Tag Archives: paintings

Autry Revisited

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Autry Museum of the American West
Griffith Park
April 30, 2016

We took Margaret to the Autry Museum in Griffith Park, one of our favorite museums. Its large collection explores the history and image of the American West from several perspectives. Downstairs, where we spent most of our time today, is devoted to the historical West. Several exhibits have been revamped since we last explored that section. We thought the Cowboy Gallery — a display about the cattle industry and cowboys — was particularly well done, and the full size chuck wagon displayed in that gallery was interesting to look at. Farther on in the historical section, Margaret enjoyed seeing both the well restored stagecoach and also the bison display.

We went on from the historical section to the movie section. This gallery has artifacts from Western movies and movie stars, all the way from the silent era to the present. We enjoyed seeing the short video with clips of singing cowboys, including Gene Autry of course. There is a larger video screen at one entrance to the gallery. Today it was showing a loop of clips from Autry movies, which Margaret very much enjoyed.

Autry_4302016

Upstairs there is a large gallery devoted to Western themed art. We did not spend a lot of time in it today, but we did make a point of seeing a special exhibition we had read about, California Impressionism: The Gardena High School Collection. From 1919 through 1956, the senior classes at Gardena High School each bought a work of art to donate to the school. The students made selecting the works a class project. In the process they acquired some very good works by artists who were young and upcoming at the time, many of whom are well-regarded now.

We ate lunch at the museum café, which serves excellent food. The menu is simple – burgers, sandwiches, salads, and several hot dishes. Margaret was in the mood for something Mexican, so she ordered the chicken street tacos, which Meredith had as well. Bob enjoyed the chili and half sandwich combo, and we all enjoyed the order of cornbread we shared. Prices are quite reasonable for a museum café.

The Autry is perhaps the most accessible museum for wheelchair patrons of all the places that we have visited. There are no interior doors separating galleries, which can be awkward at other museums, and it offers an impressive number of handicap parking spaces.

Adult admission is $10; there are discounts for seniors, students, and children. Active duty military get in free. The museum participates in the Bank of America Museums on Us program and also offers a discount to AAA members. Parking is free.

After the visit we took Margaret back to her board and care residence. Meredith’s sister Kathleen met us there, and the four of us sat outside in the garden for a while, visiting and catching up. It is increasingly difficult for Margaret to make the transfers from wheelchair to car and back, so we are trying to make just one stop when we go out, rather than multiple stops for lunch or coffee separate from the museum or other outing.

SD Museum of Art — Brueghel and Putnam

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San Diego Museum of Art
April 19, 2016
Balboa Park

SDMA_exterior

Meredith took advantage of Resident Free Tuesday in Balboa Park to see two special exhibitions at the Museum of Art: Brueghel to Canaletto, European Masterpieces from the Grasset Collection, featuring paintings from the Low Countries post 1600, and Ferocious Bronze, the Animal Sculptures of Arthur Putnam, featuring dramatic bronze sculptures done in the early 20th century.

There are about 40 paintings on display in the Brueghel to Canaletto exhibition, beautiful still lifes and landscape paintings from the 17th century. These are on loan from a private collection, and most have not been displayed publicly before. There are some really stunning pieces among them. It is hard to single out any one work, but Meredith enjoyed the humorous touches in Peter Binoit’s paintings, which include small mice unobtrusively eating some of the delicious looking food. This exhibition will run only through August 2, 2016 and is well worth a visit.

Sculptor Arthur Putnam lived from 1873 to 1930 and worked mainly on the West Coast. Publisher E. W. Scripps gave Putnam his first major commission, to sculpt five monumental bronze figures for his ranch near San Diego. Putnam won a gold medal at San Francisco’s 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition. Central to this current exhibition are 28 of Putnam’s animal bronzes, selected from over 100 that the Museum received in 1925 as a gift from the Spreckels family. The exhibition also includes sketches and other material.

The Putnam exhibition will run through October 11, 2016. The Museum of Art is running it as their contribution to Part of the Pride. In honor of the San Diego Zoo’s centennial, five prominent Balboa Park institutions are collaborating to offer animal-themed exhibitions in 2016.

Meredith went on the third Tuesday of the month and so enjoyed free admission; regular admission is $12 for adults, with discounted prices for seniors, military, students, and youths. (She bought a book in the gift shop, so we made a financial contribution to the museum that way.)

