Inside LA
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The Los Angeles Lowdown
For locals who want to experience LA like a visitor and visitors who want to experience LA like a local.
The Los Angeles Lowdown is designed by us to take you inside LA, whether you’re visiting or you live here. From current-affairs inspired articles on Southern California’s history, to our suggestions on the best things to do in LA every month, via inside information on authentic experiences and events, we give you the essential lowdown on the city of Angels.
And if you’re a visitor looking for more specific information related to your trip here, such as where to stay, where to eat, a list of the best family activities in Los Angeles or how to navigate the city using public transport, don’t forget to check L.A. Info.
The Los Angeles Chinatown Massacre
Los Angeles has a lot of fascinating history – many great things have happened here – but, then again, a lot of VERY bad things have taken place here too and one of the things we strongly believe in at The Real Los Angeles Tours is talking about the good, the bad, and the ugly.…
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Legendary Los Angeles Latinos
People from the Spanish-speaking countries of Central and South America have had an enormous impact on Los Angeles. Which isn’t at all surprising when you consider nearly fifty per cent of the population of Los Angeles today has a Hispanic background and that, therefore Los Angeles Latinos form the largest ethnic share of the population.…
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Historic Preservation in Los Angeles
Historic Preservation in Los Angeles is a much more important thing here than many people realize. Is it important enough, though? That’s another question. It’s such a relevant concern here because so much of the city’s ethos is about reinvention. LA has often been a city that erases, or tries to erase, its past, as…
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Angels Flight
One of DTLA’s many gems is Angels Flight, a funicular railway that connects Grand Central Market and the Historic Core to the Bunker Hill Financial District. In 2013 it was closed due to safety issues and it felt disappointing explaining to guests on our tours that the neglected, graffiti-covered, trolleys were two of the most beautiful remaining artifacts of Victorian Los Angeles. Unused, rundown and at…
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The Hollywood Playhouse AKA The Avalon
The performing arts building at 1735 Vine Street, now known as the Avalon, has been singularly successful over the course of its nearly hundred-year-old life. When the Hollywood Playhouse opened in the 1920’s most theaters being erected in Los Angeles were being designed for moving pictures, meaning a smaller stage area was needed. The developers…
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Beverly Hills & The Stars Houses Tour
The name of Beverly Hills is synonymous with Los Angeles and the movie-star lifestyle. There probably isn’t a single visitor to Southern California who hasn’t heard of this small city, nestled on the slopes of the Santa Monica mountains, in the LA suburbs. It forms one of the four pillars of the city’s praetorian glamor…
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Crime Seen: The Barclay Hotel
The Barclay Hotel is, more or less, right in the navel area of the dark underbelly of downtown Los Angeles.The Hotel Cecil has become famous in the last few years, reaching a peak in 2021 with the Netflix mini-series The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel. However the Barclay has just as dark a history as the Cecil,…
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Crime Seen: The Hotel Cecil
Amongst Los Angeles hotels the Hotel Cecil holds a unique place. It’s a marquee name that not only a lot of Angelenos know, but also many visitors too. It’s been the subject of numerous documentaries, articles and, even, a TV horror series, yet you can’t actually rent a room there (at time of publication). In…
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The Los Angeles River: Past & Future
By the 2000′s the Los Angeles River had become little more than a joke in the city to which it gave its name. used only as a post-apocalyptic location for action movies and as a punchline for late-night chat show hosts. Despite the fact that many of Los Angeles’ inhabitants probably still don’t even know of…
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The Ambassador Hotel’s Date With Destiny
The Ambassador Hotel is one of Los Angeles’ most famous hotels, which is no mean feat in a city which boasts the Beverly Wilshire, the Biltmore, the Chateau Marmont and countless other famous, and infamous, establishments. The Ambassador’s fame principally comes from its reputation as a place of entertainment and glamor from it’s opening in 1921…
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Los Angeles Union Station
Los Angeles Union Station is to LA what Grand Central Station is to New York. It’s our major rail terminus, designed and built to reflect the history and feel of the city back at us as we pass through. It opened in May 1939 with much fanfare, ironically just as the US was falling out of…
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What Happened To Los Angeles Streetcars?
