L.A.'s bright lights: Los Angeles is on the world's cultural itinerary like never before

Sunset, Oct, 2004 by Matthew Jaffe

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Still, of all the places where Los Angeles past and present meet, no place blends the two quite so evocatively as the 1917 Grand Central Market, an ever-busy collection of food stands that draws hungry office workers and grocery shoppers alike. My grandparents used to shop here back in the 1950s, and I come to walk the same sawdust-covered floors and soak up an atmosphere that is about as close as you will find in the United States to the great markets of Mexico. There are stacks of mangoes and piles of nopales, baskets of dried chiles and vats of mole paste. Live blue crabs stumble around piles of ice, and fish heads bound for the evening's stew stare vacantly from glass cases. It's an amazing scene, real in a way that L.A. supposedly isn't, a reminder that this city is more than just vivid surfaces, and that in a place famous for caring only about the next new thing, some traditions run deep.

On a foggy morning, I head out from Hollywood with Laura Massino of Architecture Tours L.A. to sample the city's architectural diversity, from Hollywood-inspired period revivals to works by such modern masters as Frank Lloyd Wright and Rudolph Schindler. Massino, an East Coast native, has been in L.A. for 18 years, during which time she became intrigued by the city and eventually went on to get a master's in architectural history.

"You have to look at L.A. as this fragmented place," she says. "It's an enormous city that takes a long time to get to know. I get a lot of foreigners on my tours, and they tend to be fascinated by it. To them, L.A. is big and out there, with no constraints. Architects here have always been free to experiment."

She drives a black 1962 Series 62 Cadillac, a vehicle as horizontal as the city itself. We pass an assortment of buildings that reflect the ongoing revitalization of Hollywood: the restored 1930 Pantages Theatre, the 1922 Grauman's Egyptian Theatre (now a state-of-the-art film center owned and run by American Cinematheque), and, next to the Egyptian, the Pig'n Whistle, a 1927 restaurant that for decades functioned as a pizzeria and even a clothing store before being returned to its glory days.

Just south of Hollywood Boulevard, on Highland Avenue, the pink-and-white Max Factor Building now houses the new Hollywood Museum. It has a big collection of costumes and props, as well as an assortment of surprises that includes a reassembled bathroom from actor Roddy McDowall's house. He was notable for his parties, and the bathroom was a virtual museum, with signed photos from stars like Elizabeth Taylor and a Christmas card from Noel Coward.

On the museum's main floor, you can visit the technicolored rooms where Factor worked his makeup magic, one each for "brownettes," brunettes, blonds, and redheads. And via an elevator shaft topped by a chandelier from Tony Curtis's house, you descend past the Eiffel Tower model used in 2001's Moulin Rouge and into a basement where the original jail-cell set from The Silence of the Lambs has been reconstructed, proving that cannibalism and cosmetics are not mutually exclusive.