Skirball — Baseball

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Skirball Cultural Center
Sepulveda Pass
April 9, 2016

We took Margaret on her first museum outing for nearly three months, since our January visit to the Southwest Museum. All three of us love baseball, so we were pleased that the Skirball has just opened a pair of baseball themed exhibitions.

Skirball_Greenberg

Chasing Dreams: Baseball and Becoming American pays tribute to the American Jews and other immigrants and minorities who played baseball or contributed to it in other roles. Hank Greenberg and Sandy Koufax feature prominently, as do Jackie Robinson, Joe DiMaggio, Fernando Valenzuela, and many other ethnic minority players. The exhibit includes many pieces of historic memorabilia, such as jerseys, bats, mitts, baseball cards, among other things. We were impressed by the four baseballs autographed by Sandy Koufax to Walter O’Malley after each of his four no-hitters, including his perfect game. Meredith was puzzling over a large photograph of Hank Greenberg with a Yankee player, wondering who the Yankee was, and Margaret recognized immediately that he was Joe DiMaggio. This exhibition will run through October 30.

Skirball_sakoguchi

In a separate gallery we enjoyed seeing vibrantly colored paintings by artist Ben Sakoguchi, The Unauthorized History of Baseball in 100-Odd Paintings. Each painting is done in the style of the old orange crate labels popular from the 1920s through 1950s. Various different baseball players, personalities, and themes are illustrated, some humorous, others poignant. There is an excellent short video featuring the artist, discussing his work and describing his inspiration. A baker’s dozen of images can be seen on the museum’s website: here. This exhibition runs through October 2.

Both of the baseball exhibitions are included with the museum admission, as is the museum’s permanent collection, Visions and Values, Jewish Life from Antiquity to America. Prices are $12 for general admission; $9 for seniors, students, and children over 12; and $7 for children 2–12. Parking is free and generally ample.

We enjoyed our lunch at Zeidler’s Café, possibly our most favorite in-museum restaurant of all the museums we have visited. Margaret and Bob each had sandwiches; Meredith had the spinach and cheese empanada. Margaret was a little befuddled when presented with her options for side dishes, saying simply “too many choices.” We reminded her that she likes the fresh fruit Zeidler’s serves, so she ordered that, and she particularly enjoyed the pineapple. All the food was tasty, service excellent, and the portions were generous. The cost was reasonable considering the quality of the food and service.

San Diego Museum of Art

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San Diego Museum of Art
Balboa Park
February 27, 2016

We used our Macy’s Museum Month pass for a 50% discount at the Museum of Art, which we had not visited for several years.

Bob had spotted an article in the Union Tribune about a triptych of paintings on display, the Virgin of Sorrows, an altarpiece painted during or about 1564 by a Flemish artist, Pieter Claeissens the elder. We found the Madonna on display in the gallery devoted to religious art. That same gallery includes pieces by El Greco, Murillo, Sanchez Cotan, and Zurbaran, among others. Meredith lingered in that gallery while Bob moved on to other works.

SDMA

We then viewed the special exhibition of works of Harry Sternberg, a 20th century artist who first worked on the East Coast then moved to Escondido. His paintings are powerful, but the most moving pieces were the simple black and white works featuring the gritty reality of steel mills in Pennsylvania and the artist’s youth in New York City. The Sternberg exhibition closes May 8, 2016.

Margaret has struggled recently with several health problems. Last week we visited, planning to take her for a stroll around the Lake Balboa park. On the way to the park she felt ill, and we ended up taking her to the hospital instead. She spent a couple of nights there, being treated for atrial fibrillation and congestive heart failure. She is back home now, this time on oxygen. We visited on Sunday and brought sandwiches in. Meredith read her several Robert Service poems, and all three of us looked through recent letters and photos that Min, Bob’s aunt, had sent to Margaret.

MB_at_home_2-2016

We wonder whether and when Margaret will recover enough strength to resume our customary outings. Or have the many decades of heavy smoking left her heart and lungs too weak to be up to that level of activity? Too soon to tell; we will just have to take things as they come.

Assorted Updates

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Over the last month or two we have seen more than the usual number of items in the press that tie into places we have visited recently. Here is a sampling:

La Brea Tarpits History. The Los Angeles Times ran a retrospective article, A mammoth move to the tar pits, on November 1, 2015 (November 2 print edition), pulling from coverage they did in 1967 explaining the history of the outdoor mammoth sculptures in and around the large tar lake in Hancock Park. The article included several striking photos of the sculptures being transported and put in place. The famous fiberglass mammoths at the La Brea tar pits have kept watch over Wilshire Boulevard for five decades. But few who gaze at the tourist attraction know how the prehistoric “creatures” got there. It turns out the first one got a lift from a 1958 Volkswagen.

