First dates in Downtown LA

Downtown is three districts that look adjacent on a map and are not socially connected. Getting that wrong is how people end up walking twenty minutes through an industrial block at night.

The three districts

The Arts District is itself two sub-clusters about seven-tenths of a mile apart — a northern one around 3rd Street, Traction Avenue and South Hewitt, and a southern one around East 7th Street, Mateo Street and Violet Street. Walking between them at night along Alameda or Mateo is industrial, poorly lit, and the sidewalks are incomplete. Drive or take a car between the two. Within each cluster, walk.

The Historic Core is Broadway, Spring and Main from about 2nd to 9th. This is a real walkable grid with short blocks, and it holds Grand Central Market and The Last Bookstore.

Grand Avenue and Bunker Hill is compact — about four blocks containing The Broad, MOCA, Walt Disney Concert Hall and Grand Park. It connects down to the Historic Core by the Angels Flight funicular on Hill Street, or by the 3rd and 4th Street hill, which is steep.

The best free date in Los Angeles

The Broad at 221 South Grand and MOCA Grand Avenue at 250 South Grand are both permanently free, and they are four blocks apart. Two serious museums, no admission, within a five-minute walk of each other, is not a thing most cities have.

The Broad recommends a timed reservation, so book it. MOCA is closed Mondays, runs 11 to 5 Tuesday through Friday and 11 to 6 on weekends, and stays open until 8pm on the first Thursday of the month — that late Thursday is the best version of this date, because an evening museum visit does not feel like an errand.

Museums are an underrated first-date format for the same reason bowling is. You are walking side by side, there is an endless supply of things to react to, and silence is comfortable rather than a failure.

The best cheap date

Grand Central Market, 317 South Broadway, open daily 8am to 9pm, forty-plus vendors, operating since 1917.

Everything about it suits a first meeting. You both pick whatever you want and eat different things. There is no check to negotiate. There is no reservation and no commitment. It is loud enough not to feel exposed and bright enough to feel safe. If it is going well you walk a block to The Last Bookstore at 453 South Spring and keep going; if it is not, you leave.

Parking is in the garage at 308 South Hill Street — $5.50 for the first ninety minutes, then $2 per fifteen minutes, with a $40 daily maximum. It is one block from the A and E lines at Historic Broadway and the B and D lines at Pershing Square.

The Arts District

Everson Royce Bar at 1936 East 7th Street has a spacious patio, good cocktails and burgers, and is the most consistently recommended first-date room in the district.

Tony's Saloon at 2017 East 7th is the low-stakes version — a dive with a patio, darts and ping pong. Again: a date with an activity in it is easier than a date without one.

Manuela at 907 East 3rd sits inside the Hauser & Wirth gallery. Drinks plus a gallery in daylight is a strong, unfussy daytime date.

The honest caveat for the district is price. A lot of the Arts District has drifted to the expensive end, with several restaurants in the two-hundred-dollars-a-head range. Everson Royce and Tony's Saloon are the affordable anchors.

Weeknight structure

Angel City Brewery at 216 South Alameda runs trivia on Tuesday at 7pm.

Three free run clubs meet downtown: the Little Tokyo Run Club Thursday 6:30pm and Saturday 7am in the Arts District, the DTLA Running Group Tuesday and Thursday at 7pm from The Bloc, and the Skid Row Running Club Monday and Thursday at 6am from the Midnight Mission at 601 San Pedro Street.

Transit

This is the part that makes Downtown different. After the Regional Connector opened, the A Line runs Long Beach to Downtown to Pasadena to Azusa in one seat, and the E Line runs Santa Monica to Downtown to East LA. The B and D lines serve Pershing Square, 7th Street/Metro Center and Union Station. The D Line now continues west through Koreatown to Beverly Hills.

Practically: you can meet someone from Pasadena, Highland Park, Long Beach, Santa Monica or Koreatown downtown without either of you driving. Nowhere else in the county is that true.

The honest downsides

Pick a destination rather than wandering. Skid Row sits immediately east of Main between roughly 3rd and 7th, and the transition is abrupt rather than gradual. Walking Spring or Main after dark varies sharply block to block. Know where you are going and go there.

The Arts District between its two clusters is dark and industrial at night. Take a car.

Grand Avenue empties out completely once performances finish. There is no post-show scene on Bunker Hill itself — if you want the night to continue, plan to go somewhere else.

If you want one plan

Cheap: Grand Central Market, then The Last Bookstore.

Free: The Broad and MOCA on a first Thursday, which runs late.

Evening: Everson Royce Bar on a weeknight, which is calmer than it sounds.