Gentle reader,
We interrupt our previous scheduled wrap up reporting on the Ray Chan public corruption trial—holy cats, the jury came back guilty on all counts before their first cup of coffee!—with this video interlude recorded in the seldom seen time capsule quack medical clinic above the landmark Batchelder tiled Dutch Chocolate Shop in Downtown Los Angeles.
The closed-to-the-public building is a popular stop on our Know Your Downtown L.A. walking tours, but we only visit the ground floor with its vaulted ceiling and custom murals of Dutch village life. (Click here to explore in 3-D!)
There are several interesting, mostly empty floors above the tile, and we recently had the opportunity to go exploring. And when we did, we found to our dismay that—as with the much lamented painted fire door in the King Eddy speakeasy basement— some sticky-fingered history enthusiast has absconded with a relic that contributes greatly to telling the story of a special place.
People, please: take only photographs, leave only footprints! Also: no eggs!
Dr. A. W. von Lange’s Vienna Drugless Systems sign that got repurposed as the side of a closet shelf is not a masterpiece like the King Eddy fire door, but it is handsome and unique, and helped us to understand this weird place when we set out to research the mid-century health clinic and the services and medications that the good doctor offered.
If you happen to see this old sign anywhere in your travels around Los Angeles, please retrieve it and contact us. We’ll make sure it gets back where it belongs, above the Dutch Chocolate Shop, with the ghosts of digestive crises past, advertising the promise of comfort to all who dare partake.
With heavy rain expected on Saturday, we are postponing the Franklin Village Old Hollywood walking tour, with a new date to be announced soon. Stay dry out there, and stay tuned for a post-mortem on Ray Chan trial, including the stunning bombshell dropped during closing defense arguments, a reference to an incident with a semi-cooperative witness who we missed. When we publish, it's going spread over L.A.'s development cheerleader world like Norovirus. Soon!
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.
UPCOMING BUS & WALKING TOURS
• Franklin Village Old Hollywood (Sat. 3/30 - POSTPONED DUE TO RAIN) • John Fante’s Downtown Los Angeles Birthday (Sat. 4/6) • Raymond Chandler’s Noir Downtown (Sat. 4/13) • Human Sacrifice: The Black Dahlia, Elisa Lam, Heidi Planck & Skid Row Slasher Cases (Sat. 4/20) • Downtown Los Angeles is for Book Lovers (Sat. 4/27) • Alvarado Terrace & South Bonnie Brae Tract (Sat. 5/4) • 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 (Sat. 6/1) • Westlake Park (Sat. 6/8) • Highland Park Arroyo (Sat. 6/15) • Film Noir / Real Noir (Sat. 6/29) • Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue (Sat. 7/13) • Know Your Downtown L.A.: Tunnels To Towers To The Dutch Chocolate Shop (7/27)
CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS
R.I.P. Nancy Valverde, who was not afraid to tell cops where to go when they busted her for cruising Main Street in her preferred tomboy attire. We're glad we helped get LAPD issue a formal apology while she was alive to hear it.
Mayme Clayton's vast African American library, displaced by corrupt Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas for his bio-med pals, is not lost, but was stored by Clayton's family. They need help finding a new home. LA County needs to step up. Also, short doc found!
Thrillist wanted to understand what's happening at the Hotel Cecil now that leaseholder Matt Baron wants out, so they asked chaplain Rev. Dylan Littlefield. As the city seeks to demolish early 20th Century landmark SROs like this one, he sees a bright future.
Last year for the John Fante's Bunker Hill tour, The Million Dollar Theater honored him on the marquee. Join us on April 6 in the footsteps of a great Los Angeles writer and character, meet his family and enjoy birthday cake. He would be 115 this year!
Enjoy a little Tom Petty with your Studio City anti-corruption rally. The taking of Weddington Golf & Tennis is going to blow back hard against the dirty birds in City Hall and at Harvard-Westlake. Remember the '02 Valley secession movement—and cower!
San Pedro preservation hero Emma Rault, who landmarked Walker's Cafe, is Random Lengths' new sane city planning policy columnist, with a great piece about online REITs killing L.A.'s cool third places. Dancing Waters Is Gone. Who Benefits? Strangers do!
A long goodbye to a patch of dirt, the last of old Bunker Hill. "Mr. BH" Nathan Marsak revisits his 2008 OnBunkerHill.org blog post, with a shout out to the runaway Queen Palm, Sunshine, and a wee wall that's seen some things, and is soon to fall.
We got an unexpected show courtesy of the LAFD when visiting the Hotel Cecil to attend Rev. Dylan Littlefield's Palm Sunday service. With the elevator issues in the towering SRO, this ladder practice felt intense. We wish the city would make leaseholder Matt Baron fix the lifts!
YES! Landmark nominations submitted for two multifamily Koreatown gems: the Gaylord (including legacy business H.M.S. Bounty) and the gorgeous Chateau Laurier, a victim of deranged landlord demolition by neglect. (Those links are not yet populated, but serve as placeholders until the public hearing.) Preserve them both!
Greater Toluca Lake NC is not messing around re: Karen Bass’ signature planning policy, ED 1: "bypasses due process... unjustifiably grants unaccountable power to City employees, circumvents dissent... removes transparency... sets the stage for potential abuse & threatens democratic principles.”
Deputy DA Casey Higgins' corruption investigation has the Ethics Commission's "investigators" running scared. Why didn't they do anything about Curren Price's blatant conflicts of interest until now? Because they're not supposed to do anything. The City Hall racket protects itself.
It's not Chinatown anymore at the Central Basin Water Board, as Michael Gualtieri suddenly steps down under cloud of Section 1090 self-dealing violations and the dogged reporting of Brian Hews at Los Cerritos Community News.
The California Teachers Association HQ (Kistner, Wright and Wright, 1954) keeps burning (two weeks ago, 2022) and we pay for it. How long will the stalled Sapphire Project be allowed to keep a useful campus blighted in the heart of LA? Vacancy tax now!
Empty Los Angeles shares portraits shot at Kelly Kuvo's Venice Art Crawl exhibit at Small World Books, framed by Kelly's Doomsday Clock. How many seconds until the last artist is priced out of the neighborhood by Airbnb and the Ellis Act? Tick Tick Tick…
A Daring Theft Above the Dutch Chocolate Shop