Los Angeles & Southern California - Andrea Schulte-Peevers [89]
Basic admission includes the hokey ‘Ghosts & Legends’ special-effects tour which features strange apparitions in the 1st-class swimming pool and the boiler room. Various other tours and packages are also available and combination tickets with the aquarium cost $35/19 per adult/child. If you’d like to spend the night, Click here. On Saturdays, midnight screenings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show draw a rowdy party crowd. Parking costs $10, and opening hours can vary according to the season; check the website for times before you visit.
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LAND’S END
If you’ve ever rolled tape in your head about California sliding into the sea, San Pedro’s Sunken City is probably much like what you’ve imagined. In 1929 a tiny oceanfront neighborhood at the bottom of Pacific Ave began its spooky slide into the kelp beds offshore. What remains are weird up-thrusts of asphalt slathered with graffiti, dirt mounds punctuated with gopher holes and chasms preparing for their future as tide pools. It’s ‘land’s end’ à la Salvador Dali and a place that’s drawn generations of teens looking to get high or make out. It’s also a poignant reminder that nothing lasts forever, certainly not in California. It’s fenced off but someone has conveniently snipped a hole in the chain-link and no one seems to mind people clambering around this post-apocalyptic playground.
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The Cold War–era Soviet submarine Scorpion (adult/concession $11/10) is moored alongside the Queen. As you scramble around, imagine how 78 crew members shared 27 bunks and two bathrooms, often for months at a time. Definitely not for the claustrophobic.
MUSEUM OF LATIN AMERICAN ART
This recently expanded gem of a museum (Map; 562-437-1689; www.molaa.org; 628 Alamitos Ave; adult/student & senior/child under 12 $7.50/5/free, admission free on Fri; 11:30am-7pm Tue-Fri, 11am-7pm Sat, 11am-6pm Sun) presents a rare survey of Latin American art created since 1945. Cecilia Míguez’ whimsical bronze statuettes, Eduardo Kingman’s wrenching portraits of indigenous people and Arnaldo Roche Rabel’s intensely spiritual abstracts are among the many outstanding pieces in the permanent collection, selections of which rotate every six months. There are a few works by Botero, Tamayo and Cuevas, but the focus is really on artists who are megastars in their home countries but haven’t yet hit the big time internationally. Some of the best pieces are in the sculpture garden. Nice café, too.
LONG BEACH MUSEUM OF ART
The beachfront location is breathtaking, and the restaurant in a nicely detailed 1912 Craftsman mansion serves tasty lunches, but exhibits (Map; 562-439-2119; www.lbma.org; 2300 E Ocean Blvd; adult/student & senior/child under 12 $7/6/free; 11am-5pm Tue-Sun) in the adjacent two-room pavilion can be hit or miss. We’ve seen amazing enamelware sharing exhibit space with ghastly watercolors and sophomoric sculpture. Check the schedule before forking over the admission or come on free Fridays. Most of the art is by contemporary regional artists.
BELMONT SHORE & NAPLES
If downtown Long Beach feels urban and corporate, Belmont Shore exudes quintessential SoCal laidbackness. It has a fine beach with a pier for fishing and sunsets, and keeps it real along a buzzy four-block-long strip of mostly nonchain boutiques, cafés filled with surfers and students, and busy restaurants like Bono’s Click here.
Naples, just south of here, is Long Beach’s most exclusive neighborhood. It’s a canal-laced borough, not coincidentally created in 1903 by Arthur Parsons, a contemporary of Venice’s Abbot Kinney. It’s best explored on a gondola ride Click here.
Downtown Los Angeles
No matter what you’ve read or heard, Downtown is the most historical, multilayered and fascinating part