Photo Essay: Plunging Into the Biltmore Hotel's Tiled Pool Palace

I haven't written about the Biltmore Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles yet—despite having taken a tour with the Los Angeles Conservancy—because I just didn't think I had anything to add to the existing reporting.

Tichnor Brothers, Publisher, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Located opposite of Pershing Square—once Downtown LA's "Central Park"—the Beaux Arts-style hotel by Schultze and Weaver gets a lot of press coverage, and for good reason. Today, this architectural masterpiece provides luxury accommodations much as it did back in 1923, when it was the largest hotel west of Chicago.

An After-Hours Sound Bath Among the Mattresses: Retail Therapy, LA Style

"I love LA," said the woman next to me, as she gathered up her crystals and folded up her sheet. We'd slept next to each other, on two neighboring mattresses, during a sound bath conducted inside the Mattress Central store in Atwater Village. And then we went our separate ways.

 

Griffith Park Ranger Horses Partake in the Sacred Rite of Ham and Eggs

In 1925, the Los Angeles Breakfast Club was founded (as simply The Breakfast Club) by a group of staunch horsemen who took their morning canters along the bridle trails of Griffith Park every Friday morning. 

When they'd had their fill of clip and clop, they'd park their horses at the Griffith Park Riding Academy and breakfast at a horseshoe-shaped table under the shade of eucalyptus trees across the street.

The Riding Academy is gone, but Griffith Park is still open for equestrian activity, for those who prefer to saddle up rather than strapping on their hiking shoes. And The Breakfast Club is still meeting weekly—now on Wednesdays—on that same parcel of land, along a stretch of the Los Angeles River now known as Riverside Drive. (Although they did move around a bit before they could return there in 1965.)

 

I've been a member of the Los Angeles Breakfast Club since 2017—and for over nine years, my only equine experience with the club has been sitting on a sawhorse named Ham for my initiation.

 

That changed last Wednesday, when horses returned to the Shrine of Friendship—and those who'd gathered for an indoor breakfast moved the festivities outside to honor two horses of the City of Los Angeles Park Rangers - Mounted Unit.

Photo Essay: Bob Baker Marionettes' Choo Choo Revue Pulls Into the Station

Bob Baker Marionette Theater has been around for over 60 years—but it's been more than 40 years since it debuted an entirely new production. The last new show was Hooray LA from 1981.

 

That all changed this past weekend with the premiere of Choo Choo Revue. 

Photo Essay: Riding the D (Or, Bringing the D to Beverly Hills)

When you move from New York City to Los Angeles, everybody outside of LA says, "Oh, but you have to drive." 

That's not a bad thing to me. I often wished I had a car when I lived in three of the five boroughs. And by the time I moved from Brooklyn to Manhattan in 2003, I'd been avoiding the subway ride home late at night for years already. At one point when I was making enough money, I took cabs to work every day. 

But living in Beverly Hills since 2011, I have felt the pinch of not even having the option to ride the subway. If I wanted to, say, ride the Expo line to an event at the Coliseum (so as to avoid traffic and high parking fees), I'd still have to drive five miles (or 20 minutes) and park my car in the Metro lot. 

Thank goodness for the bus lines, which have gotten me where I've needed to go many times when my car has been in the shop and I couldn't afford rideshare.

So even though public transit has not been part of my daily routine, I was still excited that the LA subway was finally coming to Beverly Hills, thanks to the Purple Line Extension—or what's now known as "the D." 

Photo Essay: Lloyd Wright's Legacy Lives On at the Henry O. Bollman House

The construction of the Henry O. Bollman house in Los Angeles' Sunset Square Historic District is very much a story of sons. 

Henry's father was a prominent Hollywood man, Otto Bollman, president of the Dial Film Company (perhaps best known for the 1920 film The Tiger's Coat). 

Henry forged his own path as a builder/developer—and when he was planning for his own home to be built on North Ogden Drive in the early 1920s, he commissioned it from the son of one of the most notorious architects of the time. 

Photo Essay: A Promise Kept—Woolworth's Is Serving Lunch Again (And More) in Bakersfield, California

Back in 2019, when I first dined at the Woolworth's lunch counter in Bakersfield...

 

...the adjacent Five & Dime Antique Mall was still open and chock full of vintage wares, from furniture to clothing. 

Photo Essay: A Red Car Cabin in the Woods

It didn't take much for me to throw all my Saturday plans out the window last weekend—just the discovery that a mountain cabin built out of a Red Car trolley is for sale, and I could see it for myself during a two-hour open house.

 

Photo Essay: Baseball Buzz Returns to Ontario, California With the Opening of ONT Field

Ontario Airport in California's Inland Empire has been staging a major comeback—and it may have launched its biggest flex yet.

I remember when the only way for me to fly JetBlue from New York City to the West Coast was from JFK to ONT or LGB (Long Beach)—and then JetBlue ceased operations out of ONT in 2008 and the mid-sized airport's business declined by nearly half. 

That was back when Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) controlled ONT and didn't prioritize regional air transport. But then ownership of the Ontario airport transferred to the locally-focused Ontario International Airport Authority in 2016—and when JetBlue returned in 2018, that seemed to be a major sign of an upswing. 

By the end of 2019, the number of passengers passing through the airport rebounded to its 2008 numbers. And in the following years, ONT continued to break its own records, celebrate more milestones, and welcome more airlines to its runways and gates. 

 

Now, ONT holds the naming rights for the new baseball stadium in Ontario, called ONT Field. 

Photo Essay: The Troll Takeover of South Coast Botanic Garden

I missed out on a lot going on around town when I was writing the centennial history book for The Los Angeles Breakfast Club (which is coming out later this year). I was too busy, too overwhelmed to maintain my baseline level of vigilance and diligence when it comes to avoiding regret. 

So when the six wooden sculptures of Thomas Dambo’s TROLLS: Save the Humans arrived at South Coast Botanic Garden in Palos Verdes in late 2023—and only stuck around for just over three months—I didn't have the bandwidth to figure out what they were or why I should go until it was too late. 

Until my coauthor pointed out that Thomas Dambo is Danish and would be bringing a permanent troll installation to California's Danish town, Solvang. 

I still haven't made it up north to see that one—which debuted in early 2025—but I got a second chance at the South Coast Botanic Garden this spring, with the arrival of 12 brand new trolls as part of Thomas Dambo’s Trolls: A Field Study, which runs through October 4.

I wasn't going to miss it this time.