A.
The arrival center at the Westworld resort, where guests are first
greeted and get outfitted for their entrance to the Westworld theme park.
Q. When do we see it?
A. In Episode 2, when William arrives at Westworld by monorail and is met by the female greeter, Angela.
They ride up a long escalator to an upper level where William is
offered a choice of Western attire, including a black or white hat.
When he asks his attractive guide if she's real or a robot 'host', she
replies: "If you can't tell, does it matter?"
The same long escalator plays a key role in the season's final episode
(10) when Maeve attempts to escape down it to the monorail train,
Q. What is it in real life?
A. Actual escalators.
Q. Where can I find it in real life?
A. The main scene we're talking about, where William arrives at Westworld and rides up the escalator with the woman, was filmed at the Los Angeles Convention Center, at 1201 S. Figueroa Street, in downtown Los Angeles.
But be warned that those escalators are not on the ground level. To be more exact, it was filmed up on the second level, on the escalators that lead from the second-level West Hall Foyer up to the third-level 500-Series Lobby.
To reach these Westworld escalators (with their distinctive black & white ceiling), you have to enter the Convention Center through the West Hall entrance, and ride the escalators you see up to theWest Hall Lobby, then proceed straight ahead to the West Hall Foyer, where you'll see those Westworld escalators right in front of you.
Oddly enough, the West Hall isn't on the west side of the Convention Center. It's
at the north end, and its entrance faces east. But you will be
basically walking west when you enter it. It's the entrance
closest to the Staples Center, at the west end of 12th Street, west of Figueroa. Here's a
look at that entrance.
But
if that sounds confusing, I made it easy for you: I'm including a video
of the walk from the entrance all the way up to those escalators.
Here is a virtual tour of the Los Angeles Convention Center's west lobby,
showing how to reach those "Westworld" escalators from the Center's entrance:
(The video is from the Convention Center's official website.)
The
entrance is right next to the Staples Center (where the Lakers play),
and is also just a short walk from the Microsoft Theatre at L.A. Live.
And here's a photosphere of the interior, with those escalators.
However, there are other escalator scenes in the Westworld series,
which
are supposed to also be at the Westworld/Delos headquarters, such as in
Episode 6, when we see the lab geek show Maeve around the facility.
But those aren't the same escalators, and those scenes weren't shot at the L.A. Convention Center.
Instead, they filmed
those other scenes at the Pacific Design Center,
a unique multi-building complex for the design community, which you'll find at 8687 Melrose Ave, , in West Hollywood.
The most memorable example of this is that great shot looking down a well of escalators that looks like a work of abstract art:
The
Center is made up of three unique buildings: the original Blue center
(dubbed "The Blue Whale"), plus the more recent Green and Red centers.
The escalators seen above appear to be located on the side of the
Blue building, inside a cylindrical, glass tower (which you can see here).
But the more mundane shots, such as the one below, where
the lab tech is escorting Maeve around the Westworld operations
center, were also shot inside the Pacific Design Center:
The
Pacific Design Center and its elevators also made a major reappearance
in the finale (Episode 10), in the scenes where Maeve and her host
accomplices attacked human techs and took control of the lab.
Below are three matching images of escalators in the PDC:
(Click on them for larger images.)
A.
It took me forever to track down that escalator in the L.A. Convention
Center. I kept Googling for photos of L.A. escalators, looking for
that unique black & white ceiling pattern, without much luck. It finally turned
up that video of the escalators you see above, as part of a virtual tour of the
Convention Center. And that video left no doubt.
The escalators at the Pacific Design Center were easier to find.
When I image-searched Google for that abstract-art view of the
spiraling escalators, it immediately turned up a nearly-identical photo that
looked just like the shot used in Westworld. And that image
identified it as the Pacific Design Center. Checking other photos
of that center's interior confirmed it.