5: City Hall East, Downtown L.A.

5: City Hall East, Downtown L.A.
Designed by: Danny Heller
Piano type: Spinet (Wurlitzer)
Playability: Great
Weather: 68°F, sunny
How I got here: Bicycle

CicLAvia is a day where several miles of Los Angeles streets are closed to automobiles and open to bikes, pedestrians and other human-powered transport for a few hours. Today's CicLAvia allowed me to reach a few more street pianos via bike.

After riding on the route from East Hollywood to Downtown, I got to play my 5th street piano at Los Angeles City Hall East, right off of the CicLAvia route on Main Street. When I arrived, there was a violinist named Mike with a bunch of music books and sheet music. We ended up playing Edith Piaf's "La Vie En Rose" and Barry Manilow's "Can't Smile Without You." He told me he was waiting all day for a piano player to accompany him, complaining that none of the ones who came up to the piano could read music (I'm a bad sightreader, but I can read charts).

The CicLAvians who formed a small audience dug it though! I also ran into one of my friends, Edgar Mejia, there, who took his wife and daughter to CicLAvia enjoy the day, and was able to take some pics and video for me.

This piano was a very classy-looking Wurlitzer spinet had classic Downtown Los Angeles icons painted by artist Danny Heller, and was a nice playing piano as well.

To honor City Hall (and my friends who work for LA. City government), I did Stevie Wonder's "Living For The City":