Bicycles on Broadway

Bicyclist and pedestrians on sidewalk, Broadway and 5th Street

Some pundit once observed that "nobody walks in LA", which is not only an untrue statement, but something of a put-down of Los Angelenos in general, as it makes us all look like slaves to our automobiles, not to mention obese and otherwise out-of-shape, which is certainly not the case for yours truly. 

The reality is far removed from the stereotype. I can't traverse a single block of the Historic Core, the Broadway corridor or Gallery Row, the Toy, Jewelery or Fashion districts without encountering dozens of bicyclists, and while I can't direct you to a single authoritative count, the general consensus is that downtown LA - after Portland, Oregon - is probably one of the most intensely bicycled places in the United States.

Even the police department has bicycle cops on white Smith & Wesson mountain bikes. The downtown business district is patrolled by bike-mounted purple-shirted members of the Downtown Center Business Improvement District's (DCBID's) Safe & Clean team. According to the BCID website, the "Purple Patrol" serves as additional eyes and ears for the Los Angeles Police Department, as well as being unofficial concierges who assist lost tourists, monitor area cleanliness as well as backstop downtown residents in spotting and reporting unwanted drug sales and unruly behavior. 

Unlike some other jurisdictions, it's perfectly legal to ride a bike on a sidewalk in LA, which has lead to certain problems in more congested areas of downtown. To address the situation the city council recently passed a set of progressive ordinances setting rules of the road specifically for bicyclists, which include anti-harassment from automobiles measures.

Most visible to visitors though are dedicated bicycles lanes in downtown and certain other areas of LA where bike use is heavy, as seen in the masthead of this blog.

For the record, I don't have a bicycle at the moment, but rest assured that will be changing in near future. I have my eye on a fluorescent lime green fixie.

Today's image was taken with a Nikon D70s w/Nikkor 20mm f2.8D AF

The Arcade Theater on Broadway

Late afternoon shoppers stroll past the old Arcade Theater on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles.

The Arcade was designed by architects Morgan & Walls in 1910 for Alexander Pantages as a vaudeville music & variety theater. Today the interior remains roughly intact, although the seats have been removed and the interior space is used for stock storage. Its former lobby now houses a discount electronics store.

The property is one of several historic theaters and other properties in the historic core owned by Joseph Hellen of Australia. Mr Hellen has proposed demolishing the building and constructing an upscale retail building. This particular proposal has been blocked by alarmed preservationists, although Mr Hellen is open to suggestions for what else to do with this unique property. 

In the meantime, you can still get a pretty good deal on a digital alarm clock.

Click on image for larger version.

Portraits of LA project

A sample of my progress on my Portraits of LA project.

Rain in LA & Lightroom presets

My apartment is eight floors up from the street in downtown LA. Even so, street sounds carry amazingly well here and it's usually fairly noisy. I had been working very late and the streets had gotten awfully quiet, so when the unique sound of tires on wet pavement broke through to my attention, I knew that a rare event was taking place: it was raining in LA.




I grabbed my D70s and rode the elevator downstairs and stepped out of the lobby into a fairly heavy rain. I set the exposure to manual and popped up the built-in flash. After snapping a few frames on trailing shutter flash at 1/10 sec, I went back upstairs, downloaded the images, opened them up in Lightroom 3. What I settled for were two presets: EFF Dragan 4, which brings out the detail of the slick pavement surface for the bus shots, and a nifty preset called Vintage T-shirt for the shot of the pedestrian, for a desaturated but slightly old-fashioned candid look.

While not everyone appreciates presents, but they sure can save a lot of time. Bear in mind that once applied they can be easily modified to suit and then saved as your own customized preset. Besides paid commercial packages, lots of people have gotten on the bandwagon and are offering free downloads. I got some of mine here: Lightroom Journal

Right as rain

The rain has turned LA into an exotic place. I'm thinking of tigers.