This guide covers five more places in Los Angeles: two contemporary art museums facing each other on Grand Avenue, The Broad and MOCA; Pershing Square, the oldest public square in Downtown; the Vietnam Memorial of Los Angeles County in Grand Park; and, a Metro ride away, the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The first four sit on the same Downtown walk, and the Walk of Fame is the obvious add-on for anyone who wants to see the Hollywood side of the city.
The Broad
The Broad opened on Grand Avenue on 20 September 2015, next to the Walt Disney Concert Hall. It was built and paid for by the philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad to show their collection of postwar and contemporary art: nearly 2,000 works by about 200 artists. General admission to the collection galleries is free; some temporary exhibitions are ticketed.
The building, by the New York architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro with Gensler, follows an idea they called the veil and the vault. A white, honeycomb-like outer skin, the veil, wraps around a solid concrete core, the vault, which holds storage, labs and offices. Visitors pass through the vault on the way between the lobby and the top-floor galleries, so you get a glimpse of the parts of the collection that are not on display. It is one of the stops on our scavenger hunt.
- Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Mirrored Room – The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away (2013), a small mirrored room filled with points of light that seem to go on for ever.
- Works by Andy Warhol, including his Single Elvis of 1963, and the museum's large group of photographs by Cindy Sherman, the biggest collection of her work anywhere.
MOCA, the Museum of Contemporary Art
Across Grand Avenue from The Broad stands MOCA, the Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1979. Its Grand Avenue building, finished in 1986, was the first project in the United States by the Japanese architect Arata Isozaki: a group of low, red sandstone blocks with pyramid-shaped skylights. It is a stop on our scavenger hunt.
MOCA's first home was actually a pair of old hardware warehouses in Little Tokyo, converted by Frank Gehry and opened in 1983 as the Temporary Contemporary. The space proved so popular that it stayed; since 1996 it has been called the Geffen Contemporary. The museum's collection includes works by Mark Rothko, Roy Lichtenstein, Jackson Pollock and Piet Mondrian.
- The plaza between the two museums, where you can compare Isozaki's red sandstone with the white mesh of The Broad and the steel curves of the concert hall next door.
Pershing Square
Pershing Square, a few blocks south, was set aside as a public square in 1866 and is the oldest park in Downtown. It began as La Plaza Abaja, the lower plaza, and went through several names before being renamed in November 1918, a week after the armistice, in honour of General John J. Pershing, who led the American forces in Europe in the First World War. In September 2026 the City Council voted to rename it Biddy Mason Park, after Bridget Biddy Mason, who won her freedom from slavery in a Los Angeles court in the 1850s and became a landowner and philanthropist; expect both names on maps and signs for a while.
The present design, with its purple bell tower, dates from a rebuild by the Mexican architect Ricardo Legorreta and the landscape architect Laurie Olin, completed in 1994. A new renovation, planned in three phases, began in 2023 and is due to be completed by the 2028 Olympic Games, so parts of the square may be fenced off during your visit. Pershing Square is a stop on our scavenger hunt.
- The Spanish–American War memorial from 1900, said to be the oldest public artwork in Los Angeles, and the bronze Doughboy statue of a First World War soldier, unveiled in 1924.
- The statue of Beethoven, added in 1932, and a bronze cannon from the frigate USS Constitution, placed here in 1935.
- The Biltmore Hotel facing the square, where John F. Kennedy had his headquarters during the 1960 Democratic National Convention.
Vietnam Memorial
The last stop of our scavenger hunt is the Vietnam Memorial of Los Angeles County, in Gloria Molina Grand Park. It remembers those who served in the Vietnam War, and after the busy plazas and museums it is a quiet place to stop and end the route. Take a moment to read the names and inscriptions, and treat the site with the respect a memorial deserves.
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame is not in Downtown but along Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street in Hollywood, an easy trip on the Metro B Line. The idea came up in 1953 at the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, which still runs it. The first permanent star, for the director Stanley Kramer, was set in March 1960, and as of August 2026 there are 2,855 stars.
Each star has an emblem for its category: motion pictures, television, recording, radio, live performance and, since 2023, sports entertainment. Every year a committee of the Chamber picks around 30 new names from a few hundred nominations, and most nominations are turned down. It is not a stop on our scavenger hunt, which stays in Downtown.
- The four round, moon-shaped plaques for the Apollo 11 astronauts, one on each corner of Hollywood and Vine.
- Muhammad Ali's star, which is set into a wall rather than the pavement, because Ali asked that his name, shared with the Prophet, not be walked on.
- Mickey Mouse's star, from 1978: he was the first fictional character to get one after the original unveiling.
How to see them in one walk
Start on Grand Avenue at The Broad and cross the road to MOCA. From there, follow Grand Avenue and the streets south of Bunker Hill down to Pershing Square, then walk north through the Civic Center to Grand Park for the Vietnam Memorial. This is also roughly how our scavenger hunt runs, and it passes the sights covered in our other Downtown guide on the way. Keep the Walk of Fame for a separate half-day: take the Metro to Hollywood and walk the boulevard from Hollywood and Vine westwards.
See Los Angeles with World City Trail
Our Los Angeles scavenger hunt turns Downtown into a game you play on your phone. The route links 10 stops, from Gloria Molina Grand Park to the Vietnam Memorial: Grand Park, the Walt Disney Concert Hall, The Broad, MOCA, Pershing Square, the Bradbury Building, City Hall Park Center, City Hall, the Triforium and the Vietnam Memorial. The Broad, MOCA, Pershing Square and the Vietnam Memorial from this guide are all stops. At each stop you solve a puzzle and learn a story, at your own pace.
There is also a self-guided walking tour and an outdoor escape game in Los Angeles, for people who prefer a different format.
Play the Los Angeles scavenger hunt →
Take the self-guided walking tour of Los Angeles →
Play the outdoor escape game in Los Angeles →
Facts checked in October 2026.