Downtown Los Angeles is home to a collection of historic landmarks, architectural design feats, contemporary superstructures, and provocative thoroughfares--many award-winning, but all undoubtedly fascinating! Dylan Littlefield teases a few L.A. culinary and historical gems in this latest episode of Road Scholar!
The first stop is dining extravaganza, Grand Central Market! Spanning more than 30,000 square feet, or 2,787 square meters, the hamlet features over 30 restaurants, cafés and take-out establishments, including a Chinese diner, beckoning the days of egg foo young, a barbeque pit, coaxing the taste of southern comforts, and a coffee bar, inspiring a contemporary and sophisticated social scene.
After showcasing the eclectic fares of Grand Central Market, Dylan sojourns to the Bonnie Brae House in Los Angeles, where the catalytic fire for the Azusa Street Revival was first ignited. On April 9, 1906, as William J. Seymour, the founder and holiness preacher of the Christian revival, was leaving a prayer meeting, his friend Edward Lee began to speak in tongues after Seymour had laid hands and prayed for him. Then, something happened, for which they had all been waiting and longing. God crashed into that meeting and members got baptized in the Holy Spirit, with many speaking in tongues! The house swelled with throngs of people, causing the front porch to cave, but no one was injured. Realizing that the membership had outgrown their house, within a week they moved to a more spacious building on 312 Azusa Street. Father Alex Balla, OAFM, shares with Dylan his perspective on the ongoing influence that the Azusa St. Revival has had on modern Christianity.
Finally, Road Scholar Dylan visits the noble bronze statue of Chiune Sugihara in Little Tokyo. It commemorates the heroic acts of Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat, who is credited with rescuing thousands of Jews from the Holocaust by issuing them exit visas from his port in Lithuania. A Consul General in the Lithuanian capital of Kuanas from 1938 to 1940, Sugihara was compelled to honor his moral compass, safeguard humanity, and effectively defy the Japanese government by stamping visas for thousands of Jews, so they could travel from Europe through Japan and settle in other countries. ''Anyone who saves a single life, it is as if they save an entire world,'' said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, quoting the Talmud, the authoritative body of Jewish tradition. Rabbi Cooper regards Sugihara as a ''great hero for the ages.''
27 авг 2024