Downtown L.A.'s revival continues with opening of new Ace Hotel on Broadway

Darkened marquees are flickering to life

Just in time for the Golden Globes, hip and history converged this week, the Los Angeles Times reports, with the opening of the Ace Hotel chain's newest property in downtown Los Angeles.

The Ace's opening in the 1927 United Artists Theatre building at 929 S. Broadway, is part of an ongoing revival of downtown that might surprise you if you haven't visited in a while.

The 87-year-old theater’s preserved condition in an area where long-darkened marquees are slowly flickering to life made it the exact kind of property, at the exact right time, for the Ace to purchase, Brad Wilson, president of the Portland, Ore.-based chain, told the Times. 

“Ace is about building neighborhoods,” Wilson said. (The chain opened its first hotel in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood).  “We go across the world and look for interesting neighborhoods with interesting buildings. I don’t know that you can do better than this one.”

I reported on the beginnings of downtown L.A.'s renaissance in 2011 in this story for The Seattle Times. Even then, I was surprised at what I found:

It's 5 p.m., and already there's a crowd gathered around the alley entrance to the Edison, a 1920s-styled speakeasy on the edge of what was once Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles.

An elegant, reservations-are-a-must lounge by night, the Edison nods to budget- conscious Angelenos on Thursday afternoons with a 35-cent happy-hour drink special in the refurbished, century-old power plant.

A hostess points the way to a flight of stairs leading to a basement boiler room furnished with sofas and antique tables scattered
among hulking generators.

Silent movies flicker on two large screens as waiters dart about taking orders in the dim light. Tonight's special (one per customer) is the "Diablo," a tequila, lime juice and ginger-beer concoction that pairs well with the $5 Kobe beef slider and sweet-potato fries.

A few blocks away, gourmet food trucks, selling mac-and-cheese sandwiches and miniature whoopie pies, fill parking lots along Main Street for the monthly Art Walk.
Inside the newly expanded Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, a Hollywood winery pours chardonnay as people gather around a pile of chocolate-chip cookies stacked in the corner, wondering whether they're art or edible.

Welcome to downtown L.A., a once-deserted city center that's coming to life again after years of neglect. Credit the revival to a boom in city living, lively new arts and entertainment venues and events such as the Art Walk for drawing locals and visitors back to what was an elegant residential quarter and premier shopping and theater district in the early 1900s.

Walt Disney Concert Hall

Grabbing attention are modern additions such as architect Frank Gehry's silvery Walt Disney Concert Hall, home to the L.A. Philharmonic and its popular young conductor, Gustavo Dudamel. But more awaits.

"Lofts for Lease" signs hang outside once-abandoned office buildings and hotels, beckoning to young urban dwellers more in tune to biking or walking to work than long freeway commutes from L.A.'s suburbs.

Their days are spent in the office towers on Bunker Hill, L.A.'s mansion district in the early 20th century, now a financial center and hub for the performing arts.

Open plazas, fountains and reflecting pools create a traffic-free pedestrian zone leading to the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Walt Disney Concert Hall, a landmark of swirling, stainless-steel opened in 2003. Benefactor Lillian Disney envisioned a "little brick church covered in vines." Visitors can judge Gehry's interpretation for themselves on a free, self-guided audio tour.
Weekends are for relaxing over breakfast at new coffee bars and diners in the historic center.

"It's the cutting edge of what's happening downtown right now," says Pam Taylor, a volunteer who leads downtown walking tours for the Los Angeles Conservancy.

"Lower downtown," as it's called, is reconnected once again to Bunker Hill by a one- minute, 25-cent ride on the orange and black Angels Flight, a funicular railway built in 1901 to carry residents to and from the shops and theaters, just two blocks away.

Angels Flight funicular railway

Angels Knoll, a park next door to Angels Flight, made famous in the 2009 film "(500) Days of Summer," is weeded by a flock of goats brought in by the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency. In various stages of restoration are Beaux Arts and Art Deco-style former bank buildings, theaters and hotels, abandoned when people left downtown for the suburbs after World War II.

Starting with the opening of Staples Center sports arena in 1999, now part of the L.A. LIVE mega-sports/entertainment complex, the changes haven't been without controversy.
L.A. has one of the country's largest homeless populations. Pawn shops and discount stores along the former Broadway Avenue theater district cater to a low-income population of Mexicans and Salvadorans. Elaborate 1920s and '30s movie palaces, many with marble staircases and ornate balconies, sit idle, or are used for church services or reality-show tryouts.

But wander the streets during Art Walk, or on a Saturday morning when the locals gather on the terrace of CoffeeBar, the newest addition to the Spring Street indie coffee scene, and downtown starts to feel like parts of Manhattan or Seattle's Belltown, gritty in places, but safe, and alive with new energy.

Downtown hotel choices range from the high-rise Ritz Carlton and Marriott near Staples Center to the restored Biltmore, adorned with painted ceilings, murals and classic photos from Academy Awards ceremonies in the 1930s and 1940s. Nearby, the Standard Hotel in the former Superior Oil headquarters building attracts a fashionable crowd to its rooftop bar carpeted with astro turf.

