Walking LA #34: Downtown Financial and Jewelry Districts, 2.5 miles.

At first I thought this hike would take us through the old L.A. Financial District on Spring Street. Wrong. Instead, we climbed 101 steps up to the top of the Bunker Hill stairs for a chin-tilting view of the new financial district: a complex of corporate skyscrapers loaded with banks, law firms, real estate companies, and hotels. A great place for Barbara and me to begin, because as sleek and shiny as these buildings are, they can't (in my opinion) compare to the architecture of the early twentieth-century icons at their feet. In the shadows of steel towers and flawless landscaping at the edge of Bunker Hill, we hiked back down to the real treasures: the 1931 SoCal Edison building (now One Bunker Hill), the 1926 L.A. Central Library, and the awe-inspiring halls and lobby of the Biltmore Hotel, a 1923 Beaux Arts landmark. A short walk through Pershing Square, originally an 1850s settlers' camp, took us to Broadway and the jewelry district. Not much glitter in the empty jeweler windows on a Sunday morning, but the real fun was passing old theaters with marquees dating back to the heydays of the 1920s and 30s, and the refurbished 1935 Clifton's Cafeteria. A turn on 7th led to an unknown treasure: St. Vincent's Court, a faux European lane of restaurants with Parisian-café and oriental façades. We ended our trek with a stop for mochas at the Grand Central Market, and then a quick tour of the lobby of another icon: the landmark 1893 Bradbury Building. They don't build them like THAT anymore. :)