I’m sure Esotouric’s John Fante-based tour of L.A. is fantastic, but since no one I know has $58 to set aside for such a tour, a few months ago some friends and I decided to make our own Fante tour.
We all met at the HMS Bounty in Koreatown to begin our afternoon. (This location has, as far as I know, nothing to do with Fante, but considering his life and times and that he was Bukowski’s “god,” this old-time L.A. bar (+ a few beers) seemed like an appropriate beginning to our journey.)
Our first “official” stop was Fante’s residence at 826 S. Berendo St. [map] just a few blocks east and south of the Bounty. Fante wrote Ask the Dust here. It, like Bukowski’s old bungalow on De Longpre Avenue in Hollywood, was boarded up, but we could see enough to get the point.
From here we walked the two blocks north and two blocks east (about a half-mile) to the Wilshire/Vermont subway station. We road the Red Line downtown (towards Union Station) to the Pershing Square stop (a mere three stops away). From there we could walk to the rest of our destinations.
Next to (or across the street from, depending on where you exit) the Pershing Square Red Line entrance/exit sits Angel’s Flight. It’s now at 4th and Hill, but Arturo Bandini’s home was next to its old location at 3rd and Hill (back when it actually served a purpose for residents on Bunker Hill).
Pershing Square is where Bandini finds himself in Ask the Dust after the Long Beach earthquake. I imagine today’s Pershing Square is much different than the one frequented by Bandini — today it all feels very new and clean. But while there you can pay tribute to Bandini by seeing artist Barbara McCarren’s fault line inspired by that scene in Ask the Dust.
From Pershing Square you can walk a few blocks northwest to the downtown library (630 W. 5th St.). We skipped this part of our tour, but it’s worth going if you’ve never been. It was at the Central Library in what is now the Children’s Reading Room (but used to be the main reading room) where Bukowski discovered Ask the Dust and his literary god, Fante.
Next we tried to find King Edward (/Eddy) Saloon (131 E. Fifth St.) where Bandini (and later Bukowski) drank. (We couldn’t find it, but I think we might’ve had the address wrong.)
After that minor failure (“minor” because walking around downtown is full of discovery, even when you don’t find what you’re looking for; for example, we got serenaded by this man who followed us for a few blocks as we walked by the renovated Alexandria Hotel), we decided for an early dinner/late lunch at Clifton’s Cafeteria (648 S. Broadway).
Clifton’s is a cafeteria-style eatery (as the name suggests) where in the ’30s and ’40s the policy was “pay what you can,” and no one was turned away hungry. The food is still very affordable and pretty tasty (that is to say, it’s not all the generic cafeteria fare you may expect, though there’s an acceptable amount of that too).
At this point we’d been walking a good while, and decided to call it a day. Two other locations I’d suggest (out of many possibilities) if you have the time/energy:
La Placita Church (535 N. Main Street). This is another Ask the Dust location, where Bandini apologizes to God for being an atheist. This is just about a mile northeast of King Eddy’s, but if you don’t feel like walking, you can hop back on the Red Line at Pershing Square and take the subway two stops to Union Station, which is just down the street from this area (Olvera Street and El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historic Monument, i.e. original Los Angeles).
Continue a little further northeast and you’ll see the United States Post Office Terminal Annex (900 N. Alameda St.), where Bukowski worked and which “inspired” Post Office.
Caveat: You may have noticed I only referenced Ask the Dust. Good reason: Thus far that’s the only book by Fante I’ve read. So I have no doubt that you can get a lot more thorough information from a tour guide or the friends and relatives of the novelists that sometimes help guide the Esotouric tours. But hopefully, if you don’t have the $58 either, this inspires you to plan your own tour — with a little internet research and for the cost of subway fare, an affordable meal, and a few drinks (optional), it’s a day well spent in downtown Los Angeles.
Info:
Wikipedia: John Fante, Charles Bukowski
Walking map of downtown destinations: [google map]
Clifton’s Cafeteria: www.cliftonscafeteria.com
MTA Bus and Rail info: www.mta.net