry, and being a latter-day fan of his work through his books. He's one of my biggest influences, not that we're in the same league or that the lessons have been absorbed especially well. The grace and wit of his prose remain a model to which I aspire.

Although I'll be working Sunday (!) and unable to take part in the walk, I'm pleased to have contributed in a small way to keeping Smith's legacy alive.

Even if my entry doesn't entirely meet Wikipedia's quality standards.

One of the stops I made last week during my furlough was the newly reopened Cole's P.E. Buffet in downtown L.A. at 6th and Main. Cole's opened in 1908 and like Philippe's, it also claims to have invented the French dip sandwich. Unlike Philippe's, which settled into its current location in 1951, Cole's has stuck like glue to 118 E. 6th St. for 101 years.

The obscure Cole's is forever in the shadow of the perennially popular Philippe's, even if the sandwiches at Cole's may be slightly better. Another example of life's inherent unfairness.

I'd been to Cole's once before, back in 2006, shortly before it closed for renovation. The operation, which is slightly below street level in the old Pacific Electric building, was charming in a down-at-the-heels way. The place was rethought and retooled when the building was rehabbed into lofts. The interior still has the wonderful saloon-like bar, a carving station, round lamps, bordello-esque wallpaper and vintage photos, but the sawdust is gone, as is the buffet service. You now sit at plush booths and order from a waiter off a very short menu.

A lamb dip ($8) comes with a dish of au jus, a nice touch. Good bread, good meat, good presentation. The spicy pickle wasn't to my liking. A side of purple slaw was good on its own or added to the sandwich.

On the whole, I'd rather eat at Philippe's -- how many generations of Angelenos have rendered the same judgment? -- because it's a livelier place and it has way more pie. Mmmm...pie. Still, devotees of old L.A. need to visit Cole's at least once. It's easily reached via Metrolink and the Red Line subway (Pershing Square stop).

* Steve Harvey (with whom I lunched) was inspired, as I'd thought he might be, to write a history piece on Cole's.

I've passed Casa Bianca Pizza Pie a couple of dozen times over the years, and even tried eating at it three times previously, but was always thwarted by its hours: no lunch service, closed on Sundays. The old-school neon sign, however, would not be denied, and neither would Jonathan Gold's glowing praise of Casa Bianca, founded in 1955, as L.A.'s best neighborhood pizza parlor. (His unattributed review begins with the section labeled "The Pie.")

Is it all that? I met up there last Friday with a friend recently transplanted from Rancho Cucamonga to Eagle Rock.

The place was bustling, with people crowded into the foyer and others waiting on the sidewalk. Celebrity photos, including a young Ed Asner and an old Ed Asner, line the walls. In the dining room, the tables have red-checked tablecloths. The atmosphere reminded me of Vince's Spaghetti, only cozier, and filled with the happy hum of conversation.

The pizza proved to be quite good, with a thin, crispy crust, the way I like it. The homemade sausage lived up to its hype. The other half of our pizza, done Hawaiian style, is said to have been a favorite of Obama's when he went to Occidental College. I don't normally deign to eat ham and pineapple on a pizza but have to say this version was impressive.

Service was exceptionally friendly and the tiramasu ($4.75) is worth getting.

Is this L.A.'s best pizza? As Gold says, someplace has to have L.A.'s best pizza. It could very well be Casa Bianca. Then again, the pizza may be just as good at San Biagio's in Upland, which is considerably more convenient. Casa Bianca does get the edge for atmosphere (Gold: "This is the pizza parlor all Americans have been conditioned to look for since early childhood"). And for sausage.

Neon nabobs might enjoy this museum, located in downtown L.A. at 136 W. 4th St. (at Main). The space has roughly a dozen vintage neon signs, including the ones pictured here, as well as modern art that employs neon. And there are some awesome photos in the lobby.

Founded in 1981, the museum has bounced around and is now in its fourth location, and this one isn't permanent either. But it's been there since late 2007 and will be there for the forseeable future.

I visited the previous location in 2005 after the Midway Building Materials sign in Montclair was donated to the museum, restored and put on display. The sign, formerly at Mission Holt and Ramona, depicts a brickmason wielding a trowel to lay a row of bricks. He appeared to move as the sign blinked.