Did Los Angeles have streetcars guests often ask us on tours, whenever the subject comes up. Many visitors, and even a few Angelenos, don’t even know that we have a Metro rail system, they assume that “everyone drives in LA”, so it comes as a shock to them to learn that in the 1920’s we…
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Toypurina: LA Freedom Fighter
For Women’s History Month I want to look at someone from the earliest years of Los Angeles, Toypurina. In many cultures and countries around the world there are legendary historical women, leaders who rallied their people to fight foreign invaders. Examples include Joan of Arc in fifteenth century France, who emerged from a humble background…
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Gamblers & Rum-Runners: Prohibition in LA
America is almost unique among developed countries for its ban on alcohol during the 1920’s, known as ‘Prohibition’. Although it’s now synonymous with the corruption and organized crime that it spawned, at the time it was intended to address the harm inflicted on society by excessive consumption of alcohol. This is of particular interest at…
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The Commercial Exchange Building
The South Park neighborhood of downtown Los Angeles is undergoing enormous change at the moment, as new apartment and condominium blocks sprout upwards and older buildings (such as the beautiful Herald Examiner Building and the Commercial Exchange Building) are renovated and repurposed, often as lofts or ‘creative’ offices. The crypto.com Arena and the many restaurants,…
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The Old Los Angeles Chinatown
With this month marking the date of the Lunar New Year (as celebrated in China and much of Asia) we wanted to take a look at the birth of Chinese-American culture in Los Angeles and, specifically, the history of LA’s Chinatown. Although San Francisco’s Chinatown is more famous, Los Angeles has been home to a…
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Bridget ‘Biddy’ Mason: Los Angeles Pioneer
In honor of Black History Month we’re remembering an all time Los Angeles legend, Bridget ‘Biddy’ Mason. An African American woman who was born in the old South, Biddy was brought to Los Angeles in the 1850’s (much against her will), only to become a free woman, and then a property developer and much beloved…
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Film Noir: A Dark Side Of The City Of Angels
There is something very LA about Film Noir. In the same way that the novels of Charles Dickens recreate the feel of Victorian London, Film Noir perfectly captures the aesthetic and feel of 1940’s Los Angeles. The different aspects of the city, from beautiful sunny beaches to a downtown concrete jungle, made a perfect setting for these dark stories, as the paranoid protagonist falls into…
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Musso & Frank Grill: Hollywood Institution
In 2021, when Musso & Frank Grill announced that they were reopening in time for Mother’s Day celebrations, having originally opened up just as the Spanish Flu pandemic was finally petering out in 1919, it seemed hugely appropriate that this venerable and much loved institution should have been one of the first to reopen as…
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Outbreak: Spanish Flu In LA in 1918
It’s hard to think about anything other than Coronavirus or Covid-19 right now. It’s taken over the news cycle and our lives. Los Angeles is almost entirely shut down – schools, movie theaters, restaurants, bars and most businesses (including The Real Los Angeles Tours). Most of us have never experienced anything like it before. Life…
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Hollywood Sign: Hiking & History
The Hollywood Sign is such an iconic structure that it never needs an introduction or description to first-time visitors who are guests. They know it well, having seen it untold times in movies, TV shows and news pieces. They’ve almost certainly seen a picture of it many times too. Interestingly if you next ask them…
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Broadway Los Angeles: Historic Theater District
When we mention the Broadway Los Angeles Theater District on our tours, visitors from outside Southern California can get confused. Don’t we mean Broadway New York? Their confusion only increases when we tell them that the area in downtown actually has the largest number of historic theaters in the U.S. It does perhaps seem incredible…
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Bicycling In Los Angeles
A lot of people, both visitors AND locals don’t even think it’s possible to go bicycling in Los Angeles. Or even if it is, that it would be unsafe, not to mention downright dangerous. The car is king here – this ain’t Yurup (which is how we say Europe by the way). However, you probably…
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San Fernando Valley: A Fascinating Place
