I spent the day yesterday in Arts District and Toy District. That was overwhelming
Posted by
con_carne
Aug 24 '14, 08:29
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Arts District in a nutshell: people paying big bucks to live in repurposed brick and cinder block buildings located right next to noisy factories, noisy artist studios and the train tracks to Union Station. And a stone's throw from everybody's favorite collection of scum bags, the downtown LA Greyhound station. But mostly the area is still full of old factories. Very stimulating, but wouldn't want to live there.
I realized the restaurant Church and State is located in the National Biscuit Company Building (as in Nabisco), which was no doubt built in the twenties or something like that. Definitely an old part of town (here 1920's is considered old). Anyway, the area is full of old buildings and infrastructure like this, yet is extremely trendy. Lucky Brand Jeans headquarters is located in an old art deco power station or something like that. Stuff like this everywhere. Oh yeah, and every other building that's old has a banner with a number to call if you want to use it as a filming location (oh yeah, that's how you know you live in an entertainment town). Also very smelly and dirty. Evidence that LA actually tried to be a traditional city once. Very interesting part of town, I'm very pleased and will return.
Toy District, like Fashion District, clearly a local best kept secret that everyone knows about. A major shopping destination that you won't read about in the travel brochures. And I'm sure everyone who shops and works there is perfectly fine with with keeping it that way. These places have a reputation for being shady (e.g. knockoffs) and also largely non-English speaking. There's also a high amount of geographical overlap with a little place called Skid Row, a reason I've avoided it until this weekend. Wasn't there to look at toys, though, just a lot of neat architecture. People were looking at me like I was a weirdo. There's also a pretty neat wholesale area which I didn't know about.
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