California dreaming
I miss my sister, L, and nephew and my brother-in-law who all live in California. I last visited them – my only chance to meet my bouncy and beautiful new nephew since he was born – in November 2019. Continuing with a thread I’ve posted elsewhere, revisiting some of my previous travels in that prehistoric BC (Before Corona) period, I’ve decided to share another piece of mine, reflecting on my time in Los Angeles last year.
Los Angeles – City of Surprises
In a city of freeways, theme parks and high-rises, our first morning we energetically ventured instead to Greystone Mansion, a sanctuary of calm above Beverly Hills. A Tudor revival mansion with landscaped English gardens, Greystone was a gift from the oil tycoon, Edward L. Doheny, to his son Ned. Doheny’s son was eventually found shot dead on the premises, alongside his Secretary: very Hollywood.
In fact, the fine grounds have featured in many a Hollywood film – you might recognise the mansion from films such as There Will Be Blood, which was loosely based on Doheny’s story. Greystone is an ideal vantage point to look far beyond the Hollywood hills and digest all that Los Angeles has to offer.
LA has its well worn tourist routes but the pleasure of our next stop was to amble around lesser-known Fairfax, a district that was once the very heart of the city’s Jewish community. After World War Two, it was said two thousand Jews a month moved west to settle in the city. There is a moving mural of pre- and postwar Jewish life here, paying tribute to the welfare funds that supported new migrants.
Today you can still sample lox or pastrami in famed Canter’s deli, running since 1931. You can even have Matzo Brei with a helping of apple sauce, but we only had time to have a nosy in and smell the freshly baked bagels.
Nearby, you can delight in the 1930s atmosphere of the Farmer’s Market, where you can gobble up a mouthwatering Reuben, filled to the brim with corned beef and swiss cheese. At Magee’s, a stall with unmissable sandwiches, I ordered a ‘Skipper’, stacked with an improbable amount of turkey breast filling.
Trying to forget my stomach (for at least one afternoon), we headed further east to genteel Pasadena, where the stunning Huntington Botanical Gardens are located. With the handsome peak of San Antonio rising high into the distance, we needed at least a couple of hours to explore the sixteen themed gardens – and to walk off the Reuben and Skipper sandwiches. The desert garden is a sight to behold with its acres planted with cacti and succulents. Some of the desert plants reach a height of sixty feet; others weigh twenty tons.
For the culture vultures there are art collections and a library to see, but the crowning glories are the Chinese and Japanese gardens with pagodas to position oneself for photo-worthy perspectives. My stomach stirring, I couldn’t help but sample a naughty bowlful of Hunan cumin-beef noodles in the freshwater pavilion.
While in Pasadena, a city in its own right, it is worth a couple of hours’ browsing around the superlative collection at the Norton Simon art museum. The gallery hangs Impressionists – there are 20th century modernist masters on display, too – but after a lazy afternoon, we continued lazing in the sculpture garden with iced tea. A metroline train can take you downtown from here in about three-quarters of an hour.
Downtown is a delight with the Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall and fashionable galleries for the fashionistas, The Broad, and just opposite, MOCA. The Museum of Contemporary Art had a fascinating exhbition on pattern and decoration in American Art in the 1970s and early 1980s – art often pioneered by Jewish artists such as Jane Kaufman and Miriam Schapiro. Upon their feminist awakening, they gave pride of place to domestic comforts, often sneered at by other artists of the day, but elevating fabrics and paper scraps all the same. To top off the evening, cocktails await at The Standard hotel, with peerless views of the downtown skyscape.
No trip to LA is left complete without time bathing at the beach, but to escape the hustle and bustle of Venice and Santa Monica, it is worth taking a taxi to South Bay. The gentler atmosphere of Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach has a big pay-off: the panorama of the Pacific-sunset.
Andrew’s travel tips:
The Standard hotel in downtown has double rooms which start from £200 a night https://www.standardhotels.com/la/properties/downtown-la. A Virgin Atlantic roundtrip can be booked for £350 at https://www.virginatlantic.com