Tag Archives: downtown

Downtown Walking Can Lead to Major Fines

By Shelly Hacco

This happened early on a Monday morning, around 7am. While most people at this hour are happily dreaming in their warm beds, I was crossing the street in LA’s downtown financial district, at 7th and Flower to be exact. See, I live in North Hollywood and I work at USC, a major distance for someone who does not drive and has to be on campus at 7:30 in the morning.  However, as horrible as this situation sounds, this daily commute is actually thoroughly enjoyable. I take a 25 minute train ride down to the 7th St. Center Metro stop, usually wait about 5-10 minutes for the bus, and then ride the bus to campus for another 15 minutes (and then vice versa back home). With the bustle of a busy work day, this daily journey is usually the most relaxing part of my day. Instead of impatiently trudging through traffic, cursing the overpopulated freeways and lack of free parking around campus, I get to sit back and enjoy my favorite pastimes, reading novels or listening to music/intriguing podcasts, while scoping out my fellow commuters. Let me also note that I am an LA native who remembers a time when Los Angeles did not have a subway and when downtown was a dead zone infiltrated by the homeless. These days, when I ride the metro, I think about what a privilege it is to zoom to my destination, to bear witness to the growth of businesses in the downtown area, and to see more and more office workers, students, artists (and yes, even residents) reclaim the city.

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In Our Backyard – The Space Shuttle Endeavour

By Zsuzsa Londe, Ph.D.

Walk by Tommy Trojan, pass Mudd Hall, cross Exposition Boulevard and in front of you is the California Science Center, where the Space Shuttle Endeavour is on exhibit. This giant bird of a machine, the first to carry humans in a re-usable spacecraft, completed 25 successful space missions and was brought to Los Angeles from Florida, piggy-backed on top of a modified Boeing 747. From LAX, it was another mission to safely get the Endeavour to the Science Center: 265 trees had to be cut down (they will be replaced), 67 traffic lights were removed to accommodate the shuttle, more than a 1000 police officers and 200 fire-fighters had to assist the 12 miles route on surface-streets from the airport, and at times it could only move inch by inch making sure no structures were damaged. After two days, on October 14, 2013, it reached its retirement home here, in our backyard.

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