Downtown Promenade : Education: Students from Reseda’s Cleveland High get a look at L.A.--from Beaux-Arts to Skid Row.

Members of the tour group stood in a circle, looking up at the huge glass skylight and luxurious antique metalwork in the recently rejuvenated lobby of the 99-year-old Bradbury Building in downtown Los Angeles.

“This is supposed to be a powerful experience,” their tour guide told them. “So just look up and take it in.”

It was. And they did. The tour group and guide were all students from Cleveland High School in Reseda. Part of the junior class “Los Angeles and Urbanization” study program, the trip was the first visit downtown many of the 160 students had ever made.

Teachers and students said the field trip dispelled myths--or confirmed fears--they had had about downtown. Yes, panhandlers are everywhere. But the buildings, if one stops to notice, can be glorious.

The tour group in the Bradbury gave the interior a collective “Wow!” and the students seemed shocked that a building so old could be so “cool”--it even was one of the settings in the movie “Blade Runner,” tour guide Robert Lee noted.

“It’s pretty neat,” Lee said. “I think it’s the oldest thing we’ve seen.”

The seven-hour walking tour offered a wide range of cultural and design styles: from the new Ronald Reagan state building to the near-century-old Bradbury, from the grand Biltmore hotel to the newer luxury-class Bonaventure, from Chinatown to Olvera Street.

In between, the tour group--which broke into several small groups that moved on Nikes and Reeboks throughout downtown--got a look at landmark financial centers, theaters, once handsome but now run-down hotels, and even some of the inhabitants of Skid Row.

“Most of these kids have read about and heard about these places, but never been here,” said Chris Miller, a Cleveland teacher, who coordinated the outing. “This gives them the chance to experience it for themselves on many different levels.”

Malaika Abdullah of Pacoima said she had driven through downtown before but never stopped to look at its structures or people. Friday’s visit gave her an eyeful.

“I want to be aware of the surroundings here,” she said. “There are so many diverse things. The different styles of buildings, the businesses and the races of people passing me on the street. It’s a lot to take in.”

The tours started with a 6 a.m. breakfast at Clifton’s cafeteria, itself a downtown landmark. Afterward, student groups led by “student docents” who had researched tour routes headed off to the 1920s financial district of Spring Street, the city’s Civic Center, Pershing Square and other spots. The groups keyed on the architecture and studied classic examples of designs from Beaux-Arts to Post-Moderne found on downtown streets they had never seen before.

Al Saidi, a student guide, said he saw the good and the bad of the city, all on Spring Street.

“There is just a wide range of architectural and cultural influences,” he said approvingly. “You also see what happens when areas are abandoned by a city.”

Leslie Thacker, who has lived her whole life in Reseda, said her first trip downtown was enlightening. But she wasn’t planning a return trip soon.

“A lot of these really nice buildings haven’t been cared for, and it’s terrible how some of the people here have to live,” she said. “It’s depressing.”

Others tried to look past the homeless they constantly passed, the grime that darkened the buildings they studied and the signs that hid ornately crafted facades.

“I thought it would be different down here,” Natalya Barash said. “Like bums everywhere and crime. Some people who went last year said don’t even bring a camera.”

She didn’t. But after surveying the cityscape, she pronounced a lot of the fears unfounded.

“I’m trying not to concentrate on that,” she said. “I’m paying attention to the architecture.”

Sometimes it was hard. Homeless people often approached the student groups and asked for change. One man asked to be interviewed by the students. They demurred.

“A tour of downtown should include the view of the homeless,” he called after them.

Shari Sisson, one of the teachers who planned the excursion and joined the group, said the good and the bad things seen on the tour should have an effect on the students.

“They’ll get a good feel for what can happen to a city and what can be done to prevent bad things from happening,” she said.