Quote: (03-20-2010 12:34 PM)Lumiere Wrote:
I am going to LA on Monday or Tuesday.
1. Not a city built for people. You need a car to get ANYWHERE.
2. Everything is spread out and there is no real nightlife zone.
3. Because you have to drive to get anywhere you cannot even drink unless you have somebody giving you a lift or you take a really expensive taxi.
4. People seem artificial and fake and wont give you the time if day unless you can help them in their movie / music career.
Can anyone convince me otherwise? What is good about LA?
1. Yes, if you're a tourist and looking to go long distances here and there, you need a car. If you live here or are focusing on only one area, there are certainly walkable neighborhoods:
http://www.walkscore.com/rankings/Los_Angeles . The Green areas are pedestrian friendly.
2. Things are spread out, true but you can focus on one area and find plenty to do. And once you are there, you don't have to go to far. Like you can make Hollywood your focus, or Long Beach, or Santa Monica and once you're there, you have plenty of options since these are pretty much cities in their own right. People that wonder why everything in L.A. is spread out, well it's because all these areas are pretty much independent cities that eventually spread out until they overlapped. Pasadena, Long Beach and downtown L.A. used to be independent entities separated by orange fields a hundred years ago. Now it's just one big megalopolis. That's why it's so dispersed. As for night life zone, there are many night life ZONES. E. Hollywood near Hollywood blvd and Cahuenga, West Hollywood along the sunset strip. If you're gay, there's the whole damn Santa Monica blvd strip, there's Hermosa Beach, Los Feliz, Santa Monica main street, downtown L.A., downtown Long Beach, Westwood Village, Beverly Hills. Silverlake, Ecco Park, Koreatown. Pasadena, Glendale, Abbot Kinney area in Venice. All these places got their own nightlife going on. It's kind of ridiculous for people to say there's no nightlife zone here. There's a bunch of zones.
3) It's a problem, but there are ways around it. Pick a hotel in the green area on the map above to, and then stick to the nightlife of that zone. We do have a limited subway. The red line is most useful for those running between downtown L.A. and Hollywood. So if you are staying downtown, you can catch the train up there and party in HW. From downtown, you can also catch the purple line to party Koreatown/mid-Wilshire. There's another train that goes down to Long Beach but it's above ground, and ditto for Pasadena. Only thing that sucks is the train stops running kinda early. That really blows.
4) That's a stereotype and an exaggeration, and it depends on who you're rubbing elbows with. There are as many cool people here as anywhere. You might find more of that attitude in the posh clubs with velvet ropes out front. But that's not the majority of venues. You certainly won't find that Hollywood attitude in one of the hipster areas like Los Feliz, Silver Lake or Ecco Park. And certainly not in Venice which has a bohemian vibe.