Gentle reader,
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 To honor him, we dug up this unpublished 2020 Cranky Preservationist video, a love letter to the then-perfect time capsule 900 S. Park View block in Westlake.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.
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)
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