It's me and LA BR locations

I had during New Year and january 2007 a fine opportunity to travel into Los Angeles as mr George Lucas had invited me there. So, I found myself so close to real BR locations that I never though to be happen.

First took taxi from front of my hotel, we speeded into 101 rush and head to Ennis House. Driver had no idea what was BR or even where is Ennis House. Luckily my printed maps from googlemaps had it.
After driving long narrow roads near Mulholland Dr we finally got into place. Oh, it was in bad shape! Heavy renovating was in progress. I was really impressed by size of that building. Took loads of pics about different shapes of tiles it had on walls. Touching that fragile looking stone gave strong emotional feelings.

2nd location was to find famous Bradbury Building and Million Dollar Theatre on downtown LA. No taxi this time, just metro and half hour journey with it. That very day was bloody hot. I got myself quite exhausted as walked on LA streets. The map I had was not that good. Many cityblocks were demolished on that area and it did feel I'm ever gonna find right buildings. A bit hurry as my plane did fly back to Finland on same day.
It was great to finally found right street corner. Million $ Theatre was closed but Bradbury very alive. I even had lunch on Subway-restaurant on street level of Bradbury. Yeah, I have eaten on same location where about 25 years ago BR was filmed.
Bradbury had tight security and I asked from officers could I take some pics inside the corridors. Yeah, I got limited access to certain areas. Then the bad luck started. I had only my cellphone camera on Bradbury Building. Real digital camera was left into hotel. Stupid me. And now cellphone batteries were completely drained... Managed to take only couple of pics, but I was happy man to walk on this very building!!

Enjoy some pics I have taken: (a = means reference shots from actual film)

Los Angeles 2007




Million Dollar Theatre



a



Nice movie information plate just front of Bradbury building



a


Bradbury building


a







and inside






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Ennis House first look:


looks bad


walls breaking


Deckard's appartment?


a



Second side of building


Details


a


Hobo and bricks


Ennis House from another side

GREAT pictures, sir! These comparisons are fascinating.

Thanks for sharing! Love to go check 'em out myself, someday...

[Kipple]

Mr. Lucas aye?

Great shots and presentation. Thanks for sharing.

Ms. Geek whistles and points here...

http://www.msgeek.com/brtour/

As soon as this hellish heat wave calms down, (Believe me, it wasn't as bad in January as it is now) I'm off to do a similar picture taking spree. I have already snapped some shots of the closed-off wing of Union Station where the LAPD HQs sequences of BR were shot. I think I'll add them to the page tomorrow. Not much else to do while cooped up waiting for the sun to go down.

I am going to add the Library Tower, aka the former First Interstate Bank building, aka the US Bank Tower building to the tour, as it really does look as if someone was thinking of BR when they designed it. As a student at Woodbury University I have access to a lot of material on local architecture, so I think I might do some digging into the history of the Caltrans Building and the Library Tower building and add that to the page. The Caltrans Building, which is across the street from City Hall, was designed by the Morphosis architecture group, and really, really must have been influenced by BR. It belongs in the LA 2019 skyline. Lots of chrome, neon and exposed duct work. Sweet. I gotta get some pix of me and the umbrella taken there at night.

Thank for your comments.

That MsGeek's tourpage is just wonderful! I wish had found it before my trip to LA. Please, continue to find new BR architectural similarities from LA. I been always passionated of design and architecture. For me, it was like opening treasure vault when seeing places like downtown LA and specially the Ennis House. Hopely one day I will travel to any of big japanese cities to feel more like being on BR-movie. On Hong Kong I found Norman Foster's HSBC HQ-building, which is just like ripped from BR. Anyway, HK is the city where during night time on streets you have strong feeling that only spinners are missing to complete scene.

So sad to see a FLLW architecture in such disarray.

Kiitti Finblade

So sad to see a FLLW architecture in such disarray.

Kiitti Finblade

It's currently being restored.

The Hollyhock House recently finished being restored, however, so it's a good place to visit as we wait on the Ennis House's restoration.

/me points to this URL for my Blade Runner tour:
http://www.msgeek.com/brtour/