Walking the L.A. Library trail: Downtown to Santa Monica

Here’s the equation that arrived in my mind:

Love of books + love of walking = Library Trail.

Could I walk to all the libraries in L.A.?

I asked myself this question and then one second later I asked Google, because my phone was in my hand as it is 50% of the time, and 75% of the time when I’m not being social. I spend a lot of time alone, writing books that I hope will end up in libraries.

I knew there were many public libraries in L.A., and that walking to all of them would probably result in a trail that looked like a snarled nest. This turned out to be correct. The city of Los Angeles has 73 libraries. The county has 86. And Santa Monica has five.

So, I decided to simplify. I would walk about 15 miles from the Central Library in downtown L.A. to the Ocean Park Library in Santa Monica, and, since every trail needs a name, I would call it … the phrase “booking it” arrived in my mind. I crossed that out, and then I crossed out some other bad options, and then I decided to let it go and name the trail after I was done, which is often what I do when writing a novel, because you don’t really know what a thing is until it exists. With books, and with trails, and with life, the only thing we can ever be sure of is that our plans will always turn out to be wrong.

Case in point: The day before the trail, I planned to draw some lettuce on my sun hat with fabric pens. I envisioned that on one side, the lettuce would be beautiful and perfect, and on the other side, it would be goopy and rotting. What ended up happening was that I drew two lovely romaine leaves, and I liked them so much that I stopped there.

As I said, I spend a lot of time by myself, and I imagined that walking this trail would be a solitary adventure. I’m currently in the process of writing a new novel, and since walking is so conducive to writing, I thought the trail would give me a nice big swath of time to ponder the fictional world I’ve created.

I was told that a photographer named Scott Strazzante would meet me at the Central Library at 7 a.m. I assumed he’d take some shots and maybe walk with me for a little while, and then we’d part ways. What actually happened was that Scott stayed with me the entire time. This caused me to see the two romaine lettuce leaves on my hat as a foreshadowing. I was one leaf, and Scott was the other.

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1. L.A. Central Library. 2. The Lodrick M. Cook Rotunda inside the library. (Scott Strazzante / For The Times)

But back to the Central Library. It’s a masterpiece. Maybe you already know that. In case you don’t, I recommend a visit. Scott and I ended up in the rotunda, surrounded by murals, and it felt like taking a quick trip to Italy. Although really, it was a trip through California’s history. That’s what the murals depict.

An important part of the library’s history is that people (or one person?) tried to burn it down. Twice. In 1986, there were two arson attacks, spaced a few months apart. Who would want to burn down a library? It’s still unclear, although the main suspect for the first attempt was an out-of-work actor named Harry Peak.

The route from the Central Library to the Ocean Park Library is so easy that you could do it without your phone. You walk down four blocks to Olympic Boulevard, then head west. At some point, switch over to Pico Boulevard and keep heading west. Eventually, you’ll veer off at Gateway Boulevard, which turns into Ocean Park Boulevard, and boom! You’re there!

If you do this trail, I suggest you bring sunscreen, a hat and an external battery to charge your phone. I would also bring water and snacks, although, of course, there are many places to get those things along the way.

As Scott and I walked down Olympic, I said hi to a few people we passed, and Scott did too. After one of these interactions, Scott said, “People must think we’re missionaries or something, saying hi like that.”

A woman holds a religious sign at Olympic Boulevard and Alvarado Street.

I didn’t respond. But as we kept walking, I wondered about the implication of Scott’s statement, which is that if you’re going to be nice to a stranger, then it must be because you want something from them.

Scott and I stopped for beverages at Rok Coffee & Tea at Olympic and Ardmore Avenue, which I highly recommend. They have a free photo booth! Without the booth! It’s a modern, open-air version. Scott and I took a selfie. The people behind the counter were exceptionally friendly. When we walked out, Scott made a comment about it. “They were so nice,” he said, kind of in awe.

The arc of this story, I would say, is that Scott’s heart melted more and more as we walked, and so did mine.

