Your support of our preservation and advocacy efforts is so very much appreciated, and we’d love to say thank you in person before the year is over.

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We are so grateful to everyone who gets this streaming webinar channel newsletter, but especially to our paid subscribers. Their generous support ($50/month or $100/year) makes it possible for us to advocate to save Beaulyland, Marilyn Monroe’s house and other special landmarks at immediate risk of being lost, and to keep eyes peeled for demolition threatened houses that can be moved to Altadena. We couldn’t do it without them!

Email updates on this channel are infrequent since we aren’t producing new webinars, but we post regularly on our main newsletter, where you’ll learn about upcoming Esotouric tours like the new Hollywood Noir (11/29) and Richard’s special birthday walk exploring two lesser known National Register Districts, Alvarado Terrace and South Bonnie Brae Tract with a stop for cake in a gothic mansion garden (11/15).

Today’s video is pretty exciting for lovers of historic nightclubs and streamline moderne architecture: it shows that the facade of Hollywood’s landmarked Earl Carroll Theatre is once again painted in the precise shades of green selected by master architect Gordon B. Kaufmann (Los Angeles Times, Santa Anita Park) to evoke speed when viewed from a moving vehicle.

The color scheme, recreated from flecks of the original paint still present under many layers of advertising signage—most recently, a recreation of the 1969 Aquarius Theater mural created for Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)—is Part One of a long-promised restoration that was a condition of permitting for the huge apartment house to the west.

We’ve been advocating for the City to hold developer Essex to that condition, especially once the building was listed for sale. It’s great to see work back on track.

Part Two will bring back the neon portrait of showgirl Beryl Wallace (namesake of The Wallace on Sunset apartments), who with her partner Earl Carroll made the nightclub the place to be seen in pre-war Hollywood.

The lovers died in a 1948 plane crash, and soon will have a second beautiful memorial that illuminates the night once more.

We’ll be checking back on the Earl Carroll to see the neon go up. For now, those green stripes are an alluring, minty hint of what’s to come.

Yours for Los Angeles,

Kim & Richard

Esotouric

Are you on social media? We’re on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, Substack Notes, TikTok, Nextdoor and Reddit sharing preservation news as it happens. New: some of these newsletters are on Medium, too.

Our work—leading tours and historic preservation and cultural landmark advocacy—is about building a bridge between Los Angeles’ past and its future, and not allowing the corrupt, greedy, inept and misguided players who hold present power to destroy the city’s soul and body. If you’d like to support our efforts to be the voice of places worth preserving, we have a tip jar, vintage Los Angeles webinars available to stream, in-person tours and a souvenir shop you can browse in. We’ve also got recommended reading bookshelves on Amazon and the Bookshop indie bookstore site. And did you know we offer private versions of our walking tours for groups big or small? Or just share this link with other people who care.

Tour Gift Certificates

UPCOMING WALKING TOURS

• Highland Park Arroyo Time Travel Trip (11/8) • Richard’s Birthday: Alvarado Terrace & South Bonnie Brae Tract (11/15) • The Real Black Dahlia (11/22) • Hollywood Noir (11/29) • Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice (12/6) • Westlake Park Time Travel Trip (12/13) • Miracle Mile Marvels & Madness (Sunday, 12/21) • Human Sacrifice: The Black Dahlia, Elisa Lam, Heidi Planck & Skid Row Slasher Cases (12/27)

We are so grateful to everyone who gets this streaming webinar channel newsletter, but especially to our paid subscribers. Their generous support ($50/month or $100/year) makes it possible for us to advocate to save the Bronson corner court bungalows, Marilyn Monroe’s house, Sunshine the last Bunker Hill palm tree and other special landmarks at immediate risk of being lost. We couldn’t do it without them!

Email updates on this channel are infrequent since we aren’t producing new webinars, but we post regularly on our main newsletter, where you’ll learn about upcoming Esotouric tours like the new Hollywood Noir (11/29), inspired when NoirCon announced it would honor us in October with an award for keeping Los Angeles noir alive through guided tours and public corruption court reporting.

Today’s video post is our recent interview on LAist’s Morning Edition, talking about the remarkable discovery of a previously unknown single family home designed by master architect Arthur B. Benton.

What a happy story, right? Wrong.

Beaulyland (1912) at 284 South Coronado in the Westlake District is owned by an investment group that seeks to heavily remodel it into small apartments, even as their lender prepares to send the property into foreclosure and no demolition permit has yet been granted.

But because this is “a housing project,” under State law the city’s Office of Historic Resources will not even accept a landmark nomination for consideration. If you scroll down to “Updates” on our original newsletter about the discovery, you can read what Emma Howard from Council District 13 had to say about it.

So this message goes out to all our wealthy readers who love great Southern California architecture and are looking for a special project: can’t someone please make the current owner or the lender of Beaulyland an offer they can’t refuse, in order to preserve and protect and restore it?

Beaulyland could absolutely be converted into multi-family housing, as happened with many of the great Bunker Hill and Angeleno Heights mansions. But any such a conversion should be done sensitively, with an aim to retain the historic features, and not by demolishing the iconic poured concrete garage that bears the very name of this beautiful house.

Are you or someone you forward this newsletter going to be Beaulyland’s guardian angel?

Downtown Los Angeles is a true time machine, and as much as we seen, we never say we’ve seen it all. Just discovered: a stunning pair of Pre-Columbian figures ushering guests beneath Broadway at the Million Dollar Theatre. Mayan Revival was in fashion in the 1920s, and the iconography was revived in the 1960s and 1970s around the Chicano mural scene, but the Million Dollar was already a center for Mexican film and performing arts in the 1950s, so it’s hard to know when these might have been painted. Hope someone remembers them!

We used to give bus tours, and loved it, but now that our Los Angeles history excursions are on foot we discover such amazing artifacts! Like this c. 1895 ornamental iron fence, imported from the east, which you’ll see on Saturday’s Angelino Heights tour.

Yours for Los Angeles,

Kim & Richard

Esotouric

Are you on social media? We’re on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, Substack Notes, TikTok, Nextdoor and Reddit sharing preservation news as it happens. New: some of these newsletters are on Medium, too.

Our work—leading tours and historic preservation and cultural landmark advocacy—is about building a bridge between Los Angeles’ past and its future, and not allowing the corrupt, greedy, inept and misguided players who hold present power to destroy the city’s soul and body. If you’d like to support our efforts to be the voice of places worth preserving, we have a tip jar, vintage Los Angeles webinars available to stream, in-person tours and a souvenir shop you can browse in. We’ve also got recommended reading bookshelves on Amazon and the Bookshop indie bookstore site. And did you know we offer private versions of our walking tours for groups big or small? Or just share this link with other people who care.

