Oh, the Places You’ll Go – Now! A MUST Experience…
Four minutes from Pico Metro Station to the new Bunker Hill Metro Station behind the Broad Museum. Around three minutes to walk to the entrance of the Broad vs. a 33-minute walk UPHILL on Grand – straight uphill. Or eight minutes from Pico Station to the Little Tokyo-Arts District Station. A nine-minute walk to Manuela Restaurant at the Hauer & Wirth building or a four-minute walk to the Japanese American National Museum vs. a 50-minute walk. Oh, the places you’ll go in the downtown area with the opening of the Metro Regional Connector.
Downtown LA is easily walkable. But if you live in South Park and don’t want to walk a steep incline up Grand Avenue to Bunker Hill or you don’t want to drive to the Arts District, you now have a convenient, quick, easy, low-cost option. And, oh, the places you will be able to go!
In one week, I used the regional connector route to the Arts District, to Bunker Hill, and to Chinatown. On a Wednesday evening, seven South Park residents boarded the train at Pico, exited at Little Tokyo/Arts District, and walked eight minutes to dine at LA Cha Cha Cha Restaurant to join our neighbors as part of the Dining-Around-Downtown group which meets at a different restaurant each month. After fabulous food, drinks, and ambiance on the rooftop (their original restaurant is in Mexico City), we safely walked back to the Metro Station and exited at Pico station for a two-minute walk home. No valet parking, no driving, no shared-ride expense. And we saw a beautiful Little Tokyo/Arts District station with design and art befitting the neighborhood.
My second trip was with my daughter to a cookbook bookshop in Chinatown. Again, we boarded at Pico and exited at Chinatown (with no need for a connecting train at Union Station) in 16 minutes. To walk would have been 59 minutes. Note – if you love to cook or just love cookbooks, you must check out Now Serving at 727 N. Broadway #133 (at the back of a mall-like area with several businesses including the popular Howlin’ Ray’s Nashville hot chicken). Cookbooks of every persuasion and the owner knows every cookbook in the store, is very helpful regarding the cookbooks, and also helpful sharing information about the area and restaurants and fun things for tourists to do passing through.
Lastly was a trip to the Bunker Hill Station in six minutes with access to The Broad, Walt Disney Center, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Grand Park, and more. On this trip, I checked out the newest art gallery on Bunker Hill called The Grand LA at 100 S. Grand in the Frank Gehry designed complex which includes The Conrad Hotel. I went to see the exhibit “Jean-Michel Basquiat: King Pleasure” which also included works by Andy Warhol who painted Basquiat’s family. Basquiat died at age 27, and the exhibit is laid out as a biography of his life. More about the artist and exhibit from the LA Times - https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2023-03-29/basquiat-exhibition-grand-los-angeles. The exhibit has been extended through October 15.
But it does not stop there. Now you can take the train from Pico to Pasadena with no transfers. Now you can take a train to Mariachi Plaza. South Park has direct train travel to Santa Monica, Long Beach, Pasadena, Azusa, East LA. Oh, the places we can go quickly, easily, and with little expense! Take the train!
By Debra Shrout