Gentle reader,
We were in Vernon on Tuesday afternoon and were dismayed to see large sections of the famous folk art Farmer John mural created by Les Grimes in 1957, and that he died while painting in 1968, have been tagged or blacked out.
Today, the shuttered pork processing plant caught fire. Because there is no preservation ordinance in the city of Vernon, this weird, disturbing, enormous work of art has been, or soon will be, entirely lost.
If you’d like to know more about this mural, here’s an illuminating 1981 L.A. Weekly story by Chris McGowan. We’re delighted to confirm the slaughterhouse legend that artist Les Grimes really was a retired wrestler.
Sigh. The murals were a mess on Tuesday and they must be a wreck today. We wish we could have saved one happy pig! (And we wish we could have saved all the pigs.)
Also, this slaughterhouse was one of the most deadly places for humans during the worst of the pandemic, with many workers infected and bringing COVID-19 home to their vulnerable family members. When pressed to provide a better safety plan, Hong Kong based Smithfield Foods closed up shop to move their operations to states where slaughterhouse workers have fewer rights. The economic impact has been brutal here in Los Angeles.
Farmer John was founded by first generation Irish-Americans, Francis and Bernard Clougherty. They invented the Dodger Dog and gifted a family retreat, the Harry Carey Ranch House (also featuring Les Grimes murals), to be preserved for public use. Muralist Les Grimes was Australian, and his successor Arno Jordan was from Austria. Inside the plant, generations of new immigrants to America have taken the hard jobs that helped their kids never have to do such brutal work.
There really should be some kind of memorial at Soto and Vernon, for the people who kept others fed and lost so much—whether that memorial is through preserving some of Les Grimes’ historic artwork, or with new symbolism created in response to what happened in 2020 and after.
None of this is pretty, but Vernon rezoning a nearby corridor for high dollar mixed use development while pretending Farmer John’s wasn’t a both a dark place of death and an important part of our community for generations, and making no efforts to ensure that the internationally famous folk art murals were protected from vandalism and arson, that all feels very dishonest and cowardly to us.
If you, too, would like to see a piece of Les Grimes’ Hog Heaven mural preserved before it’s too late, as well as some recognition of the long history of Farmer John’s (aka Clougherty Meat Packing Company) and the pandemic era losses, please call (323-826-3664) or email Vernon’s Assistant General Manager Margie Otto and let her know.
Update June 2024: The City of Vernon was not interested in talking about preservation, and Hog Heaven has been almost entirely demolished. This video circuit of the property shows all that that survives as of 6/2/2024.
We were about to sign off in this newsletter as your conflicted vegetarian preservationist pals, when a public document hit the court docket, a little end of year gift: the government has just filed its Sentencing Memorandum for disgraced Los Angeles City Councilman Jose Huizar, recommending: (1) a 13-year (156-month) term of imprisonment; (2) a three-year term of supervised release; (3) an order to pay $1,019,174 in restitution; (4) a high-end fine of $350,000; and (5) a special assessment of $200.
That sounds like a lot—and our paralegal pal says he'll do about 11 years, 4 months on a 13 year Federal sentence assuming good behavior—and we appreciate the fire breathing prose in the document, especially the part that says “the nature and circumstances of defendant’s offenses reflect not just significantly aggravating conduct but tangible and generational public harm.”
But the government’s case operates from the flawed assumption that Huizar only began soliciting bribes in exchange for votes in the last few years of his term as CD-14 council representative, and not from the beginning of his public service, as a powerful member of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board making controversial land use decisions like the demolition of the Ambassador Hotel. Did he get paid off for knocking down our greatest urban resort? How about Parker Center, Lytton Savings, Pershing Square or Roosevelt High School?
The sentence and fine do not even take into account well documented recent bribes, like the $50,000 that developer Onni Group injected into Huizar’s wife’s political PAC just before Huizar rewrote our Los Angeles Times landmarking nomination, or the contributions that cooperating developer Carmel Partners admits it made in exchange for removing affordable units from their Arts District tower that now blocks the view from the new Sixth Street Bridge.
How about the unaccounted for funds for the 2019 Night on Broadway event, which was abruptly cancelled? What about the supposed 120-bed emergency shelter in a warehouse on Paloma Street, a facility that never opened but has directed a steady flow of $35,000/month in taxpayer funds to a favored property owner? How about contributions to Huizar’s dissolved Pershing Square Renew non-profit, which the city is scrambling to make up, and the questionable Angels Landing developer choice that was fully entwined with the Pershing Square remodel?
There must be millions of dollars in dirty funds that are unaccounted for in this recommended sentence, and countless development projects that were corruptly approved. That tangible and generational public harm continues to negatively shape the experience of all who seek to live, work and create in the city of Los Angeles.
The only way Jose Huizar can undo some of the enormous damage that he did during his “public service” is to have the guts to blow the lid off the corrupt machine that continues to operate, a little less blatantly and with less obnoxious a public face, in his former workplace, Los Angeles City Hall. Spill it, man!
Finally, if anyone reading this believes that they have been harmed by the confessed criminal acts of Jose Huizar, they can submit a Victim Impact Statement to the US Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California. If you wish this to be a public document, you should state that explicitly. Email your VIS to (Mack.Jenkins@usdoj.gov), no later than January 11, 2024, addressed to Mack E. Jenkins, Assistant United States Attorney Chief, Criminal Division.
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.
UPCOMING BUS & WALKING TOURS
• 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)
Last Days of the Farmer John "Hog Heaven" Mural in Vernon, California & Jose Huizar's Sentencing Memorandum