Alas, the Midway man is now in storage because the sign was too large and too heavy to be moved into the new storefront location.

But if you think you might like the museum anyway, go for it. I went there Saturday via Metrolink and the Red Line subway; from the Pershing Square stop, it's about three blocks on foot. If you go, Pete's Cafe is a half-block to the east and highly recommended for a meal. The newly remodeled Cole's is two blocks south.

Museum executive director Kim Koga was working the desk when I dropped in. She used to live out here, and still visits frequently, so you won't be condescended to if you tell her you're from, say, Upland. How many L.A. attractions can you say that about?

The museum website gives hours and other details. They're doing a neon bus cruise on Valentine's Day if you want an especially offbeat, if bright, outing.

I get discouraged by L.A.'s inconvenient public transit and the decades it will take to remedy it. Then again, even the limited range of options offers fertile ground to explore.

On Sunday a friend and I took Metrolink from Pomona to Union Station and via Red Line subway 1) saw "Frost/Nixon" at the Cinerama Dome, the only theater in town showing it, and 2) ate at one of food critic Jonathan Gold's "LA 99" restaurants, Bahn Thung.

The movie, playing a short walk from the Hollywood and Vine station, is terrific. The food, across the street from the Vermont and Santa Monica station, ditto.

No. 34, the crispy rice salad, was a riot of contrasting textures and tastes. No. 98, pla lui suan, a trout under mixed herbs, and No. 108, gang omp, a Thai curry, were exemplary too. The restaurant is unprepossessing but the food was more creative than Inland Valley Thai places.

Afterward we took the Red Line to the Vermont and Sunset stop to walk around Thai Town a few minutes before going back to Union Station to catch the 7:45 train home.

This was the first time I'd ever gotten off at the two Vermont stops. There are several more stations I've never seen, and I should.

It's not that I don't drive, but rather, as Bartleby the scrivener put it, I would prefer not to. Nice to be reminded that, even if most of L.A. is rail-less, there are still riches within reach for urban explorers from the distant suburbs.

Walking through the tunnel in L.A.'s Union Station on Sunday night, I saw a poster-like advertisement for a downtown condo project. Alongside photos and text was the above phrase, paired with a phone number, which was enticing for all the wrong reasons.

Who doesn't secretly wish to view models?

I'm an occasional user, and full-time fan, of Metrolink trains, as well as the Red and Purple Line subways and Blue and Green Line light rail trains in L.A. But until last weekend I had only taken the Gold Line light rail once, and for one measly stop, from Union Station to Chinatown.

Saturday, I gave the line a longer test. Scheduled to meet a friend for lunch in South Pasadena, I decided to park at the Gold Line's eastern terminus, Sierra Madre Boulevard, in Pasadena, and take the train to the Mission Avenue stop. This is halfway to Union Station and gave me a better sense of what the rail line is like.

Well, nice train and all that, and smooth ride, and $1.25 each way was a small price to pay for a joyride. On the other hand, it was hard to get excited about the route.

You walk over a freeway bridge to get to the train platform, which is in the middle of the 210. After a couple of freeway-median stops -- including the thrilling "Next stop, Allen Avenue. Allen Avenue, next stop" -- the train stops at Lake Avenue, which is below street level. Those riders have to take an elevator or stairs up to the Lake freeway overcrossing, which is about eight lanes wide. Sounds, um, pleasant.

The next stop is Memorial Park. This is as close as the line comes to Old Town, and I'm not sure how close it is except from memory: The station is in a trench below street level and all you see out the window is concrete. You really have no idea where you are. (Unlike Red Line cars, there was no map inside my train car, either.)

Things open up a bit in South Pasadena. I got off at Mission Avenue, a station that is lauded for the way it's helped revitalize the neighborhood of cafes, salons and condos. With its antique clock, statue of a pedestrian and location closer to the thick of things, it was definitely the most friendly stop.

Yet you disembark on a platform a few steps above the pavement and the ground has been cleared in a radius around it. Even at its most approachable, the Gold Line is a little aloof.

The trolleys and light rail in Portland, Ore., where I visited last year, usually let you off right at street level, often just steps from sidewalks and shops. Riding transit there is less of a production, if you know what I mean.

