some DTLA tips

if you ever happen to be walking in downtown los angeles, never walk under scaffolding. always walk around it. otherwise, you might end up having some very unpleasant encounters with human waste. the covered walkways with plastic sheeting seem to be a favorite spot for human defecation in the street.

second, and actually this is less of a tip and more of a request to the map gods: topography should be included in maps of downtown LA. actually, not topography, but an indication of levels. not that i had a map this morning when i took a new bus route to work and got lost, but maybe i would have if i knew it included elevations.

see, downtown LA is a maze -- seriously, a MAZE -- of levels of bridges and overpasses and streets at different heights. it is the opposite of human scale, something you feel strongly when you walk around here. you might think that manhattan, with its gargantuan skyscrapers, isn't human scale either, but on the ground, it's quite comfortable to walk around there and you don't really notice that the buildings are stretching up hundreds of feet above your head. by contrast, in downtown LA, that's all you notice (verticality), which amounts to a sensation that your little human body has no business walking around in a universe of towering concrete and cars.

today, i got lost for AN HOUR in the maze, walking from 6th and Hope to Figueroa and 3rd -- a walk that should take no more than fifteen minutes (true, a good half hour of my delay was due to going the wrong direction when i first got off the bus -- see route on map -- but still).

the most ridiculous moment occurred in that squiggly part, where i found myself walking down a slope towards the freeway (see picture at top of post). thank god though, i passed an attendant at the driveway to some huge building's parking structure, and she knew where figueroa was (the only person out of the 10 i asked on my journey who even knew it was in the area). these were her directions:

"wait for traffic to die down, then run across this street. then see that doorway over there? walk in it, and around the corner to the elevator. then take the elevator to the plaza level and walk towards the mural on your right. walk out the doors and down the sloping stairs about a block and a half. then you'll be at figueroa."

i had to ask directions a couple more times when i got out the doors, but if that woman hadn't been there, i probably would not have made it to work. and you probably would not be reading this wonderful blog post right now.