Gentle reader,
Things are pretty nuts out there, and we’ve cancelled Saturday’s walking tour of Raymond Chandler’s Noir Downtown Los Angeles, due to fluid street protests, freeway closures, curfews and heavy law enforcement response.
Contrary to what some biased outlets are claiming, the city is not on fire. But it’s our job to ensure you have a lovely time, and there are too many uncertainties that could get in the way of that.
Before deciding about cancelling the tour, in which we are not alone among event promoters, we went Downtown to check on some favorite landmarks. Mostly we found tagging that can be easily removed, as seen below, but we also coughed at pepper spray wafting over from points unknown.
The only building we ever landmarked was the Los Angeles Times, which brought us into battle with councilman Jose Huizar, a confessed racketeer, and we learned L.A. Noir is not history, it's now.
We need to fight for the city we love, and leaders and landlords who love it, too.
So there’s no tour happening on Saturday, which is disappointing and a financial loss for us, but we’re okay, and plan on resuming tour operations next weekend with Know Your Downtown L.A. with the Dutch Chocolate Shop on Saturday 6/21 and Miracle Mile Marvels & Madness on Sunday 6/22.
We wanted to make something nice out of having to cancel, and that’s why our $10 webinar Shaking The Raymond Chandler Tree: New Discoveries About L.A.’s Master Detective Novelist is free to stream until next Friday, June 20. We think you’ll be fascinated by our special guest Sybil Davis, whose mother was Chandler’s last secretary Jean Fracasse, and who is likely the only living person who knew the writer well.
If you enjoy the program and are so moved, tips are welcome at the link above, and you can also subscribe to the webinar channel by the month or year and watch more of these pandemic era L.A. livestreams at your leisure.
And if you’d like some printed Chandleriana in your life, check out Kim’s mystery novel The Kept Girl, starring the young Ray and pals on the trail of a cult of murderous angel worshippers. We’ve got Chandler maps of Los Angeles available, too.
It’s a rough time for this city and her people, and if you’re hurting, we hurt with you. For all her problems—and nobody bellyaches louder than we do—Los Angeles remains the promised land and we Angelenos are one.
We are so grateful to live in, and to tell the stories of, a city that draws dreamers and refugees and hustlers and artists and hard working folks from all over the world, each one seeking a chance to bloom in the gilded sunlight that is more beautiful than any other light.
For here, what mattered was not the circumstances of your birth, but your innate abilities. In classless Los Angeles, if you worked at it, you could be anything at all.
Raymond Chandler knew that. Chicago born, his mother abandoned by her alcoholic, railroad man husband, he found himself a poor relation in his uncle’s house, dressed like a gentleman, educated at a fine London public school, but expected afterwards to become merely a reliable small fry in the British foreign service.
But Ray was an American. He was proud and sure of himself, even when he stumbled. He had not had his lowly station beaten into his soul from infancy, and he couldn’t bend a knee simply because someone’s father was an Earl.
So like so many dreamers and refugees and hustlers and artists and hard working folks from all over the world, he borrowed the fare—his uncle got it back with interest—and in 1912 sailed “home” to the New World.
The Fates were watching for him, and made sure he boarded the same ship as the Warren Lloyd family, so that he could become fast friends with those clever, artistic folks with their oil income, and be convinced to settle in sleepy Los Angeles, a town thirsty for presentable young men who could play bridge.
Chandler found his way and grew with the city, learning its shortcuts and slang, marrying the lovely Cissy and ascending to vice president in the Dabney Oil Syndicate, though he always nurtured literary ambitions, too.
Then when the stock market bubble burst, and he was let go amidst accusations of alcoholism and absenteeism, he drew on his natural pride and the friendships forged over two decades to take the chance in middle age of being, finally, a writer.
Funny thing, though. When young, Chandler’s writing was fusty and veddy British, a hodgepodge of satirical essays, reviews, the occasional fairy tale, the kind of thing a gentleman with an income could scratch out for fun.
But when he had to write to make a buck, he used the real life noir of crime and politics that had been the talk of the town among the professionals who lunched and drank at the Los Angeles Athletic Club, and developed detective fiction into a uniquely Southern California thing, something with style and legs, something that still helps us make sense of the history that’s being made right now.
Chandler wrote of his detective hero Philip Marlowe that “down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.” And that “If there were enough like him, the world would be a very safe place to live in, without becoming too dull to be worth living in.”
We thought of Marlowe’s credo when we saw this remarkable footage (original, longer version here) captured two days ago, in Downey, which is sometimes called the Mexican Beverly Hills.