Urban Planners Give Olvera Street a Shout Out. Also in the Los Angeles Times, we saw an article reporting on Olvera Street’s grand honor, namely national recognition as a “great street,” based on architectural features, accessibility, functionality, and community involvement. Downtown’s historic Olvera Street, one of the oldest streets in Los Angeles, was named this week as one of the country’s top five “Great Streets” by the American Planning Assn. The brick pedestrian street “is a place where visitors can get a taste of Mexican culture and a sense of the history that still stands preserved in the buildings and plazas that surround the street,” the association said in its designation.

Everybody Loves Vermeer. The Vermeer painting we loved so much when we saw it at the Timken Museum in San Diego — Woman in Blue Reading a Letter — has moved on, this time to the National Gallery in Washington, DC, where it will be on display just until December 1. NPR ran this story about the exhibition.

Timken Acquires New Art. Not content to rest on its laurels after the Vermeer and Raphael special exhibitions, the Timken Museum has purchased a painting, Saint Francis in Meditation by Francisco Zurbaran. The San Diego Union Tribune reported on the acquisition in an article in its October 30, 2015 online edition (November 1 print): The Timken Museum of Art has purchased Zurbarán’s 1635 masterpiece “Saint Francis in Meditation,” the first acquisition in a decade for the 50-year-old Balboa Park institution and the second Zurbarán acquired by a San Diego museum this year.

Hammer Museum Acquires More Room to Spread Out. Just after we had been on our most recent visit to the Hammer Museum in Westwood, we saw an article in the Los Angeles Times, More space, more room for art, which appeared online October 26, 2015 (October 27 in the print edition). The Hammer Museum at UCLA is expanding its footprint in Westwood, taking over five floors of the Occidental Petroleum office tower that will give the contemporary art institution more than 30% additional exhibition and administrative space. Until recently, the Hammer had leased its space from Occidental. Officials at the Hammer and UCLA said Monday that the expansion is part of a recent real estate deal in which the university has become the Hammer’s new landlord. UCLA said it has acquired a full city block of property from Occidental that includes the office tower and the museum building, both of which had belonged to the oil company. The acquisition also includes the 634-space underground parking garage.

Hammer Museum — Landscape Painting

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Hammer Museum
Westwood
October 24, 2015

We did not expect to go back to the Hammer Museum so soon; we had last been here in August. But we were intrigued by Mike Boehm’s article which we saw in the Los Angeles Times on October 10, Brush with Conflict or Stroke of Genius?, about the Canadian landscape artist Lawren Harris. A follow up article appeared in the Times the day we went to the exhibit.

Hammer_Harris

The Harris paintings were quite striking. Although they are landscapes, they are somewhat abstract. There are echoes of art deco in them. A great range of Canadian geography was represented, from Lake Superior to Baffin Island to the Rocky Mountains. It reminded us of our trip to Canada last year, although we had stayed in urban areas of Ontario, but the exhibit inspired us, and perhaps we will go back to see some wilder places in the future. The Harris exhibit at the Hammer runs through January 24, 2016.

We toured the other special exhibitions, including three that were in small galleries: Avery Singer; Njideka Akunyili Crosby; and Jessica Jackson Hutchins. We enjoyed the intricate details and shapes and perspective of the paintings in the Singer exhibit. We also liked the collages by Crosby and Hutchins’ use of ceramics. We then went on to a larger exhibition of Frances Starks’ works. She uses quite a variety of different media, and there were several pieces we liked. We were most entertained by a three-dimensional piece: a black dress on which an old-fashioned rotary dial telephone face had been affixed. Margaret and Bob posed in front of it, with Margaret holding out a hand to make it appear she was dialing the phone, although of course she was not actually touching the art.

Hammer_phone

We ate lunch in the museum café and were all pleased with our food. Margaret had a good appetite, which was nice to see.

Museum admission is free. Parking on Saturday costs a flat $3 charge. Wheelchair accessibility is generally good, except that the doors into galleries are heavy and do not have automatic opening mechanisms. With two of us assisting Margaret, that is not an issue, but a wheelchair patron visiting alone would have to rely on staff and other patrons to open doors.