Tour Gift Certificates

UPCOMING WALKING TOURS

• Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue (9/27) • Charles Bukowski’s Westlake (10/4) • Know Your Downtown LA: Bradbury Building, Basements, Dutch Chocolate Shop (10/11) • The Run: Gay Downtown History (10/18) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 (11/1) • Highland Park Arroyo Time Travel Trip (11/8) • Richard’s Birthday: Alvarado Terrace & South Bonnie Brae Tract (11/15) • The Real Black Dahlia (11/22) • Hollywood Noir (11/29) • Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice (12/6) • Westlake Park Time Travel Trip (12/13) • Miracle Mile Marvels & Madness (Sunday, 12/21) • Human Sacrifice: The Black Dahlia, Elisa Lam, Heidi Planck & Skid Row Slasher Cases (12/27)

We are so grateful to everyone who gets this streaming webinar channel newsletter, but especially to our paid subscribers. Their generous support ($50/month or $100/year) makes it possible for us to advocate to save Norms Coffee Shop, The Morrison Hotel, the Little Country Church of Hollywood gardens and other special places at immediate risk of being lost. We couldn’t do it without them!

Email updates on this channel are infrequent since we aren’t producing new webinars, but we post regularly on our main newsletter, where you’ll learn about upcoming Esotouric tours (including the free 4/15 memorial procession for mummified old west outlaw Elmer McCurdy) and breaking historic preservation news, and see short videos of places in peril.

We post today to wish a happy Los Angeles Before the Freeways publication week to preservation pal Nathan Marsak. To honor him, we dug up this unpublished 2020 Cranky Preservationist video, a love letter to the then-perfect time capsule 900 S. Park View block in Westlake. The featured houses are just rubble now, but Nathan continues to preach the gospel of saving old L.A. with wit and fire.

About the Cranky Preservationist series: Architectural historian Nathan Marsak loves Los Angeles, and hates to see important buildings neglected and abused, whether by slumlord owners or the savage public. Follow him on his urban adventures as he sees something that looks like crap, opens his yap and spontaneously lets you know exactly why this place matters.

Episode 30—shot in 2020 and just discovered in Esotouric’s dusty digital archives— finds Nathan and his wee pal the Preservation Imp horrified by a developer’s plans to knock down 924-930 South Park View Street, a pair of charming early 20th century houses on a block that time forgot.

Will the tiny tots at the Small World of Joy preschool next door get an early education in the horrors of life in Los Angeles? You know it! Since we filmed, one house burned up and both were demolished. Last we checked, someone was living in a tent in the vacant double lot.

We hope you enjoy this trip to a place you can’t visit anymore, and that it will inspire you to stick up for L.A.’s historic housing stock while you still can.

If you like these Cranky Preservationist videos, you’ll probably like Nathan’s R.I.P. Los Angeles blog, too, so check it out at http://www.RIPLosAngeles.com.

Where will the Cranky Preservationist turn up next? Stay tuned!

Yours for Los Angeles,

Kim & Richard

Esotouric

Are you on social media? We’re on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, Substack Notes, TikTok and Reddit sharing preservation news as it happens. New: we’re on Nextdoor now, too.

Our work—leading tours and historic preservation and cultural landmark advocacy—is about building a bridge between Los Angeles' past and its future, and not allowing the corrupt, greedy, inept and misguided players who hold present power to destroy the city's soul and body. If you’d like to support our efforts to be the voice of places worth preserving, we have a tip jar, vintage Los Angeles webinars available to stream, in-person tours and a souvenir shop you can browse in. We’ve also got recommended reading bookshelves on Amazon and the Bookshop indie bookstore site. And did you know we offer private versions of our walking tours for groups big or small? Or just share this link with other people who care.

Tour Gift Certificates

UPCOMING WALKING TOURS

• Franklin Village Old Hollywood (Sun. 3/30) • John Fante’s Downtown L.A. (Sat. 4/5) • Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue (Sat. 4/12) • Elmer McCurdy’s Main Street Revival (4/15) • Leo Politi Loves Los Angeles (Sat. 4/19) • Downtown Los Angeles is for Book Lovers (Sat. 4/26) • Human Sacrifice: The Black Dahlia, Elisa Lam, Heidi Planck & Skid Row Slasher Cases (5/3) • Charles Bukowski’s Westlake (5/10) • Highland Park Arroyo Time Travel Trip (5/17) • The Run: Gay Downtown History (5/24) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 (5/31) • Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue (6/7) • Raymond Chandler’s Noir Downtown Los Angeles (6/14) • Miracle Mile Marvels & Madness (6/22) • Westlake Park Time Travel Trip (6/28) • Film Noir / Real Noir (7/12) • The Real Black Dahlia (7/19) • Broadway (7/26)

We are so grateful to everyone who gets this streaming webinar channel newsletter, but especially to our paid subscribers. Their generous support ($50/month or $100/year) makes it possible for us to advocate to save Norms Coffee Shop, The Morrison Hotel, the Little Country Church of Hollywood gardens and other special places at immediate risk of being lost. We couldn’t do it without them!

Email updates on this channel are infrequent since we aren’t producing new webinars, but we post regularly on our main newsletter, where you’ll learn about upcoming Esotouric tours (including the free 4/15 memorial procession for mummified old west outlaw Elmer McCurdy) and breaking historic preservation news, and see short videos of places in peril.

The video above, starring the Preservation Imp, is a bonus outtake from this week’s newsletter visit to a gorgeous 1939 Hollywood Regency courtyard apartment building that’s completely empty and slated for demolition—even as the saga of the tenants’ eviction is soon to be aired in open court as councilmember Curren Price is tried on public corruption charges.

84 stunning pre-war apartments, sitting empty in the heart of Hollywood? It’s true, and the 86-year-old pink magnolia is flowering for only the bees and hummingbirds to enjoy. We’d like to see it saved—and the apartments, too!

Yours for Los Angeles,

Kim & Richard

Esotouric

Are you on social media? We’re on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, Substack Notes, TikTok and Reddit sharing preservation news as it happens. New: we’re on Nextdoor now, too.

Our work—leading tours and historic preservation and cultural landmark advocacy—is about building a bridge between Los Angeles' past and its future, and not allowing the corrupt, greedy, inept and misguided players who hold present power to destroy the city's soul and body. If you’d like to support our efforts to be the voice of places worth preserving, we have a tip jar, vintage Los Angeles webinars available to stream, in-person tours and a souvenir shop you can browse in. We’ve also got recommended reading bookshelves on Amazon and the Bookshop indie bookstore site. And did you know we offer private versions of our walking tours for groups big or small? Or just share this link with other people who care.

