I think I may have made a bad mistake, but believe it can be rectified. For a quick one night visit, we’re booked into the Vance Hotel at the address above. Evidently it’s near a couple of decent restaurants–but also near the Greyhound station. I know if I were coming to L.A. I would not want to stay near our Greyhound station if I could possibly avoid doing so. It’s literally the worst, seediest part of the L.A. Not necessarily the most violent, but just seedy and dirty.
Is that true for Seattle also? We’re only going to be there one night, so maybe I should just grit my teeth for the duration. Or should I change my hotel plans while the changing is good?
I wouldn’t worry about it too much for just one night. There is some pretty big construction going on a few blocks down from that, and I wouldn’t call that the most interesting part of town but I don’t think you will me miserable.
Restaurants mentioned by Expedia are Lola’s, Oceanaire, and the Palace Kitchen. Since we’re arriving by train at 10PM and leaving by train at 10 the next morning, we won’t have much of a chance to try the restaurants, but the presence of good restaurants would say something favorable about the locale.
I guess I should finish my thoughts before I hit post. :smack:
It’s not an area I’d want to walk around by myself at night, but I’ve walked around there to and from bars with 1-2 friends and it’s been fine. In fact, if you are arriving at the Amtrak station I’d argue that area is worse, just due to the amount of homeless people that hang around asking people for change. You can catch 3 different busses to your hotel within 1/2 block of the station though so I’d say you’d be fine.
We’ll be on the tail-end of a cruise and a couple of days in Vancouver, and we’ll have a fair amount of luggage, so we’ll probably just take a taxi. Can’t be that expensive, it’s a fairly short drive.
Now the cab ride from downtown L.A. to the departure dock in San Pedro, on the other hand…
You’re about two blocks away from greyhound - but if you walk 4 blocks more past the station, you’ll be at the REI flagship building.
Or, if you go in a different direction, for two blocks, you’ll be at the Nordstrom flagship.
Seattle is kind of weird that way, it’s often hard to tell whether or not you’re in a seedy neighborhood. And I wouldn’t think twice about walking around there at night. There is construction there - there’s always construction there.
Are you saying you would walk around at night, without thinking about it, or that you wouldn’t even think of walking around at night?
(Note, if this post appears twice, as I suspect it might do, maybe some kind person would report the one above to a moderator and ask to have it deleted. I’d do it myself, but we can’t report our own posts.)
I do and have and will walk around near that area after dark. Of course, I am aware of my surroundings. There are bad people everywhere. But the concentration of bad people around that area is not particularly high, and definitely not high enough to make me think I should go out of my way to avoid that area.
Palace Kitchen serves their full menu until 1am.
Lola is open for breakfast and you can get octopus and eggs.
Those are both Tom Douglas restaurants and are pretty good.
I wouldn’t worry about being in that area of town.
When they say ‘close to the hotel’, do they mean like right around the corner? Amarinth I agree. I think suburbanites tend to exaggerate the dangers of city living. When I was single I used to walk a mile each way to my favorite pub, all by myself. Like you, I tried to be streetwise…aware of surroundings, not passing too closely by blind corners, and so on, and I was fine. It was a fairly safe, one might even say slightly upscale area, but to hear some people talk you shouldn’t venture out your door at night no matter where you live.
Pretty much, yeah. The Palace is at 5th & Lenora, and I think Lola is about a block or two away from that (as is the Dahlia, if you’re looking for something more white-tablecloth oriented).
The area’s fine. You’ll have the usual assortment of homeless people and other city denizens, but it’s nothing to particularly worry about.
I was just down that way Tuesday night at about 11:30 to pick up a kid at the new Police Station at 8th & Virginia. (I was given the wrong address and walked around the block looking for it. There was no-body else on the street. Nothing open, not even the Police station. Area is extremely well lighted. No graffitti, no trash, no bums, pimps or pushers.
In the morning you can take the bus tunnel back to the train station. It’s free.
Get off at the oter end and there you are.