We did have a few odd moments in the museum parking garage when leaving. Margaret at first thought we were at the wrong car and did not want to get in it. We did finally convince her it was our car.

We then met up with Meredith’s sister Kathleen for coffee, and we gave Margaret a book of cartoons from the 1940’s that she had remembered recently, Barnaby and Mr. O’Malley, by Crockett Johnson. She was very pleased with the book, and Meredith read through the first chapter with her.

Fowler Museum — Native American Art

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Fowler Museum
UCLA Westwood
October 10, 2015

Fowler_group

We took Margaret to the Fowler Museum to see two new Native American exhibitions. We first saw Zuni World, a series of paintings displayed around the atrium. They were created by contemporary Zuni artists and feature traditional places, symbols, and subjects. We enjoyed the balance and colors and the fine details. Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon were each depicted in several paintings, reminding Margaret of visits she had made to those sites. This exhibit will run through January 10, 2016.

We then went into a gallery featuring textile art of the Southwest, mostly made in the period 1860-1880. This exhibit, Treasured Textiles from the American Southwest: the Durango Collection, was written up by Jessica Galt in the Los Angeles Times the same day we went, although we did not see the article until after we had been there. The majority of those pieces were blankets woven by Hopis and Navajos. Different designs were represented, and the display showed the evolution of designs over time. We were impressed with how vibrant the red pieces still are. The final pieces in the gallery were woven by Hispanic artists. Interspersed with the textile pieces were some historic photographs providing context, and there were good explanatory notes with each piece. This exhibit likewise runs through January 10, 2016.

Our final stop at the Fowler was a room displaying ancient Colombian pieces from the Magdalena Valley, both ceramic and metal, from about 900 to 1600 A.D. These pieces will be on exhibit through January 3, 2016. We did not spend much time in the permanent collection on this visit. It contains some excellent anthropological pieces from around the world, and also the splendid Francis E. Fowler, Jr. silver collection.

We had lunch before the museum visit, at an Italian café in the Anderson business school, Il Tramezzino, just a few buildings over from the museum. We each had a panini and enjoyed our meal. There were very few people in the restaurant when we arrived at noon, but as we finished a number of students crowded in. The restaurant is up a level from the museum, so we had to go into a classroom building and take an elevator up. We blundered into what turned out to be a service elevator letting us out in a kitchen, but the staff were quite nice and showed us the way through the kitchen out onto the Anderson plaza. After we ate we found the passenger elevator for our return trip, and a fellow passenger made sure we were oriented in the right direction to head back toward the Fowler.

Admission to the Fowler is free. There is a donation box at the entrance for those who wish to contribute. We parked in a nearby underground garage and paid $5 to park. There was ample parking for our Saturday visit; we do not know what the weekday parking situation may be.

Fowler_Zuni_video

Margaret was fairly talkative and alert at the beginning of our outing, and chatted with us about family over lunch. We reminded her that her oldest grandchild had a birthday coming up the following week, and helped her pick out a card in the museum gift shop. Margaret grew tired as the afternoon went on and was struggling a bit for words at the museum, but she did enjoy the videos there. The Zuni exhibit included a video explaining the origin of the art project, and showing several of the artists at work. She also watched two short videos in the permanent collection, one about potlatch ceremonies in British Columbia and the other about Hopi culture in the Southwest. She perked up a bit and joined in the conversation when we met up with Meredith’s sister Kathleen for coffee at the end of the day. The transfers from wheelchair to car and back remain hard for her, and we are now planning our outings so we can eat at or near whatever museum we visit, and not have to make an additional transfer. For smaller places that do not have a café on site, we may bring a picnic or get sandwiches to go.

Getty Center — Bronzes

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Getty Center
Sepulveda Pass
September 13, 2015

We took Margaret to the Getty Center to see the special exhibition Power and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World. The exhibition runs through November 1, 2015. The Getty has gathered many bronze sculptures of the Hellenistic period, from 323 to 31 B.C., some on loan from museums in the Mediterranean world. The exhibition presents a wonderful sampling of Hellenistic art of portraiture and the human form. Each piece was accompanied with a good write up explaining where it was found, when and how it was made, and what the salient details are to look for in it. The museum’s website offers an excellent gallery of images of the pieces in the exhibition. We were both very impressed with the seated bronze statue of the tired boxer in the center of the second area of the exhibition space. Margaret liked the two very similar statues of athletes in the middle room. Their large size and fine detail make each statue an outstanding piece in its own right, but they are also interesting because they are clearly made from the same master model.