Tour Gift Certificates

UPCOMING WALKING TOURS

• The Real Black Dahlia (Sat. 3/1) • Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice Downtown L.A. (Sat. 3/8) • Bunker Hill, Dead and Alive (Sat. 3/15) • Raymond Chandler’s Noir Downtown Los Angeles (Sat. 3/22) • Franklin Village Old Hollywood (Sun. 3/30) • John Fante’s Downtown L.A. (Sat. 4/5) • Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue (Sat. 4/12) • Elmer McCurdy’s Main Street Revival (4/15) • Leo Politi Loves Los Angeles (Sat. 4/19) • Downtown Los Angeles is for Book Lovers (Sat. 4/26) • Human Sacrifice: The Black Dahlia, Elisa Lam, Heidi Planck & Skid Row Slasher Cases (5/3) • Charles Bukowski’s Westlake (5/10) • Highland Park Arroyo Time Travel Trip (5/17) • The Run: Gay Downtown History (5/24) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 (5/31) • Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue (6/7) • Raymond Chandler’s Noir Downtown Los Angeles (6/14) • Miracle Mile Marvels & Madness (6/22) • Westlake Park Time Travel Trip (6/28) • Film Noir / Real Noir (7/12) • The Real Black Dahlia (7/19) • Broadway (7/26)

We are so grateful to everyone who gets this streaming webinar channel newsletter, but especially to our paid subscribers. Their generous support ($50/month or $100/year) makes it possible for us to advocate to save Norms Coffee Shop and other special places at immediate risk of being lost. We couldn’t do it without them!

Maybe you’ve been thinking of subscribing, and need a little nudge. How about a special two-for-one walking tour ticket offer?

Should you be in Los Angeles for the holidays and feel like exploring some dark corners of Downtown Los Angeles, we hope you’ll be our guest on a rare weekday walking tour on Thursday, December 26 starting at 10:30, Human Sacrifice: The Black Dahlia, Elisa Lam & Skid Row Slasher Cases.

Special offer for our paid subscribers (to this video channel, or our main preservation newsletter) and their guests: for every $50 ticket you buy, you can bring a friend for free. Brand new subscribers are welcome. Join us, do!

Yours for Los Angeles,

Kim & Richard

Esotouric

Are you on social media? We’re on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, Substack Notes, TikTok and Reddit sharing preservation news as it happens.

Our work—leading tours and historic preservation and cultural landmark advocacy—is about building a bridge between Los Angeles' past and its future, and not allowing the corrupt, greedy, inept and misguided players who hold present power to destroy the city's soul and body. If you’d like to support our efforts to be the voice of places worth preserving, we have a tip jar and a subscriber edition of our main newsletter, in-person tours and a souvenir shop you can browse in. We’ve also got recommended reading bookshelves on Amazon and the Bookshop indie bookstore site. And did you know we offer private versions of our walking tours for groups big or small? Or just share this link with other people who care.

Tour Gift Certificates

UPCOMING WALKING TOURS

• Human Sacrifice: The Black Dahlia, Elisa Lam, Heidi Planck & Skid Row Slasher (Thurs. 12/26) • Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue (Sat. 1/18) • Broadway (Sat. 1/25) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 (Sat. 2/1) • Film Noir / Real Noir (Sat. 2/15) • The Real Black Dahlia (Sat. 3/1) • Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice Downtown L.A. (Sat. 3/8) • Bunker Hill, Dead and Alive (Sat. 3/15) • Raymond Chandler’s Noir Downtown Los Angeles (Sat. 3/22) • Franklin Village Old Hollywood (Sun. 3/30) • John Fante’s Downtown L.A. (Sat. 4/5) • Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue (Sat. 4/12) • Leo Politi Loves Los Angeles (Sat. 4/19) • Downtown Los Angeles is for Book Lovers (Sat. 4/26)

This post is supplemental to the Esotouric video newsletter about what’s going on with the Subway Terminal Building, published on October 8, 2024 at this link.

This audio track is the proposed Subway Terminal Building basement concourse redevelopment presentation that was made to the Cultural Heritage Commission on August 20, 2020 by George Hajjar and Hiroe Fujimoto of Cloud Kitchens and Katie Horak of Architectural Resources Group. The slideshow that is referenced in the presentation can be seen here.

Yours for Los Angeles,

Kim & Richard

Esotouric

Are you on social media? We’re on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, Substack Notes, TikTok and Reddit sharing preservation news as it happens.

Our work—leading tours and historic preservation and cultural landmark advocacy—is about building a bridge between Los Angeles' past and its future, and not allowing the corrupt, greedy, inept and misguided players who hold present power to destroy the city's soul and body. If you’d like to support our efforts to be the voice of places worth preserving, we have a tip jar and a subscriber edition of our main newsletter, vintage Los Angeles webinars available to stream, in-person tours and a souvenir shop you can browse in. We’ve also got recommended reading bookshelves on Amazon and the Bookshop indie bookstore site. And did you know we offer private versions of our walking tours for groups big or small? Or just share this link with other people who care.

Tour Gift Certificates

UPCOMING BUS & WALKING TOURS

• Broadway: Downtown Los Angeles’ Beautiful, Magical Mess (Sat. 10/12) • The Run: Gay Downtown L.A. History (Sun. 10/13) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 (Sun. 10/27) • Westlake Park Time Travel Trip (Sat. 11/2) • The 1910 Bombing of the Los Angeles Times Walking Tour with Detective Mike Digby (Sat. 11/9) • Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice Downtown L.A. (Sat. 11/16) • Charles Bukowski’s Westlake (Sat. 11/23) • Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue (Sat. 12/7) • Raymond Chandler’s Noir Downtown Los Angeles (Sat. 12/14) • Miracle Mile Marvels & Madness (Sun. 12/22) • Human Sacrifice: The Black Dahlia, Elisa Lam, Heidi Planck & Skid Row Slasher (Thurs. 12/26)

Our special guest on May 5, 2020 is the preservation juggernaut John Girodo, who recently stepped down from his post on the board of Hollywood Heritage to spearhead the landmarking activities of the Art Deco Society of Los Angeles. The episode is a wide ranging ramble through the history of historic preservation in Hollywood, highlighting notable activists, lamenting public corruption, sharing redevelopment horror stories and the addressing the challenges facing quarantined Angelenos who love the history and landmark buildings of this threatened community.

On the agenda:

• Thoughts about the GoFundMe campaigns of the scrappy Larry Edmunds Bookshop and Arena Cinelounge and the well-heeled Amoeba Music, and the late lamented Aron’s Records.

• LeFrak’s project proposed to surround the Art Deco Attie Building (Playmates) and its beloved “You Are The Star” mural.

• The campaign for transparency around the American Cinematheque nonprofit’s efforts to sell the landmark Egyptian Theatre to Netflix.

• Proposed restoration of the Earl Carroll Theatre’s jaw dropping neon facade.

• How the CitizenM Hotel and Hollywood Center (formerly Hollywood Millennium). mega project stand to overwhelm the Capitol Records building and concerns about fast tracked permitting during the pandemic.

