Los Angeles Social Program

The currently planned social events for ACA2001 are all in spectacular settings. We will meet in the Downtown Los Angeles Financial District, full of gleaming modern structures, very well-preserved older buildings, and public art. Even our meeting hotel, the Westin Bonaventure, is pretty impressive and is something of a Los Angeles icon (John Portman and Associates, architects; 1974-1976). Several movies were at least in part filmed there (In the Line of Fire, etc.). It has a restaurant and a rotating bar on top. The opening reception is planned for the Los Angeles Central Library, a mid-twenties deco structure (Bertram Goodhue, architect), since renovated, updated, expanded and ornamented. The annual banquet will be at the historic Regal Biltmore Hotel (Italianate Beaux Arts 1922-1923 by Schultze and Weaver; recently renovated). The Biltmore was used as setting for several movies, including Chinatown, Ghostbusters, The Sting, The Fabulous Baker Boys, and Vertigo, among others. Its history goes on for pages. Those of you arriving early may see movie crews working in the streets of Downtown. The newly completed Metro system can quickly take you into Hollywood, and a new express bus line can quickly take you as far as Santa Monica Beach for minimal expense. For those of you staying through the end of the meeting, we plan an excursion to the awesome (and blindingly bright) Getty Center (Richard Meier; gardens by Robert Irwin), on a hill overlooking Los Angeles.