Happy Holidays-Holiday Hours

Happy Holidays from Metropolis Books, we will be open today Christmas Eve until 4:00 pm, but closed December 25th. thru December 28th. We will reopen the 29th. and 30th. regular hours from 11-6 and close New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. We will reopen January 2nd. from 11-6:00 pm.

Thank you for making 2009 a banner year for us!!!

500 Days of Summer and Metropolis Books

I must admit I loved that movie, and well the product placement of our sign in one of the sequences. Hmmm, I think I was suppose to take our sign in while the film shoot was going on, I sort of forgot.

Downtown LA's Dynamic Decade

We are lucky enough to be part of it!! Reprint from the Downtown News, written by Jon Regardie


Detailing the most Important Projects of the last decade.

When Tom Gilmore announced plans to turn a trio of buildings not far from Skid Row into market-rate apartments, many were skeptical. “To those who say it is not a great neighborhood,” said Gilmore at the time, “we just bought the neighborhood.” The 70-unit San Fernando Building came online in fall 2000, followed the next year by the 104-apartment Hellman Building and the 56-residence Continental Building. The corner of Fourth and Main streets has since become the epicenter of street life in the district, as businesses including Pete’s Café, Metropolis Books, Banquette, the OBD Market and Old Bank DVD have followed.Impact: At $33 million and 230 units, the Old Bank District was smaller in scale and budget than many later projects in Downtown. Yet none was more influential or precedent setting. Gilmore was the first developer to test the city’s new Adaptive Reuse Ordinance, which made it easier and less expensive to turn dead office structures into housing. He somehow secured the money, and as construction crews worked, other developers waited to see if the buildings could be transformed and if people would move in; many feared it would be an expensive flop. Instead, Gilmore found a sizeable market of people ready to embrace urban living, and in the wake of his success, developers flocked to the area, buying up nearly every old building available (and crazily ratcheting up the price of once un-sellable structures) and turning them into housing. The Old Bank District may have lacked the gloss of Disney Hall and the glitz of L.A. Live, but it opened doors no other project in Downtown did — without the Old Bank District, Downtown would not have seen the residential revolution of the past decade.

Thursday Dec. 10th. Art Walk Night-7:00 pm

Art Walk Night!!!
Hannah Dennison & Susan Kandel

Hannah Dennsion continues the Vicky Hill mystery series with Expose'! Vicky is an ambitious trainee newspaper reporter who dreams of becoming a famous investigative journalist but finds herself stuck writing obituaries for the Gipping Gazette. Vicky's also the daughter of legendary criminal, The Fog-a fact she must keep secret.

Mystery author Susan Kandel returns with a new installment in her Cece Caruso series - Dial H for Hitchcock! Cece is a clothes obsessed, divorced ex-beauty queen who lives in Ventura - and solves crimes. Her other novels include I Dreamed I Married Perry Mason, Not a Girl Detective, Shamus in the Green Room, and Christietown.

Saturday The Good Men Project-5:00 pm

Don't miss The Good Men Project this Saturday December 5th. at 5:00 pm

The Good Men Project: Real Stories from the Front Lines of Modern Manhood (Edited by James Houghton, Larry Bean, & Tom Matlack) is an anthology of stories by men-rich, poor, black, white, gay, straight, urban, rural, famous, ordinary--all first-person narratives about a moment of insight in their lives. Collectively, their experiences help define what it means to be a man in America today. The Good Men Project includes the book, a documentary film, live events and an online discussion. All proceeds go to The Good Men Foundation, which supports at-risk boys.