Downtown Los Angeles, a new, seven-minute journey through the city's center, has been up on YouTube for a week and is definitely worth a look. It offers some melancholy images of L.A. and deliberately turns its back on beauty, glamor and celebrity. Switching between stills and video, black and white, night and day, the travelogue is a street-level look at every-day images captured under a rainy sky. Many of the scenes are of empty sidewalks and public spaces without a public. The people we do glimpse are sometimes homeless, reminding us of a tragedy that becomes more invisible even as it grows bigger. (See “Trash Talking,” today's blog about L.A. scavengers.)

Advertising disclosure: We may receive compensation for some of the links in our stories. Thank you for supporting LA Weekly and our advertisers.