Broadway? Oh, how it bustles.
That might be an understatement, if you know the shop-lined, landmark-filled, restaurant-a-riffic, always on-the-move thoroughfare, a famous street in a famous downtown in a famous city.
The busy byway is a beautiful and vital heart in our urban landscape, each and every day, of course, but come one special wintertime eve, Broadway goes beyond all-out to bring tunes and bites and hobnobbery to the wider, come-one-come-all community.
It's the free Night on Broadway, which is part of Councilmember José Huizar's Bringing Back Broadway initiative. If you were there in year #1, or 2015, you joined about 35,000 other Southern Californians who were out to enjoy live music in Broadway's historic theaters, noshables from the eateries along the sidewalks, and on-the-street spectacles of all fabulous sorts, from buskery to acrobatics.
Year #2, or 2016, saw attendance nearly doubled, to 60,000, which means year #3, which is on the near horizon, should be a lou-lou of a lively lark.
On the docket for the Saturday, Jan. 28, pay-nothing (really, nothing) event? Look for "...hundreds of performers, artist, and vendors..." with "10 stages of programming, including historic venues like The Globe Theatre, The Orpheum, Million Dollar Theater, and the Ace Hotel (formerly United Artist Theatre)."
Mayer Hawthorne, Las Cafeteras, The Earth Harp (a 12-story violin), some DubLab dazzlement, a beer garden, and an Oingo Boingo dance party are among the many centerpoints of the 2017 bash.
The Scene
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It's all-ages, too, so if you want to show with the tots, make time to call upon The Kid's Zone, which'll offer a bevy of high-tech to-dos for the younger set.
Broadway is big, of course (yes, an obvious statement, but a factual one, so there it shall remain). Where should you go exactly to savor all of the extravaganza-y art-based goodness that is woven through the character of this mondo-popular party?
If you put yourself somewhere between 3rd Street (that's where the Bradbury Building is) and Olympic Boulevard, on Broadway, from 4 in the afternoon through to 11, on Saturday, Jan. 28, rest assured you'll be in both the hub and the bub of this beloved alfresco (multi-)block party.