Above the grit and noise of the street, downtown Los Angeles quietly provides some of the most amazing visual detail in its buildings and public art works. This is a selection of those buildings and public arts filmed across some 50 different locations in the immediate downtown area and the arts district. There are many many more locations that are not included and are equally if not more impressive.

Some of the buildings are in disrepair, some have been restored to their full glory while others have been transformed into artworks. In all of them, there is character, color and detail that makes the area a never-ending source of intrigue.

As an American there are certain periods in my nation’s history that I will never fully comprehend and I feel that the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s is one of those periods. 50 years ago life in “The Land of Free” was completely different than my current reality and I am left to rely on what I read in books, historical video footage, and movie portrayals of that era. So although I may never fully comprehend the full significance of past events I can be moved by the images of past events and draw the connections of their impact to my modern life.

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and as part of his ongoing UNFRAMED project JR (of The Inside Out Project fame) “pasted a few iconic images from the march on the walls of Atlanta, in the very neighborhood where Martin Luther King grew up.” (via jr-art.net) There is a great write up on Creative Loafing.

Take a moment to re-listen to the famous speech by Martin Luther King Jr. given on August 28th, 1963.