Weekend Special : Getaways Without Going Far : Four Nearby Escapes for People With Different Tastes, Moderate Budgets and Little Time : Downtown L.A. : Fun for Culture Vultures

Yes, Los Angeles. Among the many million stories told of the naked city these days, not many sing the praises of its urban core. Yet downtown Los Angeles has enough museums, theater, architecture and restaurants--and all in close quarters--to fill a weekend and then some.

First stop: The Checkers Hotel Kempinski on Grand Avenue, a smallish, European-style hotel just around the corner from downtown’s new library-in-progress. Neighboring construction notwithstanding, the 3-year-old Checkers delivered peace, quiet, European-style service and an admirable attention to detail. (There’s a rumor that the hotel was named for Richard Nixon’s dog. “Not specifically,” a reservations clerk told me. “But they did take that into consideration.”)

My wife and I had a smallish room, but it held all we needed, including free popcorn, should we decide to stay in and watch a TV movie. The bathroom, while also not large, was a palace of comforts (marble counter, telephone, responsive shower spigots, thermometer for temperature control in the tub). Arriving on Friday afternoon for the $99-a-night weekend special, we plotted explorations, placed ticket-confirmation calls and wrestled with a riddle: When, amid all these cultural movements, could we ascend for an hour to the 12th-floor, open-air Jacuzzi, there to be parboiled with the city lights spread out around us?

Not Friday night. First there were our dinner reservations at Engine Co. No. 28, which is indeed a former firehouse, built in 1928, with a redbrick face, high tin ceilings, a shiny but now non-functional brass pole, and a menu “inspired by recipes from firefighters around the country.” Whatever that last clause may lead you to fear (I thought of mashed potatoes in enormous, fire-retardant quantities), the food was terrific.

From dinner, we tottered off to Rex il Ristorante on South Olive, best known as a high-priced restaurant, less recognized as a place for a quiet nightcap. Settled into a couch by the dance floor in the restaurant’s upstairs bar, we first disappointed the waiter (“Budweiser?” he said, as if I were proposing to dance naked), then took a few discrete turns on the floor while the man at the piano had his way with some standards.

No Jacuzzi Saturday morning, either. By 9:45 a.m. we stood, as directed, beneath the elaborate lobby ceilings of the Biltmore Hotel, recognizing the backdrop of motion picture scenes from “Vertigo” to “Rocky.” This was a Los Angeles Conservancy tour of downtown landmarks. Of the 11 different tours (themes from Art Deco to Marble Masterpieces), we chose Pershing Square Landmarks, and spent the next 2 1/2 hours happily craning our necks at stonework, terra-cotta and various wonders of the neighborhood bounded by Grand, Broadway, Third and Seventh streets.

Led by Conservancy volunteer Richard Webber, and joined in the streets by pizza delivery men on bicycles, pan-handlers on foot and myriad strangers in cars (this is Los Angeles, after all), we saw the tallest building west of the Mississippi River (the 73-story First Interstate World Center on Fifth Street) and peered at the 1931 view of Los Angeles’ history and future offered up by muralist Hugo Ballin in the lobby of the Title Guarantee and Trust Building.

“I couldn’t even tell you the last time I was downtown,” said one longtime Angeleno in the group, who proceeded to reminisce in great detail about watching Ted Lewis sing “Me and My Shadow” at the now-razed Paramount Theater.

Reaching the end of the tour at the Bradbury building on Broadway, we were faced with a more contemporary combination of city life and entertainment: Just a few blocks from city alleys infamous for housing unclean needles, a film crew was working on the screen version of Randy Shilts’ book about the AIDS epidemic, “And the Band Played On.”

Then, while my wife slipped off for a nap, the Caravan Book Store on Grand drew me in. Twenty-three years ago, columnist Jack Smith found his way to the same shop and composed a tribute in The Times to “the last old bookstore in downtown Los Angeles.”

It’s still the last, with a broad, densely arranged inventory, and Smith’s yellowed column framed on the wall. Proprietor Leonard Bernstein (he’s no relation to the late conductor and composer, but a cellist once called to ask him for an audition) has no plans to quit. He grew up in and around the store, while his father ran it. If the younger Bernstein helped sweep up, he got a treat at Clifton’s Cafeteria nearby, another urban institution that’s still doing busi ness. (These days, Clifton’s has restaurants at 648 S. Broadway and 515 W. Seventh.)

