  (Abridged) We analyze the UBVI color-magnitude diagrams towards the Galactic
bulge in a relatively low-reddening region of Baade's Window. The dereddened
red giant branch is very wide [~1.0 mag in (U-B)_0 and ~0.4 mag in (B-V)_0 and
(V-I)_0], indicating a significant dispersion of stellar metallicities, which
by comparison with the theoretical isochrones and data for Galactic clusters we
estimate to lie between approximately -0.7< [Fe/H] < +0.3. We also discuss the
metallicity dependence of the red clump I-band brightness and we show that it
is between 0.1-0.2 mag dex^{-1}. This agrees well with the previous empirical
determinations and the models of stellar evolution.
  The de-reddened (V-I)_0 color of the red clump in the observed bulge field is
<(V-I)_0> = 1.066, sigma_{(V-I)_0} = 0.14, i.e. 0.056 mag redder than the local
stars with good parallaxes measured by Hipparcos. When we use our data to
re-derive the red clump distance to the Galactic center, we obtain the
Galactocentric distance modulus \mu_{0,GC}=14.69 +- 0.1 mag (R_0=8.67 +- 0.4
kpc), with error dominated by the systematics of photometric calibration. We
then discuss the systematics of the red clump method and how they affect the
red clump distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud. We argue that the value of
distance modulus \mu_{0,LMC}=18.24 +- 0.08 (44.5 +- 1.7 kpc), recently refined
by Udalski, is currently the most secure and robust of all LMC distance
estimates. This has the effect of increasing any LMC-tied Hubble constant by
about 12%, including the recent determinations by the HST Key Project and
Sandage et al.
  The UBVI photometry is available through the anonymous ftp service.