• John Girodo’s dream to turn the overgrown ruins of the Little Community Church of Hollywood (HCM #567) into a pocket park and the mysterious disappearance of essential pages in the landmarking file.

• The threatened garden court apartment buildings at 6220 Yucca, the incredible work done in his second floor apartment by performance art citizen activist John Walsh, life and death Metro Red Line whistleblowing, how history is whitewashed when free weeklies disappear from the internet and the literal collapse of Hollywood Boulevard.

• The abiding influence of Hollywood Heritage’s one-man un-wrecking crew Robert Nudelman.

• And what we all learned while helping to clean out John Walsh’s apartment after his death.

It’s a long, candid conversation, and one you won’t want to miss if you love Hollywood and care about keeping this unique corner of Los Angeles cool and culturally vibrant, despite the relentless efforts of international development, chain retail and our corrupt City Hall.

Links to learn more about our guest, the episode’s topics, and us:

John Girodo’s efforts ensured the landmarking of Musician’s Union Local 47 and the Earl Carroll Theatre, both designed by L.A. Times architect Gordon B. Kaufmann. He previously joined us for Episode #127: Fighting For the Soul of Los Angeles. Have a Hollywood preservation problem and need to talk to John? We’ll pass a message along.

Esotouric is our historic Los Angeles tour company, presently not operating due to the pandemic. We have a newsletter, a YouTube channel, and can be followed onTwitter, Facebook and Instagram.

As the American Cinematheque nonprofit seeks to sell the public resource Egyptian Theatre to Netflix; we seek transparency. Related: Oscars eligibility rules are changing in the face of coronavirus crisis.

Attie Building’s You Are The Star mural (Thomas Suriya, 1983)

Susan Goldsmith’s 1998 New Times feature about John Walsh’s work rooting out corruption in the Los Angeles subway project, “The Freak Who Stopped The Subway.”

Kim’s big score from John Walsh’s record collection: The Dream World of Dion McGregor, He Talks in His Sleep (background, hear it.)

Earl Carroll Theatre restoration project.

John Girodo’s efforts ensured the landmarking of Musician’s Union Local 47 and the Earl Carroll Theatre, both designed by L.A. Times architect Gordon B. Kaufmann. He previously joined us for Episode #127: Fighting For the Soul of Los Angeles. Have a Hollywood preservation problem and need to talk to John? We’ll pass a message along.

Esotouric is our historic Los Angeles tour company, presentlynot operating due to the pandemic. We have anewsletter, a YouTube channel, and can be followed onTwitter,Facebook andInstagram.

As the American Cinematheque nonprofit seeks to sell the public resource Egyptian Theatre to Netflix; we seek transparency. Related: Oscars eligibility rules are changing in the face of coronavirus crisis.

Attie Building’s You Are The Star mural (Thomas Suriya, 1983)

Susan Goldsmith’s 1998 New Times feature about John Walsh’s work rooting out corruption in the Los Angeles subway project, “The Freak Who Stopped The Subway.”

Kim’s big score from John Walsh’s record collection: The Dream World of Dion McGregor, He Talks in His Sleep (background, hear it.)

Earl Carroll Theatre restoration project.

Little Country Church of Hollywood Historic Cultural Monument Application (#567) — Incomplete

1601 N LAS PALMAS Project being built in the parking lot behind the Egyptian Theatre. Calls for the demolition of the Arena Cinema building (originally a market converted to multiple screens as extension of the Egyptian theatre in the 1980s). The project calls for retention of the brick storefronts (Baroque Books) on the West side of Las Palmas; with new construction on top.

Thanks for subscribing to our video newsletter, which mostly serves as a subscription channel for viewing the long form Los Angeles history webinars that kept us sane through the pandemic lock down.

One of those webinars, streamed live in March 2021, was dedicated to Paul R. Williams, the pioneering African-American L.A. architect. While his palatial Hollywood Regency residential work and commercial landmarks like the Beverly Hills Hotel are much beloved, Williams also designed a remarkable pocket sized mid-century modern tract house suburb, SeaView in Rancho Palos Verdes.

Built in 1960-61 by the Linde Construction Company on 10,000 square foot terraced lots, the nine house plans allowed for significant customization, including 80+ exterior variations, giving the original owners, many of them WW2 veterans taking advantage of no money down financing just as their GI benefits were expiring, the advantages of a custom built, architect designed home at middle class prices.

While Paul R. Williams has been widely celebrated in recent years, with his archive jointly accessioned by USC and The Getty and houses in metropolitan Los Angeles selling at a premium, SeaView has remained a well-kept secret on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

It fell to the happy residents, including then teenage architecture aficionado Price T. Morgan and native son and preservationist Larry Paul, to research the history, salvage unique light fixtures and room dividers that tasteless new home owners were throwing out, and tell the neighborhood’s story to locals and a wider audience.

In 2017, as part of our tenth anniversary programming, we took a coach class bus full of eager explorers out to SeaView for a guided tour from Price and Larry, and featured the neighborhood on our podcast.

Celebrating SeaView was our honor, and it was a joy to hear about how living in and among well designed buildings had influenced both Price and Larry from an early age. Price’s family home on the east side of the neighborhood, restored and proudly marketed as a Paul R. Williams design, was sold last year after just two weeks on the market.

But the west side of the neighborhood is having a harder time. Last summer, two Paul R. Williams homes were red-tagged. In recent days, dozens of properties have gone dark, as power and gas are shut off, due to a severe, ongoing landslide that has streets buckling with movement as extreme as a foot a week.

The residents, many of them senior citizens, are struggling to deal with no power during a brutal heat wave and uncertainty about when, and if, things might return to normal.

The big question is how did this happen, and is it a natural or man-made crisis?

For a better understanding of why the earth is so angry, see Larry Paul’s thoughtful email to the City Manager, drawing on his vast knowledge of development on and around the slide area to pinpoint a possible cause uphill in Rolling Hills Estates, as well as potential infrastructure solutions.

Larry points to the lack of storm or sanitary sewers in the neighboring municipality that has seen significant new development and large remodels, even as the historic neighborhoods downhill remain largely static due to their setting among known landslides.

Why is there no plan for safely moving water from Rolling Hills Estates to the ocean? And can one be put in place before it’s too late?

It seems unconscionable that professional City Managers and City Engineers would permit a city to grow without weighing the impact on the people next door. And yet this is the kind of thing we see all over Los Angeles, where pro-development City Planners and Commissioners routinely sign off on enormous new projects without fully considering the impact on aging infrastructure, traffic, parking and surrounding properties.

The property taxes are enormous—and so is the pain.

Because SeaView’s architectural pedigree is still not well known, none of the extensive reporting about the landslide threat and service shut downs has mentioned the potential loss of the largest collection of original Paul R. Williams homes anywhere.