The San Fernando Valley is, in many ways, underrated. Sure, it has some big attractions, such as Universal Studios, but it’s often derided as a suburban sprawl that’s generally way hotter than the rest of Los Angeles and much less interesting. It’s not seen as having either the cultural might of Hollywood, nor the theme park riches…
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Sid Grauman & His Theatres
When the TCL Chinese Theatre opened in 1927 it was known as Sid Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, and some older Angelenos still call it such. Directly opposite, across the Walk of Fame, is the El Capitan Theatre, now owned by Disney, but when it opened in 1926 it was a Broadway style theatre that was part-owned…
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Venice LA: Westside Meets Seaside
Since its founding 117 years ago this month Venice Los Angeles has always attracted visitors, both from the region and, later, world. Conceived as a Disneyland – before Disneyland existed or had even been conceived – it was a crucial developmental stage between the early amusement parks, like Coney Island, and the huge adventure parks…
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The Sunset Strip: Los Angeles’ Playground
In 1890 Victor Ponet, a Belgian businessman and diplomat, bought 240 acres of the old Rancho La Brea. His new estate consisted mostly of poinsettia fields and was just west of a small village that was only just becoming known as Hollywood. Eventually Ponet had a six-hundred foot long dirt road cleared to connect the…
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A Day In Griffith Park: From Stars To The Stars
Visitors may not know Griffith Park by name, but you would struggle to find anyone in the world not familiar with its best-known landmark, the Hollywood Sign. Its 4,300-acres make it five times the size of Central Park in New York (it’s not a competition – but if it was, we’d win). On any given…
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A Day In Santa Monica: LA’s Beach Resort
Santa Monica has long been considered the beach resort for Los Angeles. Now the city is practically part of LA, but until the 1950’s it was separated from its much larger neighbor by open farmland. Angelenos, and visitors, would come to Santa Monica to swim in the cool Pacific waters and frolic on the beach.…
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Charles Chaplin’s Los Angeles Today
In the end, everything is a gag. Charles Chaplin Charles Spencer Chaplin, or ‘Charlie’ for short, is one of the most influential figures from the early days of Hollywood and one of the entertainment industry’s first, and greatest, superstars. Not only do his pioneering silent films endure the test of time, with six of his…
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A Day In Culver City: Movieland To Outlooks
Culver City isn’t by any means considered one of Los Angeles County’s best known cities. Sitting on the Westside, almost completely surrounded by the city of LA, at first it can seem like it’s in-between a lot of other, much more interesting, places such as Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Venice, Koreatown and even downtown. However,…
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Crime Seen: The Black Dahlia
The Black Dahlia is one of the most famous unsolved murder cases in criminal history and a subject for numerous documentaries, books, TV episodes and movies. Law enforcement agencies, criminal experts, on-camera presenters and amateur sleuths have all attempted to solve the case, all without success. Rather like the Jack the Ripper murders in London…
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Los Angeles On A Layover
If you’re booking a flight and the chance presents itself to visit Los Angeles on a layover, or stopover, you probably aren’t going to refuse the opportunity, especially if you’ve never been here before. LA is a place that most people would like to visit, at least once, in their lives. And why not? Forgetting…
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Close-Up On Hollywood & Dream Factory
So many visitors who come to Los Angeles – certainly the vast majority of first-time visitors – have a vision of Hollywood in their mind before they arrive. They may well have actually “seen” it in a video, news report, Television show or “Hollywood” movie (whatever that means). No matter what anyone else says, you…
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How To Guarantee Seeing A Celebrity In LA
Some people have become obsessed by “celebrities” and it can get very unhealthy. The news is full of stories of celebrities who’ve found themselves being stalked by overly-fanatical fans and I’m definitely not condoning that kind of behavior in How to Guarantee Seeing a Celebrity in LA! The first thing to know about famous people…
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10 Best Things To Do In LA In December
