LA Conservancy Architecture Tours

I don't know how long these photos have sat in a folder on my desktop, but it's been a while, at least since the summer of 2007. They're from a variety of architecture tours offered by the LA Conservancy.


This is from the City Hall tour. It's on the ceiling of the lobby, near the elevators. I love the ancient Greek depiction of a modern invention. (The Museum of Jurassic Technology took this sort of joke and ran with it, probably milking it for more than it's worth. I think it's really funny in this context, though.)


This is from the Little Tokyo tour. It's a Japanese garden that's being renovated. Maybe it's finished by now. I'll have to check it out.


This is from the Downtown's Evolving Skyline tour. It's a midcentury office building downtown, right near the Standard. I love the sunblocks. They're really Sullivanesque in their emphasis on verticality. If you look closely, you can see the custom windows, with a distinctive hinge in the middle of each of them that allows them to fold outward in order to open.


This is from the Union Station tour. It's an old Harvey House restaurant, which was a chain of restaurants that used to be in a lot of train stations across the country. That's a U-shaped bar in the middle of the room. You can't see it here, but there's also a really cool area hidden off to the side, with private red booths to sit, eat, and drink in. This would be a really cool space to rent for a party.

Subway Tunnel

(Photo by Nat)

Nat, Kai, and I got to climb down into that manhole and walk around in an abandoned subway tunnel today. It would ruin the tour if I told you the story behind how this tunnel was rediscovered in 1980. You've just got to go on it yourself.

Taco Heaven!

I had despaired of ever having decent tacos here in NYC, but then my buddy Colin took me into the back of a convenience store in Sunset Park where, hidden behind the rear fridge, there is a small restaurant with the best tacos I've ever had on the East Coast. (Remember, it's the burritos at El Charito Caminante in Arlington and Aqui es Mexico in Charlottesville that are so special.) There are only two tables and one tiny grill, upon which all of the ingredients mingle with each other. I want to go back for dinner! (But I can't, because it's Nat's birthday and we have other plans.) A woman at the table next to us had come all the way from Chinatown for the tacos.

Bonus trivia: a friend of Colin's who owns a bar in SoHo rented the tiny restaurant area in the back for a party and photo shoot.

Address: 780 4th Ave

Rosenbach Library

I was in Philly the weekend before last and I checked out the Rosenbach library, housed in the former home of a prominent Philly book collector. I was looking through his Americana collection and I came across Herman Melville's copy of a popular 1828 book about the whaleship Essex. That's a rocking item to have in your collection, because it's what inspired "Moby Dick".

A Sick Joke?

The package of Scott toilet paper that I just bought has a recipe for meatloaf on it.