Now 46, Bernstein says he is raising his own children the same way. Before I left, he pulled out his collection of old travel books about Los Angeles, and I pulled up a seat to read about the days when police patrolmen made $100 a month and a $10,000 residence here was adjudged “as good as a $20,000 residence in the east.” For the record, that was 1904.

Now a Jacuzzi? No.

It was dinner time at the Water Grill, a busy place, not yet 2 years old, with modern design, wonderful service, first-rate seafood and a location across the street from Checkers. Our waitress arranged a post-meal taxi dash to the Music Center, then told us it was a free service of the restaurant for theatergoers, return trip included.

You might have guessed where we were bound: “Phantom of the Opera,” the company’s bazillionth performance, our first. Plaintive songs, ingenious scenery, a sprinkling of loud pops and startling lights. I’m not a blockbuster musical kinda guy, but I was entertained, and most of those around me seemed to be charmed, even at $60 a head.

All of a sudden we were waking up on Sunday, check-out day, day of last opportunities. A day to buckle down and recreate. Pleasant brunch of eggs Benedict at Checkers’ restaurant. A walk up the hill to the Museum of Contemporary Art, where exhibits included photographs of Los Angeles architecture and a series of fire paintings created by an artist with a flame thrower and composition board. (In this latter, one critic detected “the presence of absence.” Now that the exhibit is gone, I can happily report the absence of absence.)

There was even less time left now. But with our bill settled and our bags in storage behind the bellman’s desk, we struck off on our biggest walking binge. Seven blocks to The Original Pantry Cafe (South Figueroa and 9th) for lunch in an old-fashioned 24-hour eatery where they give you cole slaw before a word is said. Down into the fresco-lined Metro Blue Line station on Flower between 7th and 8th. And up the Bunker Hill steps, just in time to discover a young couple necking under a palm tree, and a restaurant window punched out, its cash register missing.

Finally, we slipped into the Westin Bonaventure elevator at 4th and South Figueroa for a quick view, and as we whooshed upward, all downtown receded beneath us, a deepening grid, an unlikely destination, a fine couple of days.

GUIDEBOOK

Discovering Downtown Culture

Getting there: Downtown Los Angeles lies at the intersection of U.S. 101 and Interstate 110, some 120 miles northwest of downtown San Diego, 33 miles northwest of downtown Santa Ana, and 67 miles southeast of downtown Ventura.

Where to stay: Checkers Hotel Kempinski, 535 S. Grand Ave., (800) 426-3135. Though weekday tariffs usually begin at $180 nightly for the luxury hotel’s 188 rooms, “weekend escape” packages offer a double room for $99 a night, with a two-night minimum. Not all rooms are particularly large, but during my stay, the staff was alert and helpful, and signs of attention to detail were everywhere.

Alternative accommodations: The Biltmore, 506 S. Grand Ave., (800) 245-8673 or (213) 624-1011, 1,000-room mother of all downtown hotels, rich in architectural flourishes, carries a 69-year history as a local landmark; rates drop to $125 per night for weekend packages. The 439-room Hotel Inter-Continental, 251 S. Olive St., (213) 617-3300, one of the few new hotels to open in this year’s withered economy, took its first customers Dec. 1. It offers a location neighboring the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, and introductory discounts that include double rooms at $119 nightly all days of the week.

Where to eat: Engine Co. No. 28, 644 S. Figueroa St., (213) 624-6996; entrees run $7.50-$20. The Water Grill, 544 S. Grand Ave., (213) 891-0900; entrees $10-$20. Free cab service to and from Music Center theater events. Rex il Ristorante, 617 S. Olive St., (213) 627-2300; entrees $18-$26, but in the upstairs Art Deco bar prices for a glass of beer or wine start at a more manageable $3. The Original Pantry Cafe, 877 S. Figueroa St., (213) 972-9279; sandwiches begin at $2.95 and a T-bone steak tops the price list at $9.45.

Where to get an architectural tour: The Los Angeles Conservancy, 727 W. Seventh St., Suite 955, (213) 623-2489, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving the city’s architectural heritage, offers 11 different tours, most of them downtown, most of them beginning at 10 a.m. on Saturdays and lasting 2-2 1/2 hours. Tours are free for Conservancy members (annual individual dues, $30), $5 for others. Among the itineraries: Art Deco, Broadway theaters, Little Tokyo, Palaces of Finance, Terra-Cotta buildings, the I. Magnin/Bullocks Wilshire building, the Biltmore, and Union Station.

For more information: Contact the Los Angeles Convention & Visitors Bureau’s visitor information center at (213) 689-8822.