Bradbury Building · the interview
Open: the Bradbury’s light court standing out of the fold, where Tom’s story ends. Pop-up cards
The card company · the buildings
Tom is a trained architect who writes greeting cards. Here the two jobs meet: every card on the rack is a downtown building the film used. Choose one, read the front, open it, and the building stands up out of the fold. The lines on the fronts are ours, not the film’s.
Tom Hansen, a trained architect, works as a writer at a greeting card company.
Which scene was filmed at each building, and the market scene that was cut.
Los Angeles Conservancy: “500 Days in Downtown L.A.” walking tour (self-guided, PDF)
Braly Block (Continental Building)
Congratulations on being the first. Nobody remembers the first.
From the card rack · 1/9Card 1 of 9: For a first. Open it.
Opened 0 of 9
L.A.’s first skyscraper
408 South Spring Street, Los Angeles
Tom points it out from his bench and calls it L.A.’s first skyscraper.
John Parkinson built it in 1902–04. At 175 feet it is counted as the city’s first skyscraper.
It was finished just before the city set a 130-foot height limit in 1905, later raised to 150 feet, and stayed the tallest occupied building for over fifty years, City Hall apart.
Apartments. Stand across Spring Street and look at the cornice of lion heads.
Angels Knoll, Bunker Hill
Above the steps from Hill Street, beside Angels Flight, is the slope where Tom shows Summer the city he loves. Street level isn’t much, he tells her; look up.
Tom’s favourite spot, its view of mostly pre-war buildings, and what he tells Summer there.
Los Angeles Conservancy: “500 Days in Downtown L.A.” walking tour (self-guided, PDF)
The bench is drawn where you would sit, looking east over the old downtown.
From the bench, Tom points out the Braly Block on Spring Street as the city’s first skyscraper. It went up before Los Angeles capped its buildings, and the cap never caught it. Move the limit through the years.
No limit yet. John Parkinson takes the Braly Block to 175 feet.
The Braly Block, 175 feet, 1902–04; the 130-foot limit of 1905, later 150 feet.
Los Angeles Conservancy: “500 Days in Downtown L.A.” walking tour (self-guided, PDF)
The Eastern Columbia’s clock tower allowed above the 150-foot limit, to 264 feet.
Beside Angels Flight, off Hill Street, Bunker Hill, Los Angeles
Tom’s favourite spot in Los Angeles, with a view of mostly pre-war buildings; here he shows Summer the architecture.
From the bench Tom points out the Braly Block, now the Continental Building.
The park was closed to the public in July 2013.
The benches were removed in January 2025, and the gates were still locked in May 2026.
Locked since 2013 and the benches are gone. See the slope from Hill Street, from Angels Flight or from California Plaza above.
408 South Spring Street, Los Angeles
Tom points it out from his bench and calls it L.A.’s first skyscraper.
John Parkinson built it in 1902–04. At 175 feet it is counted as the city’s first skyscraper.
It was finished just before the city set a 130-foot height limit in 1905, later raised to 150 feet, and stayed the tallest occupied building for over fifty years, City Hall apart.
The cornice carries a row of lion heads in pressed galvanised tin.
Apartments. Stand across Spring Street and look at the cornice of lion heads.
811 West Seventh Street, Los Angeles
One of Tom’s favourite buildings; he names its architects, Walker and Eisen.
Walker and Eisen finished it in 1926.
An office building. The front and its sculpture are on Seventh Street.
849 South Broadway, across from the Orpheum Theatre, Los Angeles
Another of Tom’s favourites.
Claud Beelman’s Art Deco tower opened on 12 September 1930 in turquoise terracotta with blue and gold trim.
Its clock tower was allowed above the 150-foot limit, taking it to 264 feet.
Since a 2006 conversion it holds 147 homes.
Private apartments. See the turquoise front and the clock from Broadway.
Grand Park, Civic Center
The day after, Tom dances to work past a tiered fountain in full flow. Then you go and look.
In the film: water everywhere and a man dancing. (This photograph is from 2007, when it did run.)
Soon after the film: usually turned off to save water. Since 26 July 2012: restored for Grand Park, with a 50-foot spray and a splash pool.
Expectations: the Arthur J. Will Memorial Fountain in full flow, as in the film.
Grand Park, between First and Temple Streets, near Grand Avenue, Los Angeles
Tom dances here, the day after he and Summer sleep together.
The Conservancy’s tour warned that the water was rarely as good as in the film; the fountain was usually turned off to save water.
Restored for Grand Park, it was unveiled on 26 July 2012 with a 50-foot spray, coloured lights and a shallow splash pool with 79 jets.
It honours Arthur J. Will, the county’s chief administrative officer from 1951 to 1957.
