On the Road and In Your Backyard

Good Morning All,

This weekday feature is for Juicers who are are on the road, traveling, or just want to share a little bit of their world via stories and pictures. So many of us rise each morning, eager for something beautiful, inspiring, amazing, subtle, of note, and our community delivers – a view into their world, whether they’re far away or close to home – pictures with a story, with context, with meaning, sometimes just beauty. By concentrating travel updates and tips here, it’s easier for all of us to keep up or find them later.

So please, speak up and share some of your adventures and travel news here, and submit your pictures using our speedy, secure form. You can submit up to 7 pictures at a time, with an overall description and one for each picture.

You can, of course, send an email with pictures if the form gives you trouble, or if you are trying to submit something special, like a zipped archive or a movie. If your pictures are already hosted online, then please email the links with your descriptions.

For each picture, it’s best to provide your commenter screenname, description, where it was taken, and date. It’s tough to keep everyone’s email address and screenname straight, so don’t assume that I remember it “from last time”. More and more, the first photo before the fold will be from a commenter, so making it easy to locate the screenname when I’ve found a compelling photo is crucial.

Have a wonderful day, and enjoy the pictures!

 

Today, pictures from valued commenter ?BillinGlendaleCA.

Los Angeles City Hall
(aka, the pointy building)

LA City Hall is, next to the Hollywood Sign, the most iconic structure in Los Angeles. It’s appeared in numerous movies and TV productions and is featured on the LAPD badge. Prior the construction of the current City Hall, City Hall was in rented rooms in hotels and an adobe house, the Old Courthouse on Market Street(which is a portion of the location of the current City Hall), a building that is now the location of the LA Times and a red brick City Hall that is now a parking structure(though the bricks are now part of a building on Beverly Blvd near CBS Television City). Until the late 1950’s, City Hall was the tallest building in Los Angeles due to a restriction in the City Charter that forbid construction of any building taller than 150′(towers and spires where allowed to be taller, for example the old Richfield Building). While the building was quite large for the city when it was constructed, city government has branched out into several other buildings in the Civic Center(City Hall East, City Hall South and LAPD headquarters) as well as a number of other buildings in Downtown LA(including the Bradbury building). This will be changing in the next few years as the city has a rather ambitious building project to remake the “City Hall campus”. Most of the primary city offices are on the 3rd floor(Mayor’s Office, City Council Chambers, and Public Works Chambers) and there is an observation deck on the 27th floor.

LA City Hall from the south.

Taken on 2016-07-18

Los Angeles, California

This picture shows City Hall with the City Hall park in the foreground. City Hall South is just to the east(across Main Street). The fountain is a memorial to Frank Putnam Flint who helped, eh acquire(steal), the Owens River water for Los Angeles while he was a US Senator(the City of La Canada Flintridge is in part named for him).

Main Entrance to City Hall.

Taken on 2016-11-28

Los Angeles, California

This is the main entrance(western entrance) to City Hall on Spring Street(though visitors enter via the Main Street entrance). The City Council Chambers are on the right and the Board of Public Works chambers are on the left. The Mayor’s office is on the Main Street side of the building. This was taken with my fisheye lens.

City Hall Rotunda.

Taken on 2016-11-28

Los Angeles, California

The City Hall rotunda is just inside the Spring Street entrance under the tower.

Entrance to the Tom Bradley Room.

Taken on 2016-07-18

Los Angeles, California

At the top floor of City Hall is a large meeting room named after long time Mayor Tom Bradley. The observation deck is a walkway the is outside this room.

View from the observation deck, looking west(sort of).

Taken on 2016-11-28

Los Angeles, California

This is the view of the LA Civic Center from the observation deck of City Hall. It’s not looking due west because downtown LA is laid out on tradition Spanish coordinates(IIRC it’s 37 degrees off true north). The park area is called Grand Park and building that are surround it in clockwise order: the Law Library, the Stanley Mosk Courthouse, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the Department of Water and Power, the Ahmanson and the Mark Taper Forum, the County Administration Building, the Hall of Records, and the Criminal Courts Building.

Then/Now.

Taken on 2016-11-28

Los Angeles, California

The historical insert picture dates from the late 40’s and shows that there was a much more substantial hill(Bunker Hill) than there is now. You can see the roof of the old Hall of Records building at the bottom right, the bottom left is the Law Building and at the center bottom is a bare slope that was Court Flight(similar to Angels Flight).

They say to not take photos into the sun, do I listen, NO.

Taken on 2016-11-28

Los Angeles, California

I decided to try and take a picture with my fisheye lens into the sun and after a bit of work in post, I think it turned out pretty well. At the bottom center, we see City Hall park and going clockwise: City Hall South, CalTrans Building, LAPD headquarters, The Times, and the new US District Courthouse(the mirrored cube). The vacant land at the bottom right is the site of the old state building that was heavily damaged in the 1971 San Fernando earthquake and was demolished soon afterwards. However, because the City/County/State could agree on what to do with the land, the foundations sat there for 45 years. It will soon be a park.

 

Thank you so much ?BillinGlendaleCA, do send us more when you can.

 

Travel safely everybody, and do share some stories in the comments, even if you’re joining the conversation late. Many folks confide that they go back and read old threads, one reason these are available on the Quick Links menu.

 

One again, to submit pictures: Use the Form or Send an Email