We want that to be part of the conversation about what sort of resources are available to stabilize the land, find safe solutions for providing lights and power and assist SeaView residents.

As with the National Register landmark Wayfarers Chapel (Frank Lloyd Wright, Jr., 1949-51) to the west, which just had to be dismantled due to earth movement tearing it apart, the effects of extreme weather like two years of unusually heavy rains are changing the way we inhabit the land. It’s time to find creative, proactive solutions that let us live in greater harmony within the systems around us.

Perhaps preservation grants can be tapped to help save this notable neighborhood, even though it has never been formally recognized as a landmark under the National Register or local designation (Rancho Palos Verdes received an “F” grade from the Los Angeles Conservancy for its lack of any preservation ordinance).

And that’s why we’re taking this webinar out from behind its paywall to bring SeaView into the light—even as the neighborhood is plunged into darkness.

Skip ahead to 1:16 in the three hour video at the top of this post to learn about the history of SeaView, the unique features that make its homes so appealing, and about Larry Paul’s extraordinary restoration of his geologically failing childhood home, which included extensive subterranean structural engineering to protect it from future land movement, and the use of cutting edge 3-D technology for project planning and documentation.

It’s an extraordinary story and we don’t think it could have happened in an ordinary neighborhood. SeaView is just special, and so are the people who call it home.

We hope that you enjoy this complimentary webinar, which also features photographer Janna Ireland and author Stephen Gee talking more generally about Paul R. Williams’ and their own work.

Long live SeaView!

Yours for Los Angeles,

Kim & Richard

Esotouric

Are you on social media? We’re on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, Substack Notes, TikTok and Reddit sharing preservation news as it happens.

Our work—leading tours and historic preservation and cultural landmark advocacy—is about building a bridge between Los Angeles' past and its future, and not allowing the corrupt, greedy, inept and misguided players who hold present power to destroy the city's soul and body. If you’d like to support our efforts to be the voice of places worth preserving, we have a tip jar and a subscriber edition of our main newsletter, vintage Los Angeles webinars available to stream, in-person tours and a souvenir shop you can browse in. We’ve also got recommended reading bookshelves on Amazon and the Bookshop indie bookstore site. And did you know we offer private versions of our walking tours for groups big or small? Or just share this link with other people who care.

Tour Gift Certificates

UPCOMING BUS & WALKING TOURS

• Franklin Village Old Hollywood (9/15) • Highland Park Arroyo (Sat. 9/21) • The Real Black Dahlia (Sat. 9/29) • Know Your Downtown L.A.: Tunnels to Towers to the Dutch Chocolate Shop (10/5) • Broadway: Downtown Los Angeles’ Beautiful, Magical Mess (Sat. 10/12) • The Run: Gay Downtown L.A. History (Sun. 10/13) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 (Sun. 10/27) • Westlake Park Time Travel Trip (Sun. 11/3) • The 1910 Bombing of the Los Angeles Times Walking Tour with Detective Mike Digby (Sat. 11/9) • Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice Downtown L.A. (Sat. 11/16) • Charles Bukowski’s Westlake (Sat. 11/23) • Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue (Sat. 12/7) • Raymond Chandler’s Noir Downtown Los Angeles (Sat. 12/14) • Miracle Mile Marvels & Madness (Sun. 12/22) • Human Sacrifice: The Black Dahlia, Elisa Lam, Heidi Planck & Skid Row Slasher (Thurs. 12/26)

Thanks for subscribing to our video newsletter, which mostly serves as a subscription channel for viewing the long form Los Angeles history webinars that kept us sane through the pandemic lock down.

This video vignette is a gift from our preservation pal Steve Lucero, who publishes incredibly beautiful dronescape footage of Los Angeles landmarks and landscapes on his The Artery, Los Angeles channel.

These days almost every news outlet has a drone, but much aerial footage produced is artless and choppy. Steve has a balletic style, a master’s sense of light and composition, and excellent luck with passing birds, and we eagerly tune into his new dronescapes… and sometimes, we even get the chance to commission one!

Here’s Steve’s entire dronescape of Charles Bukowski’s Westlake, produced in celebration of this Saturday’s literary walking tour debut. We’ve been telling stories about Charles Bukowski and helping to preserve his city since launching Esotouric in 2007, so there’s a lot going into this one.

In the footage, which includes the middle portion of our tour route, you’ll see the lovely pink bungalow court where the 30-something Bukowski recovered from his alcohol-induced bleeding ulcer and made the vow that he was going to be a poet before he died, the hillside Cooper Apartments (recently named The Bukowski by the fans who own it) where he wooed his first great love Jane (played by Faye Dunaway in the film Barfly), and a bonus view of J.M. Close’s fabulous Egyptian Revival Osiris Apartments, with its rare incandescent bulb roof sign.

If you’ve been wanting to take an Esotouric tour, this is a pretty special one, in a neighborhood that feels lost in time, but is rich with 21st century culture and community, and you can end the tour with a nosh at Langer’s. Join us, do!

Yours for Los Angeles,

Kim & Richard

Esotouric

Psst… If you’d like to support our efforts to be the voice of places worth preserving, we have a tip jar and a subscriber edition of this newsletter, vintage Los Angeles webinars available to stream, in-person tours and a souvenir shop you can browse in. We’ve also got recommended reading bookshelves on Amazon and the Bookshop indie bookstore site. You can share this post to win subscriber perks. And did you know we offer private versions of our walking and bus tours for groups big or small? Or just share this link with other people who care.

Tour Gift Certificates

UPCOMING BUS & WALKING TOURS

• Charles Bukowski’s Westlake (Sat. 5/11) • Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice (Sat. 5/18) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 (Sat. 5/25) • POP – Preserving Our Past Featuring the Dutch Chocolate Shop (Sat. 6/1) • Westlake Park (Sat. 6/8) • Highland Park Arroyo (Sat. 6/15) • Film Noir / Real Noir (Sat. 6/29) • The Real Black Dahlia (Sat. 7/6) • Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue (Sat. 7/13) • Miracle Mile Marvels and Madness (Sun. 7/21) • Know Your Downtown L.A.: Tunnels To Towers To The Dutch Chocolate Shop (Sat. 7/27) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 (Sun. 8/4) • West Adams Sugar Hill and Angelus Rosedale Cemetery (Sat. 8/10) • Broadway: Downtown Los Angeles’ Beautiful, Magical Mess (Sun. 8/25) • Raymond Chandler’s Noir Downtown Los Angeles (Sat. 8/31)

Thanks for subscribing to our video newsletter, which mostly serves as a subscription channel for viewing the long form Los Angeles history webinars that kept us sane through the pandemic lock down.