Working with a $100-a-night budget, I slept in style in the Grand Central Square apartments atop the Million Dollar Theatre, built for showman Sid Grauman (of Grauman's Chinese, the Hollywood Boulevard movie palace known for the concrete blocks bearing the footprints and handprints of stars).

While trolling through Airbnb.com, a global Internet network of accommodations offered by locals, I spotted a listing for "Urban Bed & Breakfast" and rented a sunny guest room with private bathroom. Across the street was the Bradbury office building, built in 1893, and a stop on the L.A. Conservancy's walking tour.

The facade is plain-looking, but the interior reflects mining and real-estate millionaire Lewis Bradbury's vision of what a building might look like in the year 2000. Visitors are free to roam the sky-lit lobby, and admire the open cage elevators, marble stairs and iron railings.

My Airbnb host recommended a restaurant inside the faded Alexandria Hotel on Spring Street. He remembered the Alexandria as a popular spot for quinceañera parties, the elaborate celebrations for Mexican girls turning 15. Today the hotel houses a mix of low-income tenants, loft-dwellers and the chic Gorbals restaurant. 

Meanwhile, work continues on the transformation of the former not-so-chic Clifton's Cafeteria on South Broadway, across from the State Theatre, where Judy Garland performed in the 1930s.

The former Clifton's Cafeteria on Broadway

Shortly after I visited in April, 2011, Clifton's closed, looking much the way it did when it opened in 1931 — a Disneyesque fantasy forest, decorated with fake trees, moose heads, waterfalls and a faux fireplace.  The fifth-generation family that owned the restaurant sold it to Andrew Meieran, owner of the Edison. As longtime fans of the cafeteria wait, the Los Angeles Times reports that Meieran is laboring on a $5-million makeover that he hopes will make Clifton's an elaborate dining and drinking establishment unlike any other in the city, and bring back crowds. 

Count on his new neighbor, the Ace, to get the party started. 

Snowga: Think Yoga and add snow

Yogachelan students warm up with the Sun Godess pose

Forget the yoga mats, bare feet and rooms heated to 95 degrees. 

Think snowshoes or skis, breathable layers and "studios'' covered in white powder. It's time for snowga - the practice of combining the breathing techniques and postures of yoga with winter sports.

Hand stands are not recommended, says Lynda Kennedy, owner of Yogachelan, a yoga studio in Eastern Washington State where winter temperatures often hover in the 20s.  But there are many other traditional poses that can be adapted to the movement, with the goal of calming the mind, preparing the body for a mountain experience or simply being present with nature.  Here's a link to my report posted on NBC News.com today.

Kennedy, who leads summer classes combining yoga with ziplining, river rafting and paddleboarding, take groups out on snowshoes for three-hour sessions that start with mild stretching, progress to standing poses and end with a half-hour practice at her snowga "studio,'' a flat piece of land overlooking a valley and a 50-mile-long mountain lake. 

Along the way they might try the "lotus'' pose, a posture that involves sitting cross legged in the snow, or experiment with  synchronized movements that call for everyone to lie on on their backs, alternating between drawing their legs together and opening them wide.
Kennedy packs along hot tea and extra scarves and mittens. Later in January, she plans an outing that will combine a yoga practice with a snowshoe walk and wine-tasting at a local vineyard. 

 "What I want to do is bring yoga to people who would not normally try yoga,'' she says.  "If combining yoga with snowshoeing might make them try it, then that's what I'm working towards.''

Down Dog in the snow with Yogachelan

Julie Jean, 65, was new to both when she first gave snowga a try.She describes the poses as "simple rather than power things.''

"The snow is very forgiving,'' says Jean.  "If you lose your balance on any of the moves, and topple over, nobody gets injured. It's like doing an unplanned snow angel."

 Meditation in motion is what Anne Anderson, a professional ski instructor and yoga teacher, said she had in mind when she developed the snowga concept a few years ago, set up a Facebook page and offered 90-minute classes at the Mohawk Mountain ski resort in Connecticut. 

 "The yogic breath and movement can be integrated into many sports and recreational activities to improve awareness, oneness and mindfulness,'' she says. 

 Anderson, who has since moved to Northern California where she is hoping to build interest in among West coast resorts, said she came up with the idea as a way of helping skiers and snowboarders overcome their fears.

At Mohawk, Anderson would gather students in a circle for "snowgic'' warm-ups before they stepped into their skis or snowboards. They'd practice spiral twists and postures such as the "warrior" pose, designed to increase confidence and the "triangle'' pose, aimed at opening the joints. 

On the slopes, she advises practicing "chair'' pose, a yoga posture similar to a racing tuck in skiing. Also, "mountain'' pose, a posture that calls for centering the body over the skis and raising the hands in a balanced stance. 

Emily Kane, the owner of Yogacara Studios at the Whistler ski resort in British Columbia, says she is considering offering workshops or private snowga sessions, depending on the interest she draws from a recent blog post outlining the benefits.