Getty_bronzes_plaza

After the bronzes we took a short walk through the exhibit about Renaissance artist Andrea Del Sarto and his workshop. We caught that exhibit on its final day. It was interesting because it included both drawings and paintings, giving an idea how the masterworks were put together.

At the end of our stay we took a stroll through the 19th century European painting area of the permanent collection, including the Impressionist paintings. Bob likes the Sisley landscape depicting the road from Versailles to St. Germain; Meredith never tires of Monet’s painting of snow dusted wheat stacks in the morning sun.

We ate in the museum café, a food court style cafeteria that is less expensive than the museum restaurant upstairs. Margaret had a salad, and we each had Mexican dishes. The food was good. There was not much of a crowd. Perhaps the Sunday attendance is lighter than Saturday.

Admission to the Getty Center is free. The only cost to get in is $15 per car to park. If one arrives by public transport, then there is no cost.

Getty_hike

We had a bit of an adventure leaving. The trams between the parking garage and museum had broken down. We had the choice of taking a shuttle bus or walking down the hill. We chose to walk. That is not an option we have ever seen offered before so wanted to take advantage of the opportunity. It took us a little more than 15 minutes, and the walk gave us a chance to enjoy the views out over the pass.

Timken — Vermeer

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Timken Museum
Balboa Park
San Diego
September 5, 2015

We went back to one of our favorite museums, the Timken Museum in the heart of Balboa Park, near the arboretum and koi pond. We recommend this museum highly, and suggest anyone living in San Diego who has not been there should check it out. It is a totally FREE, small (right sized) art museum with an excellent collection of American and Western European paintings and a large collection of Russian icons. Although admission is free, we made sure to drop some cash in the donation box at the entrance, and we encourage others to do likewise.

Timken_Vermeer

Our most recent visit, back in May, had been to see a special exhibition of a Raphael painting that was on loan at the time. We went this time to catch a visiting Vermeer painting, Woman in Blue Reading a Letter, on its final week here in San Diego. We arrived a little before the museum opened at 10:00 a.m. and joined a group of patrons waiting for the doors to open. Among that group was a man who had come all the way from Washington State to see the painting. He told us the painting is the 15th Vermeer he has seen; an impressive life list! We were enthralled by the painting, particularly by the use of light and color, and also the subtle details. It is a momentary glimpse into the life of its subject. She is caught in the drama of the moment, reading the letter, perhaps sent by her husband traveling far away. Other pieces of Dutch art from that era, including some outstanding watercolor paintings of tulips, were displayed in the same room, giving a context to the central piece.

The museum website had this information about the painting, which was on display through September 11, 2015:
The “Woman in Blue Reading a Letter” one of about 36 known paintings by world-class master artist Johannes Vermeer….Luminous and exquisitely rendered, “Woman in Blue Reading a Letter” (about 1663-1664) is one of Vermeer’s most captivating portrayals of a young woman’s private world. This generous loan from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam marks the first appearance of this remarkable painting in San Diego. Praised as one of Vermeer’s most beautiful paintings, “Woman in Blue Reading a Letter” demonstrates the artist’s exceptional command of color, light and perspective.

Meredith put a heads up email out to her rowing team, to let them know that week was the last chance to see the painting. Several of them made a point of going to see it that final week, one for the second time. A teammate commented: “Vermeer is one of my favorites. His use of optics, exaggerated perspective and special pigments are fascinating.” Another was pleased that the exhibit tied into a lecture series she had attended recently, about Dutch art.

While it is no longer possible to see the Vermeer, the Timken’s Rembrandt, St. Bartholomew, is back in its place of honor and well worth a visit.

El Pueblo de Los Angeles

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Olvera Street and Los Angeles Pueblo
Downtown Los Angeles
September 3, 2015

Meredith took the day off work and traveled by the earliest Amtrak train north to Union Station in Los Angeles, to meet up with her niece from Seattle and our youngest daughter. They spent the day in downtown Los Angeles. The group walked around Olvera Street and the historic Pueblo area, then went on to the Fashion District. This post gives an overview of the day; separate posts will follow for the Chinese American Museum and the Avila Adobe.