This video vignette urges you to join us in a rather urgent effort to stop the city from secretly negotiating destruction of a beautiful and useful L.A. landmark. All it takes is a short email, or a few words to elected officials if you can join us at City Hall Tuesday afternoon.

Read on for the story… and where you come in!

In 2018, Catholic Charities (a non-profit that is not part of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles) purchased 846 South Union Avenue, the historic B’nai B’rith Lodge / Teamsters Hall (S. Tilden Norton, 1923), and applied for a demolition permit, announcing plans to build Union Avenue Village, a new structure to provide housing for at risk boys and foster youth.

The Los Angeles City Planning Department rejected the application, because B’nai B’rith is an historic resource located within the former CRA-LA Westlake redevelopment zone. The city also rejected a nomination to consider B’nai B’rith for landmark status, due to owner objection. Catholic Charities then filed a writ of mandate, asking the court to allow demolition—not to clear room for new housing, but simply permission to destroy the building and its priceless Batchelder tiles!

As of the most recent court date (1/9/2024), Catholic Charities and the Los Angeles City Attorney had not yet come to a settlement agreement. On Tuesday, 2/20/2024, the PLUM Committee of Los Angeles City Council is scheduled to hear about this confidential agreement in closed session, then vote on a matter that is of great interest to the public, but which no member of the public will be able to hear. This is item #3 on the agenda (Council File: 23-1407, Catholic Charities of Los Angeles, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles). We are asking PLUM to table this matter until after the settlement is made public, and to hold their discussion of Catholic Charities’ request to demolish this landmark of Jewish, Labor and Integration history in open, public session.

You can help save B’nai B’rith, by making public comment in person at City Hall on Tuesday, 2/20/2024 or by sending an email as soon as possible. Links and info are below.

To make public comment in person: be at Los Angeles City Hall, John Ferraro Council Chamber Room 340, 200 North Spring Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012 before 2pm on Tuesday, February 20, 2024. Sign up to comment on item #3 and on general public comment, and when called to the mic use your own words to tell the committee members that you care about B’nai B’rith Lodge and want them to table their discussion and their vote until after the proposed settlement is made public.

To make public comment via email, email as soon as possible and no later than 1pm Tuesday, to all of these addresses (councilmember.harris-dawson@lacity.org, councilmember.Lee@lacity.org, councilmember.yaroslavsky@lacity.org, councilmember.padilla@lacity.org, cd10@lacity.org, clerk.plumcommittee@lacity.org, cityatty.help@lacity.org, joanne.kim@lacity.org, helen.campbell@lacity.org) with subject line “Re: CF 23-1407, Catholic Charities of Los Angeles, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles (PLUM agenda #3).”

Below is a sample email (which you can customize with your own words):

Dear PLUM Committee members and staff, I care about the historic B’nai B’rith Lodge at 846 South Union Avenue, a landmark for the Jewish and Labor communities where the Teamsters Union was integrated, and thank City Planning staff for refusing to grant the demolition permit. Please table any discussions of a proposed settlement between property owner Catholic Charities and the City Attorney until the agreement is made public, and hold your discussion of potential demolition of this cultural and architectural landmark that is covered in priceless Batchelder tiles in an open forum where citizens can participate. Thank you. (name, neighborhood or city)

You can also submit your email to the public record by clicking NEW and posting it to the Council File page here.

LINKS ABOUT B’NAI B’RITH LODGE AND THE FIGHT TO SAVE IT

• Steven Luftman’s Historic-Cultural Monument application for B’nai B’rith Lodge

• Esotouric Webinar: The Bizarre B’nai B’rith Lodge Demolition Threat

• Slideshow

• Monsignor Gregory Cox objecting to landmarking at Los Angeles City Council (6/8/2022)

•  Catholic Charities Petition For Writ Of Mandate

• The Law, as it may or may not apply:

  • DOJ statement on the Land Use Provisions of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA)

  • California Government Code Section 37361)

• Nathan Marsak’s R.I.P. Los Angeles blog post Save B’nai B’rith

• The Artery LA’s full dronescape of B’nai B’rith and its remarkable neighbor buildings

Yours for Los Angeles,

Kim & Richard

Esotouric

Psst… If you’d like to support our efforts to be the voice of places worth preserving, we have a tip jar and a subscriber edition of this newsletter, vintage Los Angeles webinars available to stream, in-person tours and a souvenir shop you can browse in. We’ve also got recommended reading bookshelves on Amazon and the Bookshop indie bookstore site. And did you know we offer private versions of our walking and bus tours for groups big or small? Or just share this link with other people who care.

Tour Gift Certificates

UPCOMING BUS & WALKING TOURS

• The Real Black Dahlia Crime Bus Tour (Sat. 2/24) • SOLD OUT Know Your Downtown L.A.: Tunnels To Towers To The Dutch Chocolate Shop Walking Tour (Sat. 3/16) • The Run: Gay Downtown History Walking Tour (Sat. 3/23) • Franklin Village Old Hollywood Walking Tour (Sat. 3/30) • John Fante’s Downtown Los Angeles Birthday Walking Tour (Sat. 4/6) • Raymond Chandler’s Noir Downtown Los Angeles Walking Tour (Sat. 4/13) • Human Sacrifice: The Black Dahlia, Elisa Lam, Heidi Planck & Skid Row Slasher Cases Walking Tour (Sat. 4/20) • Downtown Los Angeles is for Book Lovers Walking Tour (Sat. 4/27) • Alvarado Terrace & South Bonnie Brae Tract Time Travel Trip Walking Tour (Sat. 5/4) • Charles Bukowski’s Westlake Walking Tour (Sat. 5/11) • Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice Walking Tour (Sat. 5/18) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 Walking Tour (Sat. 5/25) • POP – Preserving Our Past Downtown Los Angeles Walking Tour (Sat. 6/1)

Thanks for subscribing to our video newsletter, which mostly serves as a subscription channel for viewing the long form Los Angeles history webinars that kept us sane through the pandemic lock down.

This video vignette provides a peep at the astonishing restoration work happening at the Million Dollar Theater at 3rd & Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles, Sid Grauman’s original Hollywood motion picture palace which is available for event bookings. Projectionist Tom Ruff has been carefully steaming more than a century of nicotine and grime off the plaster screens, and revealing stunning original colors.

For more news of L.A. history and preservation, check out our main newsletter, or follow along on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Mastodon, BlueSky, TikTok or YouTube.

yours for Los Angeles,

Kim & Richard

Esotouric

Psst… If you’d like to support our efforts to be the voice of places worth preserving, we have a tip jar and a subscriber edition of our main newsletter, vintage Los Angeles webinars available to stream, in-person tours and a souvenir shop you can browse in. We’ve also got recommended reading bookshelves on Amazon and the Bookshop indie bookstore site. And did you know we offer private versions of our walking and bus tours for groups big or small? Or just share this link with other people who care.