Nevertheless, even L.A.'s flawed, scanty rail lines are far preferable to no rail lines. I'm grateful the Gold Line exists. I intend to take it the rest of the way to Union Station sometime. And someday, I hope to take it from Claremont.

Below: The Portland trolley.

Philippe's, the L.A. French dip place, celebrates its 100th anniversary on Monday with dime sandwiches and nickel coffee, the original 1908 prices. It'll be a madhouse but, if you're at liberty that day, Metrolink or the Silver Streak bus will set you down a four-block walk from the restaurant...

Here's a great vicarious tour of downtown L.A. circa 1938 from Bo Caldwell's "The Distant Land of My Father" (p. 125), as the grandmother escorts the 7-year-old girl newly arrived from Shanghai around. This was all one paragraph but I've split it in half for easier reading:

"She took me to Olvera Street, the oldest street in the city, and we ate taquitos and held Mexican jumping beans in our palms. We shopped at Woolworth's and at the Broadway department store, where she bought me Bass Weejun loafers and Keds sneakers. We walked through Pershing Square and listened to soapbox preachers and browsed through the books at the Parasol Library. We bought strawberries and watermelon and just-baked peach pie at Grand Central Market, then rode Angels Flight, a small funicular railway that went up and down Bunker Hill.

"We went to Germain's Nursery on Hill Street and bought packets of California poppy seeds that Gran said we would plant in the back corner of her yard. We stopped at Van de Kamp's Holland Dutch Bakers and bought Dutch Girl cookies and coconut macaroons and Saratoga potato chips that tumbled out of a metal chute as they were cooked. We ate lunch at Clifton's Cafeteria, or went to Philippe's for French dips and lemonade, where I drew patterns in the sawdust on the floor with the toe of my shoe."

Nice to see that about half the stuff she name-drops is still around -- of the 11 places, five still exist, and that will be six when Angels Flight is back in service. I have no idea what the Parasol Library was, btw.

If you haven't checked this blog for a few days, or are a first-timer, scroll down this page to the post from last week titled "Clifton's Cafeteria," which you may also find of interest.

Everyone in Claremont is supposed to be reading "Distant Land." Are you?

Had a day off on Monday and went to Long Beach for lunch with my pal Steve Harvey of "Only in L.A." fame (subject of a future column) via Metrolink and the Blue Line, the only way to travel. After lunch we paid our respects at Acres of Books, the used bookstore that's closing, probably in mid-October (and subject of another future column). Discounts are now up to 30 percent but most of the best books have already walked out the doors.

On the train I read more of "The Distant Land of My Father," the novel everyone in Claremont is supposed to be reading, although I have yet to hear anyone around town mention it. (This book, you won't be surprised to hear, will also be the subject of a future column. No shortage of column topics here.)

Anyway. On the way back, I got off at the Seventh Street Metro station in downtown L.A., walked four blocks or so east to Broadway and took a little break at Clifton's Brookdale Cafeteria.

Many of you will know Clifton's. It's the old-school eatery there since the 1930s and still chugging along; even though all its other outposts have closed, they've hunkered down here. Inside it's the same forest-like scene you remember or have read about, complete with a waterfall and redwood trees. If you've never been, you owe it to yourself to visit at least once in your life.

I've been there maybe a half-dozen times over the years, but I had my first actual meal there a couple of months ago when I was downtown for a Last Remaining Seats screening at the Orpheum, and truth be told, the food is only so-so. The setting more than makes up for any shortfall in the taste department, though. Plus they have all the comfort food items you could ask for, even Jell-O with fruit inside.

Usually I go in the middle of the afternoon and just get a cold drink and a slice of pie or maybe a fruit salad, something to relax with, and that's what I did Monday: a slice of cheesecake with chocolate, a bowl of orange slices and a lemon Ole. It all hit the spot, as did the kitsch. When you're in a restaurant with its very own waterfall, it's hard not to leave happy.

The past few years, the Hollywood Forever Cemetery on Santa Monica Boulevard (at Gower) has been hosting, of all things, film screenings.

You pay $10 and schlep to a grassy, graveless lawn, set up a picnic blanket or beach chair and watch a movie screened against the wall of a giant mausoleum.

Revival house? More like revival crypt. Friends of mine have gone off-and-on since Cinespia's start. It always seemed a little creepy to me -- not scary but bad taste and disrespectful. But the cemetery could use the money, apparently, and what the heck. Revival houses are few and far between these days.

