L.A. Noire: 1947 Los Angeles, Street by Street

Los Angeles in 1947 begins at its station. Union Station opened in May 1939 as the Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal, and became known as the Last of the Great Railway Stations built in the United States. L.A. Noire recreates it as it looked in the late 1940s, a decade old and the gateway to a booming city. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980, and it still handles the city's trains today.

Visitor guidance: A working rail station; the historic main hall is free to walk through.

Bunker Hill is the game's lost city. In L.A. Noire it is a close recreation of the neighbourhood as it looked in 1947, the crowded hill just above downtown. Historically, Bunker Hill was a large hill that separated the Victorian-era Downtown from the western end of the city. In the late 20th century the hill was lowered in elevation and the entire area was redeveloped, so the streets Phelps drove are mostly gone; today the hill carries modern high-rises instead.

Location precision: Bunker Hill is a district rather than a single address; the pin marks its historic core.

Visitor guidance: A downtown neighbourhood; Angels Flight and the old downtown are a short walk downhill.

Halfway down the hill runs the game's little railway. Angels Flight is a historic narrow-gauge funicular in the Bunker Hill district, and in L.A. Noire it is an interactive component you can ride. Its two cars, Olivet and Sinai, run in opposite directions on a shared cable, covering 298 feet over a vertical gain of 96 feet. The original railway, alongside the Third Street Tunnel, operated from 1901 until 1969.

Visitor guidance: Runs between Hill Street and the top of Bunker Hill; check that it is operating before you go.

Wilshire's art deco palace is one of the landmarks the game scatters across the map. Bullocks Wilshire, at 3050 Wilshire Boulevard, is a 230,000-square-foot Art Deco building. It opened in September 1929 as a luxury department store, and in L.A. Noire it appears as a landmark the player can find. The department-store years are over: the building is now owned by Southwestern Law School.

Visitor guidance: The building is a working law school; the art deco exterior is best seen from Wilshire Boulevard.

Hollywood's most famous cinema is one of the game's discoverable landmarks. Grauman's Chinese Theatre is a movie palace on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It opened on May 18, 1927, with the premiere of Cecil B. DeMille's The King of Kings. In its forecourt, concrete blocks bear the signatures, footprints and handprints of popular motion picture personalities from the 1920s to the present day.

Visitor guidance: On the Hollywood Walk of Fame; the forecourt is open and free to walk through.

The old comedy factory is one of the game's explorable locations. Keystone Studios was founded in Edendale, now part of Echo Park, on July 4, 1912, by Mack Sennett, and its original lot became an explorable location and a major plot element in L.A. Noire. The main building was the first totally enclosed film stage and studio in history, and it is still standing at 1712 Glendale Boulevard, now used as a public storage facility.

Visitor guidance: The old studio is a public storage building on Glendale Boulevard; view it from the street.

One landmark in the game had no business existing in 1947. The Babylon set was built for D. W. Griffith's 1916 film Intolerance, a to-scale recreation of the Gates of Babylon standing 300 feet tall and adorned with gigantic elephant statues. It stood at the intersection of Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards, where the Vista Theatre now stands, and was torn down long before 1947. L.A. Noire knowingly puts it back, making the set accessible in the case The Fallen Idol.

Location precision: The set was demolished; the pin marks the Vista Theatre, which now occupies the site.

Visitor guidance: The set is gone; the Vista Theatre now occupies the spot at Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards.

The story ends where the city drains. The Los Angeles River flows nearly 51 miles from Canoga Park through the San Fernando Valley and downtown to its mouth at Long Beach, and it now runs through a concrete channel on a fixed course. L.A. Noire uses the river as a location for missions and makes it available in free roam. In the game's final case, the chase runs into the Los Angeles River tunnels, and Phelps is washed away by a violent current and dies.

Location precision: The river is a 51-mile channel; the pin marks a stretch just north of downtown.

Visitor guidance: The concrete channel is visible from the downtown bridges that cross it.