In the meantime, she encourages anyone who practices yoga and snow sports to experiment on their own in blending the two. 

"It's really all about getting interconnected with your surroundings,''  she says. "One of my big techniques is "serpent's breath'' good for oxyginating the blood and increasing internal body heat,'' a technique that comes in handy on chilly chair lifts.

Photo credits: Yogachelan

Self-service passport control comes to Sea-Tac Airport

A traveler scans a passport at Vancouver International Airport

Fourteen new self-service Automated Passport Control kiosks have been installed at Sea-Tac airport to speed up the customs entry process for U.S. and Canadian citizens returning from international destinations.

 Sea-Tac is the fifth U.S. airport to get the scanners (others are Chicago's O'Hare, New York's JFK, Miami Internatonal and Dallas/Fort Worth) which travelers can use at no charge to scan their passports and answer customs declarations questions. 

Click here to see a video on how the new system works

Instead of filling out a declaration card and taking their travel documents to a customs officer, passengers can proceed directly to a self-service kiosk to scan their passports and answer customs questions using a touch screen.

 "They receive a print out with a photo (the computer takes the photo) and take that to an officer,'' says Seattle Customs and  Boarder Protection spokesman Mike Milne.

Unlike members of Global Entry and Nexus, the U.S. and Canadian quick-pass boarder crossing programs that require fees ($100 for Global Entry, $50 for Nexus) and fingerprinting, those using the new kiosks will still have to have their paperwork checked by a customs officer, but wait times will be reduced, say officials, because travelers will spend 30-40 seconds electronically inputting info themselves that an officer now gathers in person.

The first kiosks were installed at Vancouver International Airport in May. They are also in place in Toronto and Montreal. 

The new system should ease back-ups caused by a recent increase in international flights (Airlines now serve 19 international cities). Sea-Tac is building a new international clearing facility to accommodate the growth.

Tips to jump-start a year of wise travel

Victoria, B.C.: A bargain destination in the off-season

The best way to find good value when it comes to travel is to become a smarter traveler. So-called "deals'' come and go, or never were really there in the first place. A little inside knowledge, on the other hand, can pay off no matter what the season or destination. 

I learn something new each time I book a trip. Here's a few tips to help jump-start your travel plans for 2014:

 *Reserve a rental car once you know your dates, but recheck prices closer to the time of travel. Prices can drop last- minute, depending on the actual availability of cars vs. what the companies anticipate.  

I booked an 11-day rental through Enterprise on the Big Island of Hawaii last fall for $356. Rechecking a few days before I was about to leave, I noticed the rate dropped to $219. I cancelled and rebooked, easy to do since I hadn't pre-paid, hardly ever a good idea given the chances of prices falling.

 *Watch for hidden fees.  We all expect fees. It's the hidden ones that annoy me.  I'm a fan of bidding on Priceline for great hotel rates in cities such as Vancouver, San Francisco and Portland, but I don't use it or any other third-party sites for buying airline tickets. 

Rarely will you find a better price than the airline offers on its own website, and if you have to make a change, you can get stuck with extra charges. Priceline tacks on a $30 "ticket service fee'' for changes on top of the airlines' change fees. Travelocity adds another $40. 

*Search more than one place to find the best air fares. Although I buy my tickets directly from the airlines, I shop around first on Kayak.com, a "meta-search'' site which doesn't sell tickets, but rather scans multiple airlines for the lowest fares, then links buyers to airline websites for purchases.

Kayak's searches are generally reliable, but there have been instances where I've found a better fare for the same flights and times on the airline's website without than I did using the link from Kayak. 

The most recent example was a complicated itinerary involving travel to Fort Lauderdale, Florida with a stopover, then an onward flight to  Bogota, Colombia and return to Seattle. 
Kayak linked me to a Delta itinerary priced at $838 vs. $736 when I went directly onto Delta's site for the same flights and times. 

The difference was the result of a slightly cheaper set of fare class codes - "buckets'' of different fares airlines offer on the same flights - that Kayak failed to capture.  

*Explore favorite destinations off-season. Late fall, winter and early spring are ideal times for visiting most of the European capitals as well as Portland, Vancouver, Victoria B.C. and the San Juan Islands. 

Plan your getaway as if it's the first time you've ever visited. My husband and I based ourselves at a B&B in Richmond instead of downtown on our last trip to Vancouver B.C., and felt as if we'd taken a side trip to Hong Hong. We biked along the dykes, and sampled Asian street snacks at the Richmond Night Market.  

*Use public transportation. Avoid driving and parking hassles by trying out Greyhound's BoltBus, a comfortable and efficient way to get between Seattle and Portland or Vancouver, B.C. Take advantage of special offers on Amtrak, and look into day passes for riding city buses. One of the best deals I've come across is a $5 all-day bus pass for traveling around Victoria, B.C., including a bus that goes to and from Butchart Gardens.

 * Try out alternative lodging sites such as  Airbnb.com, Couchsurfing.org or the Affordable Travel Club, a Gig Harbor-based hospitality exchange club for travelers over 40, and make your trip  about the people as well as the places.  

Happy travels!