Los Angeles for a night

We were up and ready to go by 5:15 this morning. JD from Leisure Limo picked us up and we were quickly on the road. Our flight left perfectly on time. Had an omelet for a second breakfast and then busied ourselves reading and playing games. Naturally the man in front of Jim pushed his seat way back so that was no too comfortable for Jim…..but he survived.

Hamid from Execucar picked us up at baggage claim and expertly drove us to the Intercontinental Hotel in Century City. Luckily a room was ready so we could get right into a cozy place to hangout. Got a great view of the city but was about a million miles from the elevator. We should have had some breadcrumbs to drop along the way for fear of not finding our way back to the lobby.

Century City is now a 176 acre commercial and residential district of LA developed on property used by 20^th Century Fox for making movies. The land of Century City belonged to cowboy actor Tom Mix (1880-1940), who used it as a ranch.The land of Century City then became the backlot of 20th Century Fox, which still has its headquarters just to the southwest. If you look carefully you can see the painting on the sound stage wall. We are really surrounded by a number of movie sound stages.

In 1956, Spyros Skouras (1893-1971), who served as the President of 20th Century Fox from 1942 to 1962, and his nephew-in-law Edmond Herrscher (1890s-1983), an attorney sometimes known as "the father of Century City," decided to repurpose the land for real estate development.

 In 1961, after Fox suffered a string of expensive flops, culminating with the financial strain put on the studio by the very expensive production of Cleopatra, the film studio sold about 180 acres to developer William Zeckendorf and Aluminum Co. of America, also known as Alcoa, for US$300 million (US$2.4 billion in 2014's money).

Much of the shopping center's architecture and style can be seen in numerous sequences in the 1967 Fox film, A Guide for the Married Man, as well as in a sequence in another Fox film of the same year, Caprice. Century City's plaza as it appeared in the early 1970s can be viewed in several scenes of still another Fox film, 1972's Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.

The Southern California Association of Governments estimates that the daytime population amounts to 48,343 on a working day. The median age for residents is 46, older than average for the city and the county. The percentage of residents aged 65 and older (26.4%) was the highest for any neighborhood in Los Angeles County. The neighborhood was considered "not especially diverse" ethnically, with a high percentage of white residents. I guess we would just fit right in in the area. 

The median yearly income in 2014 was $652,007, a high figure for Los Angeles. The percentage of households that earned $125,000 and up was high for Los Angeles County. Hamid, our driver, said he just about “had it made” when he lost everything in the great recession. So he is driving a limo until he can recoup some funds or “until the next recession.”

Saw some beautiful flowers as we made our way from LAX to Century City. Water- actually a lack of water- keeps people from having much green around their property. As we traveled from the airport gradually the yards- smll though they are- began to appear. 

This hotel is huge and we have our own little rooftop sun area with a great view of the city. I think I am here until the morning. Thank goodness for room service!