Tour Gift Certificates

UPCOMING BUS & WALKING TOURS

• Westlake Park Time Travel Trip Walking Tour (Sat. 2/10) • Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue Time Travel Trip Walking Tour (Sat. 2/17) • The Real Black Dahlia Crime Bus Tour (Sat. 2/24) • SOLD OUT Know Your Downtown L.A.: Tunnels To Towers To The Dutch Chocolate Shop Walking Tour (Sat. 3/16) • The Run: Gay Downtown History Walking Tour (Sat. 3/23) • Franklin Village Old Hollywood Walking Tour (Sat. 3/30) • John Fante’s Downtown Los Angeles Birthday Walking Tour (Sat. 4/6) • Raymond Chandler’s Noir Downtown Los Angeles Walking Tour (Sat. 4/13) • Human Sacrifice: The Black Dahlia, Elisa Lam, Heidi Planck & Skid Row Slasher Cases Walking Tour (Sat. 4/20) • Downtown Los Angeles is for Book Lovers Walking Tour (Sat. 4/27) • Alvarado Terrace & South Bonnie Brae Tract Time Travel Trip Walking Tour (Sat. 5/4) • Charles Bukowski’s Westlake Walking Tour (Sat. 5/11) • Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice Walking Tour (Sat. 5/18) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 Walking Tour (Sat. 5/25) • POP – Preserving Our Past Downtown Los Angeles Walking Tour (Sat. 6/1)

Thanks for subscribing to our video newsletter, which mostly serves as a subscription channel for viewing the long form Los Angeles history webinars that kept us sane through the pandemic lock down.

Here’s something new, by public request: we’re making our lock down era webinars available for individual viewing, in addition to the monthly and annual all-you-can-watch subscription options.

Available as of tonight are four popular programs—on The Bradbury Building, Raymond Chandler, Hotel Cecil & Storybook Architecture—but if there’s one you’d like to see that’s not yet uploaded, send us a note and we’ll do that one next just for you. The full list of webinars is here.

yours for Los Angeles,

Kim & Richard

Esotouric

Psst… If you’d like to support our efforts to be the voice of places worth preserving, we have a tip jar and a subscriber edition of our main newsletter, vintage Los Angeles webinars available to stream, in-person tours and a souvenir shop you can browse in. We’ve also got recommended reading bookshelves on Amazon and the Bookshop indie bookstore site. And did you know we offer private versions of our walking and bus tours for groups big or small? Or just share this link with other people who care.

Tour Gift Certificates

UPCOMING BUS & WALKING TOURS

• Alvarado Terrace & South Bonnie Brae Walking Tour (Sat. 11/25) • Know Your Downtown L.A.: Tunnels To Towers To The Dutch Chocolate Shop Walking Tour (Sat. 12/2 - SOLD OUT, repeats in March) • Highland Park Arroyo Walking Tour (Sat. 12/9) • Miracle Mile Marvels & Madness Walking Tour (Sun. 12/17) • Human Sacrifice: The Black Dahlia, Elisa Lam, Heidi Planck & Skid Row Slasher Walking Tour (Tues. 12/26) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 Walking Tour (Sat. 1/20) • Broadway: Downtown Los Angeles’ Beautiful, Magical Mess Walking Tour (Sat. 1/27) • Bunker Hill, Dead and Alive Walking Tour (Sat. 2/3) • Westlake Park Time Travel Trip Walking Tour (Sat. 2/10) • Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue Time Travel Trip Walking Tour (Sat. 2/17) • The Real Black Dahlia Crime Bus Tour (Sat. 2/24) • Echo Park Book of the Dead Crime Bus Tour (Sat. 3/9) • Know Your Downtown L.A.: Tunnels To Towers To The Dutch Chocolate Shop Walking Tour (Sat. 3/16) • The Run: Gay Downtown History Walking Tour (Sat. 3/23) • John Fante’s Downtown Los Angeles Birthday Walking Tour (Sat. 4/6)

Thanks for subscribing to our video newsletter, which mostly serves as a subscription channel for viewing the long form Los Angeles history webinars that kept us sane through the pandemic lock down.

This video vignette is a call for concerned citizens to demand that the City and County do something to break up the criminal enterprise that is stripping the commons of historic metal objects, including the Mexican-American All Wars Memorial at Cinco Puntos in Boyle Heights that was shamefully vandalized before Veteran’s Day.

You can learn more about this in our main newsletter.

yours for Los Angeles,

Kim & Richard

Esotouric

Psst… If you’d like to support our efforts to be the voice of places worth preserving, we have a tip jar and a subscriber edition of our main newsletter, vintage Los Angeles webinars available to stream, in-person tours and a souvenir shop you can browse in. We’ve also got recommended reading bookshelves on Amazon and the Bookshop indie bookstore site. And did you know we offer private versions of our walking and bus tours for groups big or small? Or just share this link with other people who care.

Tour Gift Certificates

UPCOMING BUS & WALKING TOURS

• Special Event: Leo Politi Loves Los Angeles Bus Tour (11/18) • Alvarado Terrace & South Bonnie Brae Walking Tour (Sat. 11/25) • Know Your Downtown L.A.: Tunnels To Towers To The Dutch Chocolate Shop Walking Tour (Sat. 12/2) • Highland Park Arroyo Walking Tour (Sat. 12/9) • Miracle Mile Marvels & Madness Walking Tour (Sun. 12/17) • Human Sacrifice: The Black Dahlia, Elisa Lam, Heidi Planck & Skid Row Slasher Walking Tour (Tues. 12/26)

Thanks for subscribing to our video newsletter, which mostly serves as a subscription channel for viewing the long form Los Angeles history webinars that kept us sane through the pandemic lock down.

This video vignette offers a first look at the freakiest official thing ever to happen on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The master of bad taste cinema, John Waters, is getting an honorary star on Monday, September 18 at 11:30am right in front of the Larry Edmunds Bookshop. We stopped by yesterday to see the state of the half-cured terrazzo and congratulate our book slinging pal Jeff Mantor.

He’s pretty tickled about his filthy new neighbor, and wants everyone to know his shop has a limited number of signed copies of the brand new Academy Museum exhibition catalog John Waters: Pope of Trash available. You can even pre-order online, skip school to catch the ceremony in person, then pick up your book once the famous people get off the sidewalk.

If you can’t make it to Hollywood on Monday, they’ll be livestreaming the ceremony on the Walk of Fame website.

yours for Los Angeles,

Kim & Richard

Esotouric

Psst… If you’d like to support our efforts to be the voice of places worth preserving, we have a tip jar and a subscriber edition of our main newsletter, vintage Los Angeles webinars available to stream, in-person tours and a souvenir shop you can browse in. We’ve also got recommended reading bookshelves on Amazon and the Bookshop indie bookstore site. And did you know we offer private versions of our walking and bus tours for groups big or small? Or just share this link with other people who care.

