Around 8:30 — Grand Central Market. The food hall on Broadway has traded since 1917 and typically opens around eight, though hours vary stall to stall. Go early: by noon the queues at the good counters are twenty deep. Go Get Em Tiger has poured coffee in the building since 2013. Tacos Tumbras a Tomas does Michoacán-style carnitas and has been here more than half a century by the market's own account; China Cafe, a horseshoe counter under an old neon sign, dates to 1959. Newer arrivals deserve attention too — Miznon, the Tel Aviv pita chain, took over the former Sari Sari Store space in 2025, and Villa's Tacos is usually the busiest counter in the room. Expect to pay somewhere around USD 12 to 18 for breakfast and coffee.
Around 9:30 — the Bradbury Building. Directly across Broadway, behind an unremarkable brown front, is a wrought-iron atrium from 1893 that glows under a glass roof even on a grey morning. It housed the closing act of Blade Runner. Note the trap: this is a working office building, only the ground-floor lobby is open to visitors, and hours are typically weekdays from around nine to five with a shorter Saturday window. It is generally closed on Sundays, and security will shut it without notice for filming. Entry is free and ten minutes is enough.
Around 9:45 — Angels Flight. The lower station sits across Hill Street from the market, and the funicular hauls you up Bunker Hill to California Plaza in about a minute for around USD 1.50, or roughly half that with a TAP card. It typically runs from before seven in the morning until about ten at night. In the rain this is not a novelty ride; it is the difference between arriving at The Broad dry and arriving having climbed a wet hill.
Around 10:00 — Walt Disney Concert Hall. The old version of this day admired Gehry's steel curves from under an awning. Do better. The Music Center runs a free self-guided audio tour of the Grand Lobby and public foyers, typically daily from about ten in the morning to three in the afternoon, with the last start around two and no reservation required. You run it on your own phone, and a loaner device is usually available at the check-in table in the lobby. The full tour takes about an hour; twenty minutes buys you the lobby, the Douglas fir interior and the story of how the building was fought over for sixteen years. It is subject to the performance schedule, so it can disappear on a matinee day.
Around 11:00 — The Broad. This is where the old plan went wrong. The Broad usually opens at eleven Tuesday through Friday and at ten at weekends, and it is closed on Mondays — arriving at half past ten on a weekday buys you nothing but a queue in the rain. General admission is free and always has been; timed tickets are released in advance online and walk-up standby works when capacity allows, but on a wet day the entire city has the same idea, so book. Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Mirrored Room needs its own separate reservation and goes almost immediately when released. The museum is currently building a large extension behind the honeycomb shell, due before the 2028 Olympics, so expect intermittent construction noise and a closed stretch of Hope Street alongside.
Around 12:45 — The Last Bookstore, then lunch. Walk back down to Spring Street, in the Old Bank District, where a former bank's banking hall holds what the shop bills as California's largest new and used book and record store. The book tunnel and the labyrinth of small rooms upstairs are exactly where you want to be while it is loud outside. It typically opens around eleven early in the week and around ten from Wednesday onward, running late into the evening. Eat back at the market rather than hunting for somewhere new in the wet.
If you have an hour spare, the Richard J. Riordan Central Library is the downtown building most visitors never think to open. The 1926 Goodhue building's rotunda carries Dean Cornwell's murals of four eras of California history, and free art and architecture tours typically run Friday early afternoon, Saturday late morning and Sunday mid-afternoon.
Three major museums stand within a few hundred metres of each other on Wilshire. You cannot do three in an afternoon and enjoy any of them. Choose two, and choose them on the weather and the day of the week.
The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures occupies the old May Company department store, and it is the right first choice in heavy rain because it is a single sealed building — once you are in, you never step outside. General admission typically runs around USD 25 for adults, roughly USD 15 for students, and free for anyone seventeen and under; the Oscars Experience costs about USD 10 on top, and there is usually a reduced "Last Looks" rate late in the afternoon. It is closed on Tuesdays and typically opens around ten and closes around six, later on Fridays and Saturdays. The ongoing Hollywoodland gallery, on the Jewish founders who built the studio system, is the one to give real time to; the Identity galleries hold the ruby slippers. Rotating shows have recently included Marilyn Monroe, Studio Ghibli's Ponyo and a Bong Joon Ho room. Allow two hours, three if film is your subject.
LACMA has changed more than any museum in the city. Peter Zumthor's David Geffen Galleries opened to the public in early May 2026 — a curving concrete floor some 275 metres long, raised nearly nine metres in the air and crossing Wilshire Boulevard outright, with the encyclopaedic collection rehung across it. Entry is included in general admission; there is no separate ticket. But read the rain caveat carefully, because nobody else will tell you: you reach that gallery floor by lift or by two exterior staircases, and the campus remains a set of separate buildings with open plaza between them. In a real downpour, LACMA means getting wet. Admission typically runs around USD 30 for non-residents and about USD 25 for Los Angeles County residents, and the museum is closed on Wednesdays.
The Petersen Automotive Museum is the one nobody plans and everybody enjoys — this is, after all, the city the car built. General admission is usually around USD 22; the Vault, an underground hall of some three hundred vehicles, costs roughly USD 51 combined and earns it if cars move you, though children under ten are not admitted and photography is not allowed down there. It typically opens daily at ten and closes at six, with the last Vault entry mid-afternoon. Like the Academy Museum, it is entirely enclosed.
What to skip. The La Brea Tar Pits sit in the same block, and the pits themselves are outdoors, in a park, in the rain. The indoor museum is small and pitched mainly at children. On a wet day it is the one to drop without regret.
From Wilshire/Fairfax you have two good endings, and both beat driving somewhere.
The first is to stay put. The Original Farmers Market at Third and Fairfax has traded since 1934 and holds well over a hundred stalls under a roof, typically open until around nine on weekdays and closing earlier on Sundays. Be clear about what "covered" means here: it is a roof, not a sealed room, so you will be dry but not warm. Find a counter, order something, and let the rest of the storm happen around you.
The second is a film in a room worth the ticket on its own. Take the D Line back east to Wilshire/Vermont, change to the B Line, and ride up to Hollywood/Highland. The TCL Chinese Theatre opened in 1927 with The King of Kings and now runs one of the largest IMAX laser auditoriums anywhere; Time Out has called it the best place in the world to see a film, which is their claim rather than ours, but the room is genuinely extraordinary. A few minutes east, the Egyptian Theatre reopened in November 2023 after a long restoration by American Cinematheque with Netflix, and is one of only a handful of venues in the United States still able to project nitrate film alongside 35mm, 70mm and digital. Its programme is repertory, so check what is actually scheduled. The Chinese runs new releases and premieres — and a premiere means the public is locked out that night.
Either way, do not drive home hunting for a restaurant. Eat where you already are; the storm will be gone by morning, and they almost always are.