So when a couple of friends invited me last Saturday, I went along. The movie was Orson Welles' amazing "Touch of Evil" and, you know, the whole thing was kinda fun.

Cinespia has a website if you'd like to know more. Upcoming movies: "Sixteen Candles" (tonight), "Phantasm," (Sunday), "Badlands" and "Rear Window" (next weekend).

As promised in today's column, here's a link to Big Orange Landmarks, a blog with multiple views of L.A.'s Fine Arts Building.

Take a look -- it's a heckuva building.

Last Sunday I ventured to Glendale to Brand Bookshop, one of my favorite used bookstores, for its 30 percent off sale. (Which continues through June 1.) The new Grove-like outdoor mall, Americana at Brand, turns out to be just three blocks south on Brand.

Thus, I left my car in the parking garage and hoofed it down to Americana to check it out.

My initial impression was positive, although I didn't spend much time there. The $400 million Americana seems to be modeled on early 20th century downtowns. At least one streetcorner has an antique-like clock jutting from the building, as if it were the town bank. A residential tower maybe nine stories high has a glass elevator fronting the central plaza; gears and a counterweight on the elevator exterior rise and fall with the cars. Again, it's a visual reminder of long-past times.

Plenty of families were enjoying the plaza's lawn and massive pool-like fountain as a rock band played.

I noticed a kiosk selling pizza by the slice and a small round building modeled on a '50s diner, both of which bear culinary investigation. A Good Humor ice cream wagon was parked, apparently permanently, and employees sold treats from its freezer compartment.

Like the Grove, there's not a lot of shops that appeal to me, but there is, like the Grove, a three-story Barnes and Noble.

The buildings are several stories taller than at the Grove but Americana does repeat some elements, including the trolley (although I never saw it, just the tracks). The movie theater has more screens than the Grove -- 18 vs. 14 -- but lacks the limited-release arty movies the Grove usually includes. Glendale must be considered the boonies.

I'll go back sometime...while visiting the Alex Theater or downtown's two used bookstores (the other one is Bookfellows). To me, downtown is the real reason to visit Glendale. Americana just adds another element of interest.

A week ago I made a long-delayed visit to L.A.'s Skirball Center to see its exhibit "Bob Dylan's American Journey 1956-1966."

I'm a Dylan fan of almost 30 years standing but it took a while for my interest in seeing the show to overcome my inertia. Viewing a cache of memorabilia didn't strike me as a must-see as far as deepening my appreciation of Dylan's music, and as it turned out, I'm not sure the visit did help all that much.

And yet for me the visit was diverting enough to have been worth the trip and the $10.

One of the first things you see is a wall of 45s featuring 100 versions from all over the world of "Blowin' in the Wind." Among the grab-bag of performers: Trini Lopez, Spike Jones, Marlene Dietrich, Les 3 Menestrels, Odetta, the Harmonicats, Sven-Ingvars, Vince Guaraldi, Stevie Wonder, Gun Sjoberg and Srecko Zubak. Some of them sound like characters in one of Dylan's more surreal songs. Odetta's version, by the way, is the more grammatically precise "Blowing in the Wind."

Inside the exhibit are typed and handwritten lyrics to classic Dylan songs, concert tickets, handbills, photos, video clips, correspondence and recordings of songs by Dylan and by folk and blues artists who inspired him. It made for an enjoyable hour.

Some of the material wasn't new to me and yet it was neat to see the actual object. I'm thinking here of the famous Robert Shelton review that led to Dylan's recording contract. This version is the original, clipped from the New York Times. I've seen young Robert Zimmerman's 1959 Hibbing High yearbook photo in many books, but here was the actual yearbook. I knew his stated ambition was "to join Little Richard," but did you know his club affiliations were "Latin Club 2, Social Studies Club 4"?

We also see his inscription in a female classmate's yearbook that includes the charming comment: "You have the most beautifullest hair in school, too." There's also a 1964-ish letter to Joan Baez's mother written by Dylan openly pretending to be Joan, talking about how in love they were and how wonderful he was.

Silly, inessential stuff, but kind of fun.

