Los Angeles

art crawl

SLUMMING IT
The Downtown Scene

Sherm Painting

(Photo: Courtesy of Crewest)

Program your GPS, and drive deep into downtown, where the Art Deco skid row is in the process of being converted into luxury condos and the derelicts are panhandling with a verve not seen in New York for years. First stop: the just-opened Crewest (110 Winston St.) for O.C. skater art.

Bert Green

(Photo: Courtesy of Bert Green Fine Art)

Bert Green (102 W. 5th St.) is the neighborhood Gagosian. Across the street, there are three fun galleries on the storefront level of the scuzzball Million Dollar Hotel (a.k.a. the Rosslyn; Fifth St. and S. Main St.), still about as sketchy as it was in Wim Wenders’s film.

Broadway Bar

(Photo: Joao Canziani)

If you search, you’ll find two of the classiest non-hotel bars in L.A.: the Golden Gopher (417 W. 8th St.) and Broadway Bar (830 S. Broadway). Just be sure to leave the area by sundown.

MoCA

(Photo: Courtesy of Marisa Roth)

If you have time to kill, give Disney Hall (Grand at First Street) a drive-by on your way to MoCA (250 S. Grand): Check out the gift shop (which is almost better than the museum itself) and the surrounding Little Tokyo. Sushi in the neighborhood is universally good.

Chung King Road

(Photo: Joao Canziani)

Don’t miss the all-pedestrian Chung King Road in Chinatown for “Art Walk.” On the second Thursday of each month, the galleries throw open their doors, tap a keg, and stay open till 9 p.m. We especially like the Black Dragon Society (961 Chung King Rd.).

Mountain Bar

(Photo: Joao Canziani)

End with a drink at the Jorge Pardo–designed Mountain Bar (475 Gin Ling Way). Consider buying that scruffy stranger on the next stool over a few drinks. Get lucky and you’ll go back to the Brewery Art Colony (620 Moulton Ave.), a nearby 300-loft community of artists in the former Pabst Blue Ribbon brewery. Ask for a postcoital tour. -V.G.