December is always a busy month, and there are always a ton of demands on our time. We’re rushing here, rushing there, as well as trying to do all the Christmas shopping, get all the food, do the social rounds etc. Maybe you’re looking for something different to do with friends or family, maybe you…
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Sunset Strip Tour
The Sunset Strip is one of the most famous streets in Los Angeles – and that’s saying something, bearing in mind that Hollywood Boulevard and the Walk of Fame are just a few miles to the east. First gaining prominence in the 1920’s, when speakeasies and gambling joints began to appear along its length, the…
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10 Best Things To Do In LA In November
Great things are happening in Los Angeles this month. From fairytale forests to hiking the highest peaks in the city, via red carpets and Academy Awards, we’ve got the lowdown for you, right here. Every month The Real Los Angeles Tours produces a list of ten of the top events or attractions in southern California,…
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10 Best Things To Do In LA In October
October, for most Angelenos, means two things – Halloween and Dia de Los Muertos. As you would expect there are a ton of those events happening this month in Los Angeles which are based around those themes. However, not everybody wants to do a Halloween themed event, so I’ve included a range of activities and…
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10 Best Things To Do In LA In September
There are some great things happening in Los Angeles this month – from al fresco cinema to concerts by the beach, via film festivals and Mexican Independence Day celebrations. Every month we produce a list of upcoming events and other activities that we think anyone here, Angeleno or visitor, might want to do. Many of…
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10 Best Things To Do In LA In August
August is a popular time to visit Los Angeles and, as always, there are a ton of things going on here this month. What we, at The Real Los Angeles Tours, try to do here is break it down and give you an easy to manage list, a selection of cool activities that we think…
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10 Best Things To Do In LA In July
As summer – more commonly known as pool party season in Los Angeles – gets into full gear we start the month off with THE most ‘merican of celebrations, Independence Day. It’s a special day here, probably partly because LA has a such a significant immigrant population (they’re often the ones who are most enthusiastic…
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10 Best Things To Do In LA In June
As the weather continues to heat up, there are more and more outdoor activities and events going on in Los Angeles this month. LA Pride (which features a bunch of separate events) definitely comes to mind here , but there are some great things happening indoors too! Every summer the LA Conservancy throw open the…
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10 Best Things To Do In LA In May
With the advent of May comes the official beginning of Summer. This is a great time to be in Los Angeles as the days get warmer and longer, but with a cool marine layer coming off the Pacific creating the famous ‘May Grey’, it’s almost the perfect temperature. This month we’ve got a beach festival,…
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10 Best Things To Do In LA In April
“Ah! Los Angeles in the Spring”: said absolutely no one. But they should – LA is a great time to be at this time of year. The rainy season is behind us, the nights are longer, it’s nice and warm, but it still hasn’t gotten hot yet. Things are starting to gear up for summer…
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10 Best Things To Do In LA In March
There are always a ton of things happening in Southern California, but what are the best things to do in LA in March? As Winter turns to Spring events and opportunities are popping up like flowers pushing their heads up! From Infinity Rooms to Saint Patrick’s Day parades at the beach, via marathons, secret gardens…
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10 Best Things To Do In LA In February
February is a surprisingly good month in LA for events, there’s the Lunar New Year, Valentine’s Day, Bob Baker Day AND numerous other things going on. It may only be the second month of the year, but we’re not hanging around in Los Angeles, we aren’t wasting time – we’re creating amazing events. If you’re…
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10 Best Things To Do In LA In January
There are lots of great events in Los Angeles this month. Christmas and the New Year don’t slow us down at all! The month starts off with a bang, with one of the most famous festivals in the U.S. and it doesn’t let up. There are cultural celebrations, art exhibitions, comedy shows, interactive TV show…
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