The Pueblo area, including Olvera Street, is the original area of European settlement in Los Angeles. There are several small museums located in it, all of which offer free admission. There are several other historic buildings as well. Olvera Street is now a pedestrian zone with vendor stalls and small shops, offering souvenirs and Mexican themed merchandise. We have considered visiting the Pueblo area museums before but were intimidated by the fact that they are in downtown Los Angeles. That location is a fairly far drive from where Margaret lives, and we were also afraid that parking would be problematic. Recently we learned that Union Station is right across the street from the Pueblo, and we resolved that when one of us next had the opportunity to travel by train to LA, we would try to include a visit to those historic sites.

Niece and daughter met Meredith at Union Station, and the three of them took a brief walk around it. The station is a wonderful building dating from the 1930’s, worthy of study in itself.

Union_station

We then crossed Alameda Street, and walked around the central plaza in the Pueblo park, which has a very large bandstand and some impressively large ficus trees. We had arrived a little too early for the museums which open at 10 a.m., so we went northwest across Main Street to the oldest church in Los Angeles, Nuestra Señora la Reina de Los Angeles, dedicated in 1822 and rebuilt in 1861. The church was open, and a number of parishioners were in there praying, so we stopped in for a moment of quiet reflection. We walked back to the plaza and then started walking on Olvera Street, looking at the merchant displays.

Olvera

Halfway along Olvera Street, we stopped in at the America Tropical Interpretive Center. This two-room museum explains the historic, economic, and cultural background to the America Tropical mural painted by David Alfaro Siqueiros in 1932. Unfortunately the mural itself was closed to public view that day, due to some sort of problem with the protective shutters which cover it at night. The center gave us some very interesting information, however, about Los Angeles in the 1930’s and the painter’s life. Olvera Street was being revitalized at that time, and those who commissioned the mural were looking for an idealized tropical scene, to be painted on the second story exterior wall at the center of the street. Siqueiros, an ardent communist and labor organizer, instead painted a crucified Indian peasant surmounted by an American eagle, with revolutionaries on the right aiming rifles at the eagle. The mural was very controversial at the time, and within a few years had been covered with whitewash. In recent years, through the work of the Getty Conservation Institute, the whitewash has been carefully removed, and the mural can now be seen again. (Well, when the protective shutters can be reopened!)

We next saw the Sepulveda House. It is billed as the “only Eastlake Victorian building” in the Pueblo area. There had earlier been an adobe building on the location, which was demolished to widen North Main Street. In 1887, Señora Sepulveda used the condemnation funds to build a two-story Victorian business and residential block. The new house consisted of 22 rooms, with two commercial stores on the Main Street side and three private rooms on Olvera Street. We looked at the kitchen exhibit on the lower level, which re-creates the 1890’s kitchen for the boardinghouse portion of the building, and we then looked in the bedroom exhibit, with decor from the same era.

We then toured the Avila Adobe, which will be the subject of a separate blog post. We finished our walking tour of the merchant area on Olvera Street and went back to the plaza area. The girls decided to see the two small museums off the plaza before lunch, so we proceeded on to the Plaza Firehouse Museum.

Plaza_fire

The Plaza Firehouse is a red brick building which dates from 1884. It is the first building constructed by the City of Los Angeles for housing firefighting equipment and personnel. It was originally occupied by volunteer firefighters, and then by the new professional fire department starting in 1886. Horses were stabled on the ground floor, and the firemen slept on the second level. The horse stalls can still be seen, and a horse drawn hose wagon with harness is on display. There are numerous historic photos on the walls. Admission is free. This museum is one of three sites within the Pueblo which are part of the Passport 2 History program, which is one of our main go-to resources.

We then visited the Chinese American Museum, which will also be the subject of a separate blog post.

We went on to lunch from there, eating at the La Luz del Dia restaurant on the plaza. The prices were very reasonable, and the food was excellent. We ordered at the counter, and then food was carried to our table. Meredith particularly enjoyed the tamales. The girls enjoyed their food also and drank Mexican soft drinks.

There are several lots parking lots right around the Pueblo. Our daughter had driven her car, and she parked in the lot on the south west edge of the Pueblo for a flat five dollar price.

Some of the areas of Olvera Street are on multi levels without wheelchair ramps, but there are several wheelchair lifts. We did not have Margaret with us, so did not have to deal with accessibility challenges hands-on, but it appears that a wheelchair visitor could enjoy all or most of the Pueblo and Olvera Street attractions.

After lunch we drove down to the Fashion District and walked Santee Alley, a high energy marketplace with many small shops. Most were clothing or shoe stores, but there was a variety of other merchandise. Our niece bought a skirt she spotted, and Meredith and the girls enjoyed 10 minute mini-massages.

Santee_alley