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The Westin Bonaventure hotel

LOS ANGELES — I had a fairly free day to just wander around L.A. today, so I did just that. I didn’t go anywhere extremely famous — no Hollywood bus tours or excursions to Disneyland (although both would have been fun). But I did explore downtown and found some cool stuff.

My first stop was the Bradbury Building, a famous old building located about seven blocks from my hotel. Because I didn’t really know how to get there, I only knew the cross streets, I walked down Third Avenue and through what must be the creepiest tunnel in Los Angeles — and I only say this because I can’t imagine a creepier tunnel in Los Angeles. Of course, once I got out the other side of the three-block long tunnel, I was in the weird part of downtown. And a block away from the Bradbury.

They filmed much of Blade Runner inside the Bradbury Building, which is precisely why I went there. Back when Ridley Scott and his crew filmed there, the building was in disrepair, but they renovated it in the early 1990s. It’s amazing. I couldn’t go much farther than the lobby, because people live there, but it was cool nonetheless.

I walked down Broadway a few blocks and started my way back to the hotel, twisting through the streets and finding several cool things. Along the way I took the picture to the left, and found a little park called Pershing Square (apparently names after Gen. John Joseph “Black Jack” Pershing, a WWI general). There were a few statues there — one of Beethoven, and two memorials (WWI and the Spanish-American war, pictured in that order to the left. I also took this picture of a banner for a St. Patrick’s Day concert, with palm trees and a cool building in the background, for Jacob.

I walked over to the U.S. Bank tower (the tallest building in L.A., the famous one with the star-like top) to see if it has an observation deck. It doesn’t. And I could tell they didn’t want me in the lobby, so I left and got an iced latte. I walked up the little courtyard to one side of the building and filmed the square. A security woman eventually came up to me and told me I couldn’t film or take pictures there. Security concerns, I guess, though I know from my journalism studies that it’s legal to photograph in public places.

I was close to my hotel so I headed back. My feet hurt a bit, not because I walked very far (it couldn’t have been more than two miles), but because I was walking in dress shoes. Doesn’t work after a while.

Below is a short Where I Work video of my walk. It’s one of my more boring videos, but I figured I’d still post it.

UPDATE: Added the photos I couldn’t before. Click on them all for larger versions. By the way, I haven’t been cropping my photos or anything because I’m too lazy.