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Sunday, November 20, 2016

The Great Los Angeles Walk 2016 Recap: Pico Boulevard is All of Los Angeles, in 15 Miles



Another year, another street conquered!

The Great Los Angeles Walk returned to Pico Boulevard for its 11th edition, and hundreds of passionate Angelenos -- fueled by love of city and community and eager to walk across the city -- hiked from downtown's Grand Hope Park to the ocean on Saturday, Nov. 19.

Together, we kicked things off in the morning with quick comments from Carter Rubin, who represented the Mayor's office and its Great Streets LA initiative, as well as author and legendary endurance swimmer Diana Nyad, who gave the crowd a pep talk and shared information about her new organization, EverWalk.

From there, the crowd experienced many different cross sections of Los Angeles on foot, including the Convention Center (currently home to the Auto Show); the city's shortest street (Powers Place); the beautiful old homes of Alvarado Terrace; the amazing St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral; the Central American-dominated Byzantine-Latino Quarter; a slice of Koreatown; the diverse restaurants and shops of Mid-City (tacos, soul food, California cuisine, even a Swedish deli); the closed (for the Sabbath) Jewish shops and restaurants west of Fairfax; the Fox lot; the Rancho Park golf course; a collection of murals in Santa Monica; the cool breeze as we marched toward the ocean; a celebratory drink at Chez Jay's; and much more.

Here are some highlights from the day:

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Congregating at Grand Hope Park

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
With some of the crowd

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
More of the crowd

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Carter Rubin addresses the crowd



Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Diana Nyad speaks

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Crowded sidewalk

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Heading down Hope, on to Pico

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
On our way

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Heading to Pico

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Downtown mural

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Truly not sure what's happening here

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Muhammad Ali mural

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Convention Center

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
El Parian

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Powers Place, LA's shortest street

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Alvarado Terrace

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
City of LA time switch

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Pico street crew

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Christmastime is here

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Entering the cathedral

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Inside the cathedral

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Details inside the cathedral

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Now that is quite a throne

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016More inside the cathedral

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Byzantine-Latino Quarter

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Frida

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
View inside one of the many, many bakeries on Pico

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Have a seat!

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Street art on Pico

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
The most disturbing art on Pico: A horrifying pizza murder in progress.

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Paletas! I got a delicious cucumber chile bar!



Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Passing by Pico murals

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Boxing on Pico

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
The chairs of Pico

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
L.A. treasure Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles!

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Members of the Pico Great Streets LA initiative

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Surprise music performance on the route by Taliesin Day



Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Lunch break at 2 Cents (where I enjoyed ox tail tacos!)

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Definitely need to return to Olson's Scandinavian Deli -- for their candy selection alone! (Below)

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Taking you up on this, Metro!

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Uh oh, did someone lose this?

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
The ghost of Charles Bukowski can be found up and down Pico

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Half way point at La Cienega

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Ghost business sign

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Cat tag

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Keeping an eye out

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
There were a surprising number of vacuum shops up and down Pico. Anyone else notice?

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Someone needs to translate this for me

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
The Church of Type: a letterpress enthusiast's dream

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Cookies and goodies at Caprice Bakery

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
"Love" by Allison Kunath: One of many Beautify Earth murals found in Santa Monica.

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Pico Piggy

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Darth Skater

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Mural by Chris Saunders

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Santa Monica muralist Clinton Bopp in action

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Red rooster

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Pico mural

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Selfie with some of the Walkers at the beach

Great Los Angeles Walk 2016
Sunset at the ocean

Even the LA Rams tweeted their support yesterday:









Send us links to your photos! And we'll add some roundups below.