In Grand Park, a public park. The splash pool is open to play in.
316 West Second Street, Los Angeles
It plays the office bar where Tom, Summer and their workmates do karaoke.
It is a pirate-themed dive bar, with live music and dancing.
A pirate-themed bar with live music. Hours change; check before you go.
The Old Bank District
The Conservancy’s tour starts on one corner. Tom’s record store is diagonally across Main Street from his friends’ lobby, and he lives on the same stretch: his home is a residential building on South Main Street, so it is named by its street and left off the map.
Tom’s apartment in a residential building on South Main Street, at Winston Street.
400 South Main Street, at Fourth Street, Los Angeles
Old Bank DVD, in this building, plays the video and record store.
John F. Blee designed it in 1907; R. B. Young added the top two storeys in 1911.
Police raided illegal gambling rooms on its sixth floor in 1910.
It reopened in 2000 as seventy loft apartments, one of the early projects of downtown’s revival.
An apartment building with shops at street level. See it from Main Street; the Conservancy’s tour starts here.
103 West Fourth Street, Los Angeles
Its lobby is where Tom and his friends hang out.
Morgan and Walls built it as the Van Nuys Hotel; it opened in 1897, the first hotel with a telephone and electric light in every room.
The Fourth Street lobby keeps its ceiling decoration, arches, stained glass and a “V. N.” crest held up by sea horses.
It is the oldest hotel in Los Angeles still operating, now a low-income residential hotel.
A residential hotel. Look at the Fourth Street front and up at “The Van Nuys” on the parapet.
Broadway · Spring Street
A movie palace for a date, a market for a scene nobody saw, an office for writing cards and a bar for the night it goes wrong.
307 South Broadway, Los Angeles
Tom and Summer watch The Graduate here.
Albert C. Martin designed it in 1918 as Sid Grauman’s first Los Angeles theatre, with over 2,300 seats.
Joseph Mora’s terracotta front carries bison heads, longhorn skulls and figures of the arts.
From 1949 to the late 1980s it was a centre of Latino entertainment; it reopened in 2008.
A working theatre that opens for screenings, tours and shows. Otherwise see the carved front from Broadway.
Broadway · Saturdays 10am · $25 · $18 members and under-18s
The Conservancy’s weekly walk through Broadway’s historic theatre district.
Book a place
317 South Broadway, Los Angeles
A scene of Tom and Summer shopping for fruit was filmed here and cut from the film.
The market opened in 1917 in John Parkinson’s 1897 building, the city’s first fireproofed, steel-reinforced structure.
It has over fifty stalls, each privately run.
Open daily, 8am to 9pm; stall hours vary. Walk through to Hill Street for the steps up Bunker Hill.
833–835 South Spring Street, between Eighth and Ninth Streets, Los Angeles
Tom works here as a copywriter for a greeting card company.
Built around 1925, it was also the Roseland dance hall.
Tom is a trained architect who writes cards; he is later moved to the consolations department.
A private building with a café at street level. The photograph shows Spring Street on its block.
830 South Broadway, next to the Orpheum Theatre, Los Angeles
Tom defends Summer here and is punched.
A bar beside the Orpheum. Check it is open before you go.
The people
Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Tom Hansen and Zooey Deschanel plays Summer Finn. Geoffrey Arend is Tom’s friend McKenzie, Chloë Grace Moretz his half-sister Rachel, Clark Gregg his boss Vance and Minka Kelly is Autumn.
Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber wrote it, first setting it in San Francisco before it moved to Los Angeles. It was Marc Webb’s first feature. It opened at the Sundance Film Festival on 17 January 2009, reached cinemas on 17 July, cost $7.5 million and took $60.7 million worldwide.
Cast, writers, the move from San Francisco, Sundance, release dates, budget and box office.
The film’s studio page.
807 West Paseo del Mar, Point Fermin Park, San Pedro, Los Angeles
Millie’s wedding is filmed here.
Paul J. Pelz designed the lighthouse, built of California redwood in 1874.
Its lamp was first lit on 15 December 1874 and has been dark since the end of the Second World War; its first keepers were the sisters Mary and Ella Smith.
Free guided tours Tuesday to Sunday at 1, 2 and 3pm; closed Mondays and holidays. The park is open daily.
The Bradbury Building
Tom goes back to architecture and to an interview under the Bradbury’s glass roof. Another candidate is waiting for the same job. She turns down coffee, then changes her mind, and tells him her name.
Tom’s return to architecture, the interview and meeting Autumn.
304 South Broadway, at Third Street, Los Angeles
Tom comes here for the job interview near the end of the film, an important meeting in the Conservancy’s words.
Built in 1893, it is the oldest commercial building in the centre of the city.