At the start of the trail, Scott kept stopping to take photos. Which, you know, was his job. But I was annoyed about it. I was thinking, Damn, I was planning to dream about my novel and maybe call my sister and now I have to wait for this dawdling photographer?

Internally, I had a quick chat with myself. I could either choose to be irritated, or I could choose to love Scott. By the time we took the selfie at Rok, I loved Scott. Then he told me about his life and I loved him more. Scott’s new to L.A. He moved down here from Marin County, but he’s originally from Chicago. He hates shopping. When I complimented his shirt ( which said “Lucky Brand” on it) he said, “I didn’t even see that.” I noticed he was especially interested in signs about lost animals, which I thought was sweet. “Somebody lost a cockatiel!” he said, jogging to catch up, because I hadn’t waited for him.

Scott ended up jogging a fair amount. “We’re making this light!” I shouted a few times, and he sprang into action. He was a good sport about it. Running uses different leg muscles than walking, he pointed out, and his walking muscles were tired.

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1. A Chevrolet van parked on Sherbourne Drive. 2. Writer Swan Huntley walks along Olympic Boulevard. 3. A jogger passes Love Psychic on Olympic Boulevard and Citrus Avenue. (Scott Strazzante / For The Times)

In other moments, Scott took the lead. He wanted to cross the street to take a picture of the Koreatown sign, so we did that. He stopped to ask people if he could photograph them, which meant that we had more conversations with strangers than I would have had alone. Scott made my solo journey into a social one, and by the time we cut down to Pico, I couldn’t believe there had ever been a moment when I didn’t want this awesome man to walk with me.

Here’s another equation:

Being alone + reading news headlines = I think the world is bad.

When I’m by myself for too long, scrolling through articles about the worst things that have happened recently, I inevitably start to think that strangers suck and that kindness is an outlier. When Scott said that us chirpily saying hi to strangers must have made them think we were missionaries, I thought that was sad. As the day went on, I realized I spend more of my life than I want in that sad place.

Near the intersection of Pico and Robertson, Scott and I met a guy whose job it is to change out the batteries on Coco delivery bots. He told us that Cocos are not autonomous. They’re operated by people overseas, who might never come to Los Angeles. After our conversation with this guy, I said to Scott, “He was so nice!” Scott said, “I know!”

So, you can see how our hearts were totally melted. Strangers, as it turns out, often don’t suck.

By the time we got to the Ocean Park Library, my legs were noodles and Scott’s T-shirt was soaked in sweat. There were five people inside. One was on a computer, one was sitting at a table, one was napping in a small chair and two were in larger chairs, charging their phones, with a bunch of bags laid out by their feet.

Inside the community-centered Ocean Park Branch of Santa Monica Public Library.

Thomas Alexander, one of the librarians, told me that people come to the library for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes it’s for books. Sometimes it’s for events, like the zine workshop they put on recently in the basement, which was very well-attended. And sometimes it’s to charge a phone or use a computer or just be quiet for a little while.

I asked Thomas why he became a librarian. He said, “I like working with the community.”

On some other day, this statement might not have made that much of an impact on me. But on that day, it did. Scott and I had spent the last six hours communing with each other and with all the people we met along the trail. I thought about Harry, the out-of-work actor who had possibly lighted the Central Library on fire in 1986. I don’t know anything about him, but my guess is that he was someone who had forgotten that he was part of a community. I wish that Harry could have met Thomas, who has a calm, sincere demeanor and big, brown inviting eyes that seem to say, Hi, I just want to hang out.

Or I’m projecting. By the end of this walk, that’s what I was thinking. I’d gone from being a one-woman show to: Hi, I just want to hang out.

Swan Huntley arrives at Ocean Park Branch of Santa Monica Public Library.

So, my plans were wrong, as they always are, and I’m glad. The original goal of inventing (discovering?) the Scott Romaine Library Trail was to inspire you to care about books. I ended up inspiring myself to care about what libraries are actually about: community.