L.A. Transit and Route Geekery, Stairways
We meet at Union Station, downtown LA, at 10AM, for a ten mile walk that combines trail and street, with a few stairways (the Cornfields/Elysian Park/Frogtown route, for those who’ve been along before.) Bring sturdy shoes – there’s some trail that might be muddy – along with lunch, something to drink, and about five hours. Please RSVP at the Facebook page, or email an RSVP here.
We’ll gather at Angel’s Flight at 9:30 AM and walk over to Pershing Square (one block) for the 10AM start. Bus info: the Metro 20 bus runs the length of the GLAW route, with service every 20 minutes into the evening.
This is the walking event that inspired the Big Parade. Since 2006, the Great LA Walk has traversed a single east-west thoroughfare from somewhere near downtown to the Pacific. This year, it returns to Wilshire Blvd., departing at 10AM from Pershing Square. A Big Parade group will be assembling there, and walking the whole thing ensemble (Tish – you spoke French!) But whether you’ll join us, or simply latch on, this is the single-day walking event of the year.
More info at the GLAW Blog or Facebook page.
And when you’re done, and want more, check out our November/December walks, here.
Echo Park's Baxter Street Stairs/Image: Carel Struycken
Carel Strucyken’s panoramic images span Los Angeles and beyond; many are of stairways, including this one, shot at Echo Park’s Baxter Street stairs, whose 231 steps make it the city’s longest. Though there are tons of amazing images of stairways, Struycken’s technique captures the impressive breadth of the structures with an authenticity rarely seen. (Click on the image for an enlarged version that you can pan and zoom.)
For more stairways and landmarks, go here. Carel’s main site is here.
(The Baxter Street stairs are on all of my routes in Echo Park; see Routes and Maps page for details. Here’s the exact location of the stairway on Google Maps.)
P.S., Carel is awesome for an entirely non-stair related reason….
Thunder and lightning are very, very frightening.
The foxy grandpaw of ginormous L.A. walking events (and Big Parade inspiration) has been scheduled for 2010, and this time, the Great Los Angeles Walk returns to the root of its routes – the original Wilshire Boulevard ramble from downtown to the sea. Join the crowd on November 20, 2010. More info here.
Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman recommends it.
Listen to my interview on NPR's Fresh Air.
My own op-ed in the New York Times.
Other Books:
