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.
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. The oldest surviving Chinese building in Los Angeles is the Garnier Building (not to…
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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 particularly LA about Film Noir. In the same way that Charles Dickens novels recreate the mood of Victorian London, Film Noir captures the aesthetic of 1940’s Los Angeles. The city’s varied demeanor (from sunny, beautiful, beaches to downtown concrete jungle) is the perfect foil for these dark stories, as the paranoid protagonist falls into a hellish labyrinth of his own making, lured by a…
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Los Angeles’ Hispanic Heritage
People from the Spanish-speaking countries of Spain, 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. In fact Los Angeles County’s five million people of Hispanic descent works out…
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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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Musso & Frank Grill: Hollywood Institution
This week Musso & Frank Grill announced that they are reopening on May 10, for Mother’s Day celebrations and, having originally opened up just as the Spanish Flu pandemic was finally petering out in 1919, it seems hugely appropriate that this venerable and much loved institution should be one of the first to reopen as…
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Outbreak: Spanish Flu In Los Angeles, 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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The Night Stalker At The Cecil Hotel
The toughest part of developing our DTLA Murder Mystery Ghost tour was reading about all the horrible murders that have taken place in and around downtown Los Angeles while I was researching it. I couldn’t get the gory details out of my mind. Of all the serial killers that I researched arguably the worst was Richard Ramirez, aka…
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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 take the waters and frolic on the beach. Nowadays there are…
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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 superstars, so he’s had a huge impact on the Los Angeles of today. Not only do his pioneering silent…
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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 look like it’s in-between a lot of other, much more interesting, places such as Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Koreatown and even downtown. However, it…
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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…
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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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A Day In Hollywood: Myth & Reality
In 1923 when the Hollywood Sign was erected, the town below was home to what was by then already the fifth biggest industry in the US, moving pictures. The sign was a billboard, not for the film industry (which was at the time only just becoming known as “Hollywood”), but for the housing tract in the hills under the…
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How To Guarantee Seeing A Celebrity In LA
Some people have become obsessed by “celebrities”. It can get very unhealthy and the news is full of stories of celebrities who’ve found themselves being stalked by overly-fanatical fans, so the first thing to know about famous people is that they’re just people, exactly like you and me (well not exactly like me – I’m not rich…
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Sunset Strip Tour (June 25)
The Sunset Strip is one of the most famous thoroughfares 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, April 2022
Things are starting to gear up again after the last two years of Pandemic-related closures and cancelations. People are desperate to get out AND DO SOMETHING! But what? These are the 10 best things to do in LA in April 2022. From classic movies to circuses, via marionettes and Mozart, Los Angeles is back with…
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Best Things To Do In LA, March 2022
There are always a ton of things happening here – but what are the best things to do in LA in March 2022? From Infinity Rooms to St Patrick’s Day Parades at the beach, via marathons, secret gardens and Noah’s Ark, Los Angeles has it all this month – and we’ve got the lowdown for…
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10 Best Things To Do In LA, December 2021
There are usually a ton of things happening here – but what are the best things to do in LA in December 2021, as the city slowly comes back to life after Covid? Well, we don’t have as many to choose from as usual, but there are some really fun, interesting events over the Christmas…
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Special Halloween DTLA Murder Mystery Ghost Tour
Join our Special Halloween DTLA Murder Mystery Ghost tour and have sleepless nights for weeks! First we visit the Biltmore Hotel, the last place the tragic Black Dahlia, Elizabeth Short, was seen alive. Next we stop at Clifton’s and learn about the anti-corruption drive of its Christian founder (who had a few secrets of his…
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