In the huge Fashion family, you must have a comics expert as Jen Hitchcock
around your entourage. Miss Hitchcock broke you at, right away, with her
laughter and her welcome to her Book Show!!!
Is she human? or a curious subliminal character out of all these books?
For sure she’s real, an electric flesh and bones person and true experts in
Comics magazine. She will focus your search by passing an unforgettable
moment in her company, especially when the notion of the time doesn’t
count in imagination.
Jen’s first venue she explored in DTLA was Al’s Bar. It was this cool, gritty
punk rock club. It always felt electric to go there. I saw so many sweaty,
packed and incredible shows at Al’s. It is long gone sadly. She said.
She likes DTLA because she grew up on the East Coast, so when she thinks
“city,” she thinks of a landscape more like New York or Boston.
Downtown LA has this landscape and feels like a “city” to her. She likes the
pace of downtown too. It seems faster paced, exciting and there are a lot
of bustles. Also attributes I grew up connecting to “city.”
I am also very much into history and love the all the architecture. You can
feel and see the bones of the past when you are walking through DTLA. I
have to say one of my favorite evenings in DTLA was when I went to see PJ
Harvey at the Mayan Theater. What a beautiful, magical theater.
Her favorite street of DTLA is Broadway! Talk about feeling the history. I
love the theaters. I did a walking tour along Broadway with the Los Angeles
Conservancy, and they took us to many of them.
My favorite part of the tour, which might also speak to #5 of this questionnaire (a hidden pleasure of DTLA), was when they walked us through the
space of an existing business (I believe it was an electronics store) and into
the businesses back room.
We were all blown away to see that it opened up into a huge old theater.
Even though it was full of boxes and junk, and incredibly dirty and dusty,
you could see through all of that to the former beauty of theater. So much
hidden history in DTLA.
Aside from making discoveries like the forgotten theater, she loves Union
Station. It is far from being hidden, but I’m not sure a lot of people know
the enjoyment of just going there to hang out.
It is fun people watching, and again, you just soak up the history of our city
there. So many people arrived and started new lives through this gateway!
If DTLA was a book, she said it would be something published by Writ
Press Large (an incredible small press based in DTLA!!!!). If it was a perfume, she mentioned Eau d’Exhaust and Bacon-wrapped Hot Dog.
Downtown is grungy, beer-soaked and rocking like L7, with a little bit of hot
jazz here and there.