I overheard a tour guide say that Echo Helstrom, Dylan's first girlfriend, phoned and was given a private tour of the exhibit. There were plenty of regular folks there when I visited, from all ages. Including polite but bored children enduring their parents' mini-lectures on the 1960s civil rights movement.

One of the coolest objects was Bruce Langhorne's tambourine, the one that inspired "Mr. Tambourine Man," in a glass case. I recall reading where Dylan described the tambourine as being as large as a wagon wheel. Well, it's not that big, but it's probably 15 inches across.

If you're curious about Dylan, whether you're a neophyte or a hardcore fan, I'd say the exhibit is worth a visit.

The exhibit, which opened in February, continues through June 8. Many of the neatest lectures, films and other ancillary events are past, but there are more. On Sunday, Ann Powers, the L.A. Times pop music critic, will lead a tour at 2:30. Wish I'd waited a week to go. And the rare documentary "Eat the Document" will screen May 29 at 8 p.m.

If you're not curious about Dylan, thanks for reading this far.

Last Monday, as mentioned previously, I went to Studio City to see Jon Provost give a book talk. That event was at 7 p.m. This rare outing to the Valley provided an opportunity for a meal in a strange locale.

Thus I had dinner at Art's Deli, a highly regarded delicatessen on Ventura Boulevard a bit west of Laurel Canyon Drive. It was my first time, but the place comes recommended by Jonathan Gold, who seems to like everything on the menu.

"Every Sandwich is a Work of Art" is the punning motto at Art's, which had its 60th anniversary a couple of years back. I picked a booth by the window and settled back with the menu. They have all the Jewish specialties and some regular diner food.

I went for the corned beef, a half-sandwich ($10.50) size, with cole slaw. (Full size is $13.50; in retrospect, I should've ordered that and taken the other half home.) The sandwich was piled high, the corned beef thinly sliced and warm, lean and with a little fat for flavor. It was terrific. The slaw was good too.

That dispensed with, I had a warmed apple strudel for dessert ($5.95, and worth it).

One piece of sage advice from the menu: "Anything that is hot can be made cold." I liked this phrase enough to write it down. Among other everyday uses, it accurately describes the philosophy of temperature control in the Daily Bulletin newsroom.

Had dinner last Sunday night in Santa Monica at Border Grill, a fine-dining Mexican restaurant on Fourth Street, a block over from the Promenade. The restaurant is owned by the duo who call themselves the Too Hot Tamales, Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger, who have cookbooks, cooking shows and such.

I bring this up because Feniger (ta-da!) attended Pitzer College in Claremont. Yes, there are local angles everywhere, even in Santa Monica.

Nearby are a West Elm Furniture and a Le Pain Quotidien, but (ahem) you can find those in Rancho Cucamonga and Claremont, so why bother? Border Grill, though, was unique and well worth the money.

The meal capped an evening that began with "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," one of the best movies I've seen in 2007. If it makes its way to Claremont's Laemmle, consider going.

Well, this blog is apparently accepting comments again, not that anyone left any, so let's go (at least in prose) to Langer's Deli in L.A.

I'd heard for years that Langer's has the best pastrami outside of New York, and possibly even inside of New York, and yet Langer's, even after 60 years at Seventh and Alvarado, across from MacArthur Park, still remains largely unknown compared to Canter's, Pink's, the Original Pantry, Philippe's and other L.A. institutions.

On Saturday I took the plunge, riding Metrolink with a friend to Union Station and the Red Line subway to MacArthur Park; Langer's is a half-block away, a Jewish restaurant in the heart of a Latino neighborhood.

It's old but clean, smaller than Canter's but with a similar stopped-time feeling. I got the No. 44, a hot pastrami with sauerkraut, Russian dressing, and something called nippy cheese, on rye. The pastrami is hand-sliced and thicker than any I've had; reputedly it's steamed for three hours, which makes it so tender it can't be machine-sliced to the usual thinness. The bread is crunchy on the outside and soft inside. I agree with everyone; it's a heckuva pastrami sandwich.

My friend got the No. 1, which comes cold and with cole slaw instead of sauerkraut, and it was no worse, and likely even tastier, than my sandwich.

The neighborhood is said to be much improved over a few years ago, although there are still guys on the sidewalk ready to make you a fake ID. The park and its lake are lovely, even if I can't think of the park without thinking of that awful song about the cake left out in the rain. What about pastrami left out in the rain? Now that would be something to cry about.

