Saturday was one of those amazing days that you know you're just never going to forget. We drove up to the Long Beach area and jumped on the metro blue line to go into downtown Los Angeles. We had been wanting to take the LA Conservancy Art Deco walking tour for about a year and a half and we finally had a weekend free to go and do it.
Our tour started at 10 am and we got there with plenty of time. The metro was interesting. It was cheap, for $5 you can get an all day pass. However, we did go through Compton and Watts and so saw some rough areas along the way. There are some very poor neighborhoods but the trip was nice and easy and it was a straight ride into the city.
Los Angeles really boomed in the 20s and 30s and there are quite a few Art Deco buildings still around. A few, unfortunately, have been torn down but there were enough buildings to see to keep the tour going for over two hours. This picture is of the Eastern Columbia Building built in 1930. It is a beautiful turquoise color and has all the qualities of a classic Art Deco building.
Many of the buildings are still used as office space, a lot have been turned into apartments and lofts, and others are empty.
One of the highlights of the tour was the Oviatt Building. On the outside it is not an Art Deco building but on the inside it is all done out in the Art Deco style. The lower floor, which originally was a haberdashery is now a restaurant. The Cicada Restaurant and Club now occupy the lower floor. 
The interior of the restaurant still has all it's 1930's grandeur and the restaurant still puts on big band, jazz, and costumed themed parties of the 20s, 30s, and 40s. I'd love to spend an evening here!
The top floor of the Oviatt Building was built as the building owners penthouse. The security guard was kind enough to let us go up and have a look. You can still rent out the penthouse for $4,500 a night. The Cicada Club has some of their event after parties there. This is the view from one of the windows, 13 floors up.
The Los Angeles Public Library is another example of Art Deco architecture but a bit more simplistic and with more Egyptian influences.
Here is a close up of one of the sides of the library.
Unfortunately, one of Downtown's best examples of Art Deco architecture and one of it's most ornate was the Richfield Tower, also known as the Richfield Oil Company Building, torn down in 1968 to make way for more "Modern" buildings. It was black and gold, as seen in the picture above and was built in 1928. In it's place two sky scrapers were built, once known as Arco Towers. City National Bank now occupies one of the buildings and I went there a year and a half ago for training when I first started working there.
The only thing remaining of the building is to the back of the two towers. These are the elevator doors stacked on top of each other, hidden away as an art installment. Truly sad that this building didn't make it, but the elevator doors were amazing and at least they were still around to see.
After the tour, we continued to explore Downtown and had a great time seeing all the amazing buildings. We finished the day having tea at the Biltmore Hotel. The hotel was built in 1923 and is in the Beaux Arts style. It's beautiful and ornate and was the perfect finish to our day. I think we will be doing some more exploring of Los Angeles in the future.
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