Tour Gift Certificates

UPCOMING BUS & WALKING TOURS

• University Park Walking Tour (Sat. 9/23) • Eastside Babylon Crime Bus Tour (Sat. 10/14) • The Birth of Noir: James M. Cain’s Southern California Nightmare Bus Tour (Sat. 10/21) • The Real Black Dahlia Crime Bus Tour (Sat. 10/28) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 Walking Tour (Sun. 10/29) • The Run: Gay Downtown History Walking Tour (Sat. 11/4)

Thanks for subscribing to our video newsletter, which mostly serves as a subscription channel for viewing the long form Los Angeles history webinars that kept us sane through the pandemic lock down.

This video vignette introduces our latest historic tree preservation campaign in collaboration with environmental horticulturist Dr. Donald R. Hodel. Since he retired from his university position, Don has dedicated himself to planting small trees and advocating with cities, politicians and private land owners to find ways of saving inconvenient big trees like this one.

We were excited to come together on this campaign, as it features four of our favorite things: highly intelligent urban wildlife, architecturally distinguished libraries, old cemeteries under new buildings, and local government sneaking around to do something citizens would oppose, if they only knew it was happening.

You can learn more about the threats to The Parrot Tree and Santa Ana’s sneakiness on our blog or main Substack newsletter, and how you can send an email to help save this wonderful tree.

Next Saturday’s Pasadena Confidential is a return of one of our original crime bus tours, newly rerouted to include more time off the bus and a couple of wild new stories. If you dig rocket science, black magic, monkeys, robots and infrastructure, you’ll dig this tour. Join us, do!

yours for Los Angeles,

Kim & Richard

Esotouric

Psst… If you’d like to support our efforts to be the voice of places worth preserving, we have a tip jar and a subscriber edition of our main newsletter, vintage Los Angeles webinars available to stream, in-person tours and a souvenir shop you can browse in. We’ve also got recommended reading bookshelves on Amazon and the Bookshop indie bookstore site. And did you know we offer private versions of our walking and bus tours for groups big or small? Or just share this link with other people who care.

Tour Gift Certificates

UPCOMING BUS & WALKING TOURS

• Pasadena Confidential Crime Bus Tour (Sat. 9/9) • Franklin Village Old Hollywood Walking Tour (Sat. 9/16) • University Park Walking Tour (Sat. 9/23) • Weird West Adams Crime Bus Tour (Sat. 9/30) • Eastside Babylon Crime Bus Tour (Sat. 10/14) • The Birth of Noir: James M. Cain’s Southern California Nightmare Bus Tour (Sat. 10/21) • The Real Black Dahlia Crime Bus Tour (Sat. 10/28) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 Walking Tour (Sun. 10/29) • The Run: Gay Downtown History Walking Tour (Sat. 11/4)

Thanks for subscribing to our video newsletter, which mostly serves as a subscription channel for viewing the long form Los Angeles history webinars that kept us sane through the pandemic lock down.

This video vignette honors the newly nominated Los Angeles County landmark, the Old Glory Oak, and appears in our latest regular newsletter, along with with historic preservation links and musings here.

This Saturday’s walking tour The Run is a brand new one, revealing the hiding in plain sight LGBTQ history of Downtown Los Angeles. The neon flickered out long ago, but the stories will buzz and flicker in your heart forever. Join us, do!

yours for Los Angeles,

Kim & Richard

Esotouric

Psst… If you’d like to support our efforts to be the voice of places worth preserving, we have a tip jar and a subscriber edition of our regular newsletter, vintage Los Angeles webinars available to stream, in-person tours and a souvenir shop you can browse in. We’ve also got recommended reading bookshelves on Amazon and the Bookshop indie bookstore site. Or just share this link with other people who care.

Tour Gift Certificates

UPCOMING BUS & WALKING TOURS

New! The Run: Gay Downtown History Walk (Sat. 7/8) •Westlake Park Walk (Sat. 7/15) • Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles Bus Tour (Sat. 7/22) • Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue Walk (Sat. 8/5) • Charles Bukowski’s Los Angeles Bus Tour (Sat. 8/12)

Thanks for subscribing to our video newsletter, which mostly serves as a subscription channel for viewing the long form Los Angeles history webinars that kept us sane through the pandemic lock down.

Our regular newsletter with closely watched trains historic preservation links and musings is here. And this video vignette is about an upcoming walking tour and some publication news: We’re wishing a happy guidebook release day to Mr. Bunker Hill, Nathan Marsak!

Our cranky preservation pal has just cracked the seal on boxes of the newly published Marsak’s Guide to Bunker Hill, a retro-styled companion to the post-redevelopment landmarks that replaced the Victorian mansions, boarding houses and corner stores that got clear cut by the Federal bulldozer.

And as much as we miss the Bunker Hill that was, we’ve got to admit there are some fine modern buildings and landscapes up there on the new hill.

We’re celebrating Nathan’s achievement with an all new walking tour, Bunker Hill’s Modernist Marvels on Saturday, June 17. Pick up a copy on tour day, or direct from Nathan before then, and get it personally inscribed.

This video preview documents a recent afternoon scrambling around the upcoming tour route with Nathan, with a marked up author’s proof copy of the guidebook and a reproduction Bunker Hill Avenue street sign in tow. But gee, it was kind of lonesome up there, so next time, let’s make a guidebook release party of it. Join us, do!

yours for Los Angeles,

Kim & Richard

Esotouric

Thanks for subscribing to our video newsletter, which mostly serves as a subscription channel for viewing the long form Los Angeles history webinars that kept us sane through the pandemic lock down.

Over on our primary newsletter today, you’ll find a special video interlude that highlights a massive Federal money laundering case with a Downtown Los Angeles address, uncovered not by any local reporter, but by national courthouse records sleuth Seamus Hughes.

If you’d like to keep up with our historic preservation advocacy, get notified about upcoming walking tours—and bus tours, resuming June 24 with The Real Black Dahlia—and get cultural history and public corruption news you can use, please subscribe to our primary newsletter while you’re there.

yours for Los Angeles,

Kim & Richard

Esotouric

Thanks for subscribing to our video newsletter, which mostly serves as a subscription channel for viewing the long form Los Angeles history webinars that kept us sane through the pandemic lockdown.

Over on our primary newsletter today, you’ll find a special video interlude from our 2012 literary salon about Hollywood bookshop history, presented in honor of book man and preservationist Aaron M. Epstein, who died last month.

If you’d like to keep up with our historic preservation advocacy, get notified about upcoming walking tours—and bus tours, resuming next month!—and get cultural history and public corruption news you can use, please subscribe to our primary newsletter while you’re there.

yours for Los Angeles,

Kim & Richard

Esotouric