Forget It Jake, It’s Chinatown

Lantern Festival PerformerSusan and I headed down to Olvera Street this afternoon for lunch at El Paseo Inn and for the annual Lantern Festival taking place in the nearby El Pueblo de Los Angeles historical monument. We got there too early to enjoy the good stuff (the lion dance and the silver dragon parade) and split before the presentation of the lanterns at 4:30 p.m., but it was otherwise very colorful and well-attended and coolest of all we got a unique chance to extensively explore the historic Pico House. Finished in 1870, Pico House was the city’s first three-story building and was considered the finest hotel in the southwest in its day.

And it just so happened that for whatever reason it was wide open from top to bottom, which meant Susan and I couldn’t help but wander through it entirely unsupervised — and of course that meant shimmying up an access ladder onto the roof!

I’ll shut up and let the pix do the talking:

Pico House interior courtyard
Pico House interior courtyard.

Pico House Third Floor Wall Detail
Wall detail on the second floor.

Pico House Third Floor Bannister
Looking down through the bannister from the third floor landing

Pico House North Wall
Susan with the thrid floor north wall windows in the background.

Union Station From the roof of Pico House
The view of Union Station from the Pico House roof.

I’ve cross-posted this to Blogging.la with a link to more photos from inside and atop Pico House via this photoset on Flickr.com — and belated thanks to Kevin Roderick at L.A. Observed for the link love!

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Will

Will Campbell arrived in town via the maternity ward at Good Sam Hospital way back in OneNineSixFour and has never stopped calling Los Angeles home. Presently he lives in Silver Lake with his wife Susan, their cat Rocky, dogs Terra and Hazel, and a red-eared slider turtle named Mater. Blogging since 2001, Will's web endeavors extend back to 1995 with laonstage.com, a comprehensive theater site that was well received but ever-short on capital (or a business model). The pinnacle of his online success (which speaks volumes) arrived in 1997, when much to his surprise, a hobby site he'd built called VisuaL.A. was named "best website" in Los Angeles magazine's annual "Best of L.A." issue. He enjoys experiencing (and writing about) pretty much anything creative, explorational and/or adventurous, loves his ebike, is a better tennis player than he is horr golfer, and a lover of all creatures great and small -- emphasis on "all."