With Monday morning off before that evening's Pomona council meeting, I took Metrolink into downtown L.A. to see "Julius Shulman's Los Angeles," an exhibit of Shulman's architectural photos at the Central Library, on view through Jan. 20.

Shulman, who was born in 1910 and is still at it, has watched L.A. longer than about anybody. One of the first photos in the show was shot in 1933 and is described as a view of City Hall "from the Union Station construction site."

There are photos of the Bradbury Building interior, the last two Victorians on Bunker Hill in the '60s, Century City, Wilshire Boulevard, Case Study House No. 22, dingbat apartments, bungalow courts and the Watts Towers. Especially illuminating were a couple of photos that showed how Shulman manipulated the surroundings to show off his subjects in a flattering light.

Let's just say the Case Study House -- the famous image is of two sophisticated women in white seen through a floor-to-ceiling window as the city's lights twinkle below them, one of L.A.'s most iconic photos -- wasn't quite as magical before Shulman got to work.

A couple of local connections figure in for you architecture buffs. Several photos show buildings by Welton Becket, who designed the Pomona Civic Center, and another shows a Wilshire department store by Stiles O. Clement, who's responsible for Pomona's old Sears store.

The exhibit is in the Library's Getty Gallery. Afterward you can marvel anew at the wraparound mural in the adjacent Lowdrick M. Cook Rotunda, and maybe even look at some books. Oh, and the admission price is right: free.

(Incidentally, the title of today's entry is a play on a Ben Katchor book. Extra credit if you look it up.)

Call me a crabby misanthrope if you must, but although I like street life, I hate street fairs, and seeing Claremont's streets overrun on Village Venture gives me the heebie-jeebies. I don't want a handcarved wooden duck, I don't want kountry klutter signs, I don't want pottery or informational brochures or beaded jewelry.

So as usual I high-tailed it out of town. I went to Glendale's lovely Alex Theater to see, of all things, "Creature From the Black Lagoon," in 3-D.

Everyone upon entry was handed paper glasses, with a blue lens for your left eye and a red lens for your right. Wearing these with actual glasses proved tricky but not impossible, and the 3-D effects were, well, effective: fish swimming right at us, harpoons headed our way, clawed man-fish hands groping off the screen and toward our faces. The whole thing was a hoot.

Unanswered question: Why do monsters always want our women? Frankenstein, Werewolf, King Kong, the Creature, they always find human women fascinating. Hey, me too, but aren't there werewomen, queen kongs and creaturettes for them to kidnap? Sheesh.

Anyway, it was the kind of afternoon I like, and if you went to Village Venture, hope you enjoyed it!!

I trekked to L.A. Sunday to see "Blade Runner: The Final Cut" on its final weekend at its only location, the new Landmark theater at the Westside Pavilion. Great movie, obviously, except that even though I'm a fan who's seen its various iterations probably four previous times, I really couldn't tell you what was different about this version. Always good to see it on the big screen, though.

A few tidbits about life in "Blade Runner's" Los Angeles, 2019, that were noteworthy here in 2007:

1) It rains all the time; this is meant as oppressive, but compared to the past couple of bone-dry years, it was kind of pleasant;

2) Harrison Ford's character twice is seen reading actual newspapers, meaning yours truly may (whew!) be employed for a while yet;

3) Judging by the neon billboards, the defunct Pan Am company will be revived; and

4) The current downtown L.A. condo boom will be shortlived. J.F. Sebastian lives alone in the decrepit Bradbury Apartments and says to Pris: "No housing shortage here. Plenty of room for everybody."

After the movie, I walked a block for lunch at the Apple Pan, the burger stand celebrating its 60th anniversary. Hadn't been there in a few years, but of course it's exactly the same, with the same guy behind the U-shaped counter hustling to serve everybody. The service is dryly efficient and hilariously blunt. Ordering takes no more than 5 seconds.

Counterman: "Yes?"
Me: "Steakburger."
Counterman: "Cheese?"
Me: "Yes."
Counterman: "Fries?"
Me: "Yes."
Counterman: "Coke?"
Me: "Yes."
Counterman: "Anything else?"
Me: "No."

Was my lunch good? Oh yes.