Downtown Los Angeles

Just as you'd imagine, LA's downtown area is framed by freeways rather than any particular geographic boundary. The Hollywood Fwy lies to the north, the Harbor Fwy to the west, the Santa Monica Fwy to the south and a bird's nest of other freeways intertwine beyond the Los Angeles River to the east. In the thick of all this concrete and congestion, however, intrepid urbanites will find a number of pockets worth exploring.

Extending eight blocks east to west, the city's Civic Center is America's largest complex of government buildings after Washington, DC. It contains the most important of LA's city, county, state and federal office buildings, including the US Federal Courthouse, where the infamous OJ Simpson murder trial took place in 1995, and the 1928 City Hall, which served as the Daily Planet building in Superman and the police station in Dragnet. North across Temple St from City Hall is the excellent LA Children's Museum.

A few blocks east of the Civic Center, El Pueblo de Los Angeles is a 44 acre (18ha) state historic park commemorating the site where the city was founded in 1781 and preserving many of its earliest buildings. Its central attraction for most visitors is Olvera Street, a narrow, block-long passageway that was restored as an open-air Mexican marketplace in 1930. In addition to its restaurants, Olvera St teems with the shops and stalls of vendors selling all manner of Mexican crafts, from leather belts and bags to handmade candles and colorful piñatas.

Directly across from El Pueblo is Union Station, one of LA's oft-overlooked architectural treasures. Built in 1939 in Spanish Mission style with Moorish and Moderne details, it's worth a stop even if you aren't hopping a train. A few blocks north of the station, the 16 square blocks of Chinatown comprise the social and cultural nucleus of LA's 200,000 Chinese residents. Here, the businesses of traditional acupuncturists and herbalists mingle with scores of restaurants and shops whose inventories vary from cheap kitsch to exquisite silk clothing, inlaid furniture, antique porcelain and intricate religious art.

Immediately southeast of the Civic Center is Little Tokyo. First settled by early Japanese immigrants in the 1880s and thriving by the 1920s, the neighborhood was effectively decimated by the anti-Japanese hysteria of the WWII years. Thanks in part to an injection of investment from the 'old country,' Little Tokyo is again the locus for LA's Japanese population of nearly a quarter million. Among its streets and outdoor shopping centers, you'll find sushi bars, bento houses and traditional Japanese gardens. Housed in a historic Buddhist temple, the Japanese American National Museum, exhibits objects and art that relate the history of Japanese emigration to, and life in, the USA.

Just southwest of the Civic Center is the Museum of Contemporary Art, designed by Japanese architect Arata Isozaki. It houses what is considered one of the world's most important collection of paintings, sculptures and photographs from the 1940s to the present. Just west of MOCA is The Westin Bonaventure hotel, a quintet of cylindrical glass towers that are instantly recognizable to any regular moviegoer.

South of the Civic Center, LA's Hispanic shopping district is a deliciously cluttery mix of cheap restaurants, frilly wedding dress shops and blaring Latin pop. For a shocking contrast to the bustling street scene, step inside the 1893 Bradbury Building, where a skylit, five-story atrium is surrounded by Belgian marble, Mexican tiles, ornate French wrought-iron railings, glazed brick walls, oak paneling and a pair of open-cage elevators. You've seen it in detail if you've seen the movies Blade Runner or Wolf. Across the street from the Bradbury, between Broadway and Hill St, Grand Central Market is LA's oldest (1917) and largest open-air food market.

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