LOS ANGELES is often derided as a city with little sense of history, when in fact history is everywhere you turn -- in the stately mansions of Hancock Park, the grand old facades of downtown office buildings, the Craftsman and Spanish-style bungalows sprinkled throughout the older suburbs.
When the sun sets each evening on the architecture, the history lesson does not end. Many of the neon signs atop the city's hotels, theaters and restaurants are decades old and offer a peek back at the city's diverse commercial heritage.
The Museum of Neon Art in downtown L.A. sponsors a weekly bus tour of these neon landmarks. On Saturday nights from June through October, passengers ride around town in a red double-decker bus to view neon signs old and new, artful and tacky, and to learn a few random facts about neighborhoods from downtown to Silver Lake to Mid-Wilshire.
Whether it's the cheerful baker at Canter's Deli carrying a plate piled high with bread or the famous blue-and-red beacon marking the Wiltern LG theater, Los Angeles has one of the best-preserved collections of vintage neon signs in the country.
"We look at cool signs and enlighten Angelenos about their neon heritage," Kim Koga, the museum's director, said of the bus tour.
As the neon cruise got underway one recent Saturday, the sky was still bright. Guide Max Pierce entertained the riders, who all sat on the upper deck of the bus, with factoids about the downtown business district they were passing through. At nearly every corner, Pierce pointed to an old commercial building that was being converted to residential lofts.
Cole's and Philippe, which both claim credit for inventing the French dip, have vintage neon signs, Pierce noted as the bus passed by the restaurants. To the south, on Spring Street, the red and blue neon strips on the Caltrans building are among the city's newest neon additions. Even the drabness of skid row is enlivened by pale blue neon on a single-room occupancy complex.
In Chinatown, the bus stopped briefly at Central Plaza, where the riders got off for a quick look at the art galleries and souvenir shops. Night was falling, and the green neon outlining the pagoda-style entrance to the plaza was beginning to stand out festively.
"Although people might say that L.A. isn't interested in its past, if you look beneath the surface, there's history there. It's not necessarily cared for, but it's there," said Pierce, a historian and freelance writer.
