By
Brady Westwater
The HISTORIC DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES 101
2 hour walking tour will take place this Saturday June 16th and next
Saturday June 23rd at 11 AM and 2 PM AND this Sunday June 17th and
next Sunday June 24th at 2 PM. That is two tours each Saturday and one
tour each Sunday
Then the HOW DOWNTOWN LOS ANGLES INVENTED THE WILD WEST (and why no one knows it) walking tour will take place this Sunday June 17th at 11 AM and next Sunday June 24th at 11 AM.
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| The Bradbury Building |
All tours begin at THE LAST BOOKSTORE at 453 S. Spring Street in the
Spring Arts Tower and will be led by long time Downtown resident Brady
Westwater who, besides being involved with the Downtown LA Neighborhood
Council, the Historic Downtown BID, Gallery Row, Art Walk, and the
BOXeight and the CONCEPT Fashion Weeks, has brought over 150 businesses,
artists and non-profit institutions to Downtown. All tours are only
$15 per person. EXCEPT FOR THIS WEEKEND! This weekend if you bring
your Father with you, you will only have to pay $5 for you Dad.on either
day!
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| Wyatt Earp |
If you are a participant in Saturday's 'Historic Downtown Los Angeles
101' Tour, you will see the first motion picture theater built, the
place where Babe Ruth signed his contract with the Yankees, the hotel
where Charlie Chaplin lived when he made his early films (and the place
where he made his Los Angeles vaudeville debut in 1910) - plus the homes
and haunts of everyone from actor Nicholas Cage, the Black Dahlia,
Rudolph Valentino, LA’s version of Jack the Ripper, President Teddy
Roosevelt, the Night Stalker, western outlaw Emmet Dalton, actor Ryan
Gosling and more. And you will also visit where O. J. Simpson bought
his knife.
You’ll explore an intersection where all four buildings were often
visited by gunfighter/sheriff Wyatt Earp since they were all built or
occupied by friends of his from Tombstone during the shoot-out at the OK
Corral. At this intersection you will also discover what John Wayne, a
prime minister of Italy, Houdini, Winston Churchill, boxer Jack
Dempsey, Greta Garbo, President Woodrow Wilson and multiple Mexican
boxing champions all had in common here.
You will also see where the first new lofts were opened, the places
where Gallery Row and the Art Walk began and where Fashion Week returned
to Downtown. You will see many of the new boutiques, designer
showrooms and stores that have recently opened in the area along with
getting a sneak preview of what will soon be happening in the area.
And if you take the "How Los Angeles Invented The Wild West (and why no one knows it"tour,
you will discover that long before the famed Western cowtowns and
mining camps Tombstone, Dodge City, and Deadwood existed, Los Angeles
was the first town where everything that happened in the Wild West,
happened here first and that everyone from Wyatt Earp to Judge Roy Bean
came to Los Angeles first before going east to help start the Wild West.
You will also discover LA was a far ‘wilder’ town than any Western town
that followed after it.
And besides ‘inventing’ the original Wild West, Los Angeles also
remained part of the Wild West for far longer than other place (from 25
years to over 90 years - compared to the average period of 3 or 4 years
to 10 years of most cowtowns) and LA was also one of the few towns built
upon both cattle and mining.
Tickets for either tour are only $15 per person - free for children
under 8 - and reservations can be made by calling Brady Westwater at
213-804-8396 or emailing bradywestwater@gmail.com. All credit card
orders will be processed at Last Bookstore and cash payments may be
made at the start of the tour. All proceeds will go towards the
revitalization and the study of the history of the neighborhood.
Lastly, future tours will feature specialized areas of interest such as
architecture, art of all kinds, shopping and food, single streets,
sports
(from steer wrestling to luchador wrestlers to a Sumo wrestler),
transportation, specific periods of history, the hidden Wild West
history of Los Angeles, movie locations, Downtown after hours and many
other aspects of the neighborhood. And custom designed can be developed
by request for groups of four or more.
We will also be soon starting weekday and evening tours on what it's
like to live in Downtown Los Angeles. You will be introduced to the many
of stores, restaurants, bars, and entertainment venues (and often their
owners, too) - along with being given previews of one of a kind special
events - so you can get a feel for what it is like to live in Downtown
Los Angeles.
We expect this tour to be popular with not only people considering
moving to Downtown and people who work in Downtown and who would like to
know what to do after hours in Downtown - but also to recent and even
long established Downtown residents who want to know more about their
neighborhood.
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