A Bevy of Benches

MaGuire Gardens

West end of Central Library

5th and Flower streets downtown

Benches offer proximity to pools, waterfalls, trees and grass--amid downtown’s tallest, shiniest skyscrapers. Best time to visit: lunch for people-watching, early evening to see buildings ablaze at sunset.

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Palisades Park

Ocean Avenue between Colorado Avenue & San Vicente Boulevard, Santa Monica

West-facing benches overlook the Pacific 100 feet below--perhaps the most famous view of a beach in the world, all the lovelier because the park has been spruced up. Best time to visit: an hour before sunset.

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Tyrone Power grave site

Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery

6000 Santa Monica Blvd.

A large upright book, an urn, the masks of Comedy and Tragedy and the words of Shakespeare grace Power’s tomb--which is also a marble bench, a cool resting place. Best time to visit: late afternoon.

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The Rose Garden at Exposition Park

Exposition Boulevard between Figueroa Street and Vermont Avenue.

A sunken garden with more than 15,000 rose bushes and four gazebos with modest white metal benches. The benches that circle the fountain are of wood slats with Nouveau knockoff ironwork; they attract the most people and pigeons. Best time to visit: late morning.

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Fern Dell

Fern Dell Drive at Black Oak Drive

Los Feliz

Free-standing and built-in concrete benches line the brook-side path of Griffith Park’s faux rain forest. Some are ensconced in moss-covered rocks. Best time to visit: morning, when sprinklers have filled the air with mist.

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Plaza at El Pueblo de Los Angeles historic monument

Olvera Street downtown

Two concentric circles of built-in brick benches, one facing in, one out. The closest thing to a Spanish-style zocalo in Los Angeles. Best time to visit: lunch or evening.

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Union Station waiting room

800 N. Alameda at Los Angeles Street, downtown

Not benches exactly but massive carved wood armchairs linked together; streamline styling makes them appear to be almost in motion. Best time to visit: late morning.