Tuesday was Transit Equity Day, when rides on public transit around Southern California were free. Why? Feb. 4 was the birthdate of Rosa Parks, the Black woman who in 1955 was told to give up her bus seat for a White person and refused.
I like to take transit and consider it a bargain. If it’s free for a day, so much the better. I decided to take part Tuesday, to the extent that a workday allowed.
After filing my column, my late start became even later due to missing a train. (The 11 a.m. Metrolink arrived in Claremont on Platform 2, across a fence from where a bunch of us were standing on Platform 1.)
But finally at 11:30 a.m. I was aboard a westbound Metrolink, arriving at Union Station at 12:30 p.m.
This was a bit late to fulfill my original hope, which was to venture out to West L.A. for lunch at an old favorite, the venerable Apple Pan. Instead, the subway to Pershing Square and a two-block walk got me to Rita’s Deluxe, a compact storefront operation with a limited menu and a six-stool counter. It was like something out of New York City.
Rita’s double cheeseburger hit the spot, as did its unique half-and-half option of fries and cheese curds.
Next stop: the nearby Central Library.
Up on the third level, in the literature and fiction room, I claimed a table, pulled off my backpack, pulled out my laptop and a couple of notebooks, and spent an hour back on the clock.
Among the emails to which I replied was one from Flower Sheets, who’d been married 53 years to Pomona-born artist Tony Sheets. She thanked me for my Jan. 31 column on her husband’s passing and was delighted that I’d located his two large-scale murals on the west and east sides of the former L.A. Times parking structure.
“Tony thought when the L.A. Times left that area his murals would be lost!” Flower confided. “They still look good. Could use a little pressure washing!”
This reminded me that another of his commissions, “The History of World Commerce,” is inside the so-called World Trade Center. I hadn’t seen it and here I was just blocks away.
I packed up and headed outdoors, up the lovely Bunker Hill Steps and around to 350 S. Figueroa at street level. Pro tip that’s too late to help me: It turns out that one can save a lot of effort by crossing a pedestrian way from Bank of America Plaza, since that deposits you on the same level as the mural.
The World Trade Center interior is akin to a two-story shopping mall, albeit mostly vacant. (Very little trade is occurring.) The mural is like a ribbon that wraps around the exposed second-level deck, as well as the four second-level walkways.
I walked around the first level, looking up at Sheets’ concrete frieze. It’s a series of vignettes of, yes, the history of world commerce, starting with cavemen skinning an animal and progressing through what must be 100 scenes encompassing thousands of years and many cultures.
It’s reminiscent of WPA murals of the 1930s and has to be seen to be believed.
Whaling ships sailing, maps being charted, scrolls being read, women carrying bushels with Taj Mahal-like buildings in the distance, a man listening to a console radio in his den, factories belching, rockets being fabricated, it just goes on and on, ending with a panel with the signature “Tony Sheets, ’74.”
You could devote a day to trying to comprehend it all.
I can only hope if the building closes or is converted into housing, as is being discussed, that this mural somehow survives. Its linear layout — the mural is said to be 1,000 feet long — would seem to preclude moving it. Where would you put it? It would be like relocating the strips of electronic signs around Dodger Stadium.
Making my way to the nearest subway station, I rode to Seventh Street and changed trains.
The day’s entertainment had only begun. A buff, shirtless, tattooed man in leather pants, worn low to expose neon-bright lavender underwear, was blasting music, singing along and dancing on the platform.
Once aboard the train, he occasionally swigged from a bottle of orange juice of a suspiciously amber color. When a woman gave him a disparaging look, he said, “(expletive), I went to university.”
He took a seat in front of me next to a friendly, normal-seeming woman with a suitcase who was on vacation from Texas. He sat close, bare shoulder against her coat, and she took selfies of them both. He rested his head on her shoulder for a few moments and gave her a peck on the cheek.
Suddenly I saw where I’ve gone wrong with the opposite sex. I’ve made the common error of concealing my underpants.
At Vermont and Sunset, I exited, with some regret that I wouldn’t see the pair part, if indeed they did, and trudged to my new L.A. coffee shop, Bru, in Los Feliz. I logged another hour on the clock, locating notes for upcoming columns, sending emails and beginning this column.
Given the rare occasion of being in L.A. on a weekday, my idea had been that I’d get dinner somewhere nice. But as with my original plans, this was foiled too.
By 6 p.m. my Rita’s Deluxe lunch was still pumping life-giving calories into my bloodstream. I guess that’s where the “Deluxe” part came in. I wasn’t the slightest bit hungry.
Packing up, I overheard a conversation about the late director David Lynch.
“The one I find myself going back to is ‘Inland Empire,’” one barista said of the director’s 2006 movie. “‘Twin Peaks’ season two, then ‘Inland Empire,’ then ‘Mulholland Drive.’”
I left for the subway and then the 6:40 p.m. Metrolink train home. It had been a fun little adventure in the big city.
Still, the place I find myself going back to is the Inland Empire.
More Metrolink
A few changes on the train network’s San Bernardino Line went into effect Jan. 27. Two notable ones: Montclair now has five additional daytime round-trips to L.A. And the last train of the night, a 9:40 p.m. train east from Union Station that was eliminated in October, has been restored. It’s a bit past my bedtime, but it’s comforting to know it’s there.
David Allen writes Friday, Sunday and Wednesday, comfortingly. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, and follow davidallencolumnist on Facebook, @davidallen909 on X or @davidallen.bsky.social on Bluesky.