Behind plain brick, five storeys of iron railings and open cage lifts rise to a glass roof.
The architect is disputed between Sumner Hunt and George Wyman.
Offices, with the ground floor of the court open to visitors in working hours; casual visitors may go up to the first landing.
Downtown · Saturdays 9:45am · $25 · $18 members and under-18s
The Conservancy’s weekly walk through the old downtown, the same streets as its own (500) Days of Summer tour.
Book a place14 places you can visit: all but one in a dozen downtown blocks, and a lighthouse on the coast. Tom’s home is not mapped.
Pins mark public places; private homes are named but not pinned.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: building · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. An apartment building with shops at street level. See it from Main Street; the Conservancy’s tour starts here.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: building · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A residential hotel. Look at the Fourth Street front and up at “The Van Nuys” on the parapet.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: building · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. Apartments. Stand across Spring Street and look at the cornice of lion heads.
400 South Main Street, at Fourth Street, Los Angeles
Old Bank DVD, in this building, plays the video and record store.
An apartment building with shops at street level. See it from Main Street; the Conservancy’s tour starts here.
103 West Fourth Street, Los Angeles
Its lobby is where Tom and his friends hang out.
A residential hotel. Look at the Fourth Street front and up at “The Van Nuys” on the parapet.
408 South Spring Street, Los Angeles
Tom points it out from his bench and calls it L.A.’s first skyscraper.
Apartments. Stand across Spring Street and look at the cornice of lion heads.
Stay
A hotel down the street from the Eastern Columbia.
South Broadway
A 174-room hotel in the former Los Angeles Railway headquarters at 1060 South Broadway, a few blocks down from the Eastern Columbia and the Broadway Bar, with a rooftop pool.
See the hotelGo there
The Conservancy’s Saturday walks through the old downtown and the theatre district, and marketplace tours.
Downtown · Saturdays 9:45am · $25 · $18 members and under-18s
The Conservancy’s weekly walk through the old downtown, the same streets as its own (500) Days of Summer tour.
Book a placeBroadway · Saturdays 10am · $25 · $18 members and under-18s
The Conservancy’s weekly walk through Broadway’s historic theatre district.
Book a placeDowntown
Live marketplace results for walking tours of downtown Los Angeles. None is about this film.
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Compare toursSan Pedro
Live marketplace results for tours in San Pedro and the harbour. None is about this film.
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Take it home
The book Tom reads, and the song album.
Alain de Botton
The book Tom is seen reading, about how buildings make us feel. Vintage paperback.
Find the bookVarious artists · CD, 2009
The film’s song album on Sire Records, released on 14 July 2009, three days before the film opened.
Live marketplace search · listings and condition change
Find a copyDates, prices, rooms and stock change: confirm with the provider before you travel or buy. A stay or tour is described as a filming location only where the card says so.
Every place and moment behind this page, with sources.
14 of 14 places · 14 of 14 Moments
400 South Main Street, at Fourth Street, Los Angeles
Old Bank DVD in the San Fernando Building plays the video and record store.
103 West Fourth Street, Los Angeles
The Barclay’s lobby is where Tom and his friends hang out.
408 South Spring Street, Los Angeles
From the bench, Tom points out the Braly Block as L.A.’s first skyscraper.
304 South Broadway, at Third Street, Los Angeles
Tom’s architecture job interview is at the Bradbury Building, where he meets Autumn.
307 South Broadway, Los Angeles
Tom and Summer watch The Graduate at the Million Dollar Theatre.
317 South Broadway, Los Angeles
A scene of Tom and Summer shopping for fruit at Grand Central Market is cut from the film.
Beside Angels Flight, off Hill Street, Bunker Hill, Los Angeles
On Angels Knoll, Tom shows Summer the buildings he loves.
316 West Second Street, Los Angeles
The Redwood plays the office bar where Tom, Summer and their workmates do karaoke.
Grand Park, between First and Temple Streets, near Grand Avenue, Los Angeles
Tom dances through the Civic Center Mall at the fountain.
833–835 South Spring Street, between Eighth and Ninth Streets, Los Angeles
The Fenton Building plays the greeting card company where Tom writes.
811 West Seventh Street, Los Angeles
Tom names the Fine Arts Building’s architects as among his favourites.
849 South Broadway, across from the Orpheum Theatre, Los Angeles
The Eastern Columbia Building is another of Tom’s favourites.
830 South Broadway, next to the Orpheum Theatre, Los Angeles
At the Broadway Bar, Tom stands up for Summer and is punched.
807 West Paseo del Mar, Point Fermin Park, San Pedro, Los Angeles
Millie’s wedding is filmed at Point Fermin Lighthouse.
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