Culture in Downtown

A two-car funicular that has climbed the Bunker Hill slope since 1901, moved one block south in 1996 and returned to service in 2017 after a long shutdown. The ride is under a minute and the fare is a dollar fifty, or seventy-five cents with a TAP card. The lower station sits beside Grand Central Market and the upper one opens onto California Plaza.

Daily, 6:45am to 10pm

Built in 1893 to a design by draftsman George Wyman, with a glass roof over a court of open-cage elevators and wrought iron stairs. It is a working office building, so the public sees the ground floor and the first landing. Admission is free and the whole visit takes ten minutes.

Mon to Fri 9am to 5pm. Sat 10am to 5pm. Closed Sunday

Claud Beelman's thirteen-story tower, opened on September 12, 1930 after nine months of building, clad in glossy turquoise terra cotta trimmed in deep blue and gold. A four-sided clock tower carries the word EASTERN in neon and is topped by a smokestack with four stylized flying buttresses. The sidewalks on the Broadway and Ninth Street sides are multi-colored terrazzo laid in zigzags and chevrons, and the recessed two-story entrance holds a blue and gold terra cotta sunburst.

Sidewalk, at any hour

The last of the great American railway terminals, opened in May 1939 to a Donald and John Parkinson design that blends Spanish Colonial, Mission Revival and Art Deco into something usually called Mission Moderne. The main hall runs about 140 feet by 80, under six bronze Art Deco chandeliers that weigh over 3,000 pounds apiece, with thirty-foot windows and red quarry tile underfoot. There are 254 original-pattern wooden chairs and nobody minds if you sit in one. It stays open from 4am to 1am.

Daily 4am to 1am