Unmarked vans filled with men dressed in balaclavas and mismatched camouflage, jeans and sneakers chased an older Latino man through the streets, then knocked him off his bicycle. Local women bravely rushed to his defense. Melyssa Rivas started filming and called what the strangers were doing a racially motivated kidnapping. She laughed at them. The strangers froze, shifted awkwardly on their feet, and left the scene. The man with the bike made it home.
May we all find our own Melyssa Rivas when when we need her. And never bend a knee.
Yours for Los Angeles,
Kim & Richard
Esotouric
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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
• Know Your Downtown LA: Bradbury, Basements, Dutch Chocolate Shop (6/21) • 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) • Early Hollywood’s Silent Comedy Legends (7/26) • Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice (8/9) • Weird West Adams / Elmer McCurdy Museum (8/16) • Christine Sterling & Leo Politi: Angels of Los Angeles (8/23) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 (8/30) • Raymond Chandler’s Noir Downtown Los Angeles (9/6) • Film Noir / Real Noir (9/20) • Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue (9/27)
CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS
Hollywood urban exploration holy grail: clickclackbrainsplat and moodygabe roam around the long shuttered Warner Pacific Theatre (G. Albert Lansburgh, 1928), including an underground kid's cinema, rooftop neon, and gaudy chandeliers. Cop a vicarious thrill.
Terrific mini documentary from Diner Theory about the flippers who bought Walker's Cafe off market cheap with plans to redevelop an oversized house in back, and don't seem to care at all if the San Pedro landmark (and Chinatown location) ever reopens.
Los Angeles County has lost a giant, and we've lost a preservation pal, in Mickey Gallivan. You wouldn't recognize the southland without her incredible work to preserve and interpret the past for the benefit of Pomonans today and forever. What a legacy!
City Planning put L.A.'s preservation ordinance in the meat grinder, letting a landmark application and new ED1 project both proceed. Will they hit the ON switch and destroy the RSO Mellenthin Birdhouse Apartments? Deep policy dive via Mike Callahan.
This is wrong. Beautiful 10-unit 1922 RSO garden court apartment house at 2900 W. Francis in Koreatown threatened with demolition for upzoned ED1 project. Multiple units boarded up—where are the tenants? It is already affordable housing, but held off market!
The 1959 funnel cake and fair snacks shack at 2011 Ocean Front Walk Venice has two RSO apartment units. The Loopnet listing says they're on Airbnb. That's illegal in any RSO. No home share enforcement in L.A. No place to live.
By overpaying for small hotels for Project Homekey sites that never opened, Los Angeles created a market for illegal Airbnbs, which it refuses to shut down. A fortune squandered, as if the plan all along was to enrich cronies and destroy a beautiful city.
A possible new home for the landslide damaged, dismantled Wayfarers Chapel: the military archaeological site next to RPV City Hall. Assuming the Coast Guard will hand it over, we'd like to see the two histories allowed to coexist.
Thanks to a tip from a happy long term resident, we've added Sun Rise Court at 5721-5729 Monte Vista Street, Highland Park to the Los Angeles Bungalow Court Housing map. The City's Survey LA database wrongly lists Historic-Cultural Monument #400 only as an HPOZ contributor.
When Alpine Village was designated as a Los Angeles County landmark in 2020, the massive neon pole sign (1968) was called out as a character defining feature. (see page 86 here.) Preservation pal Gus Riker recently took a photo of it encased in scaffolding. We asked Sup. Holly Mitchell to ensure the sign is protected and can be seen, and received this response: “The property owners of Alpine Village received a Notice of Violation (NOV) from the Department of Regional Planning regarding the this site. As a result, they have started on repairs and restoration on multiple pieces of the protected structures, including the sign (hence the scaffolding) to resolve the NOV and comply with County's Landmark policies. Renovations to correct the Notice of Violation are expected to be completed by end of this year.”
Unpermitted work was halted at the oldest surviving McDonald’s, but not before the sign’s feet got cut up. We asked to meet with Irma Huitron, Downey’s Director of Community Development at the sign, where neon experts Paul Greenstein and Dydia DeLyser provided her with a copy of their recent book Neon: A Light History and advised on best restoration practices for all the original elements of this unique example of roadside Americana, from the neon tubes (and the hand-painted lettering under them that should replace the peeling vinyl), vintage 1-Shot enamel paint palette, corrugated backlit plastic and restoring the metal base sections that were cut. Work has been halted while a city consultant reviews the situation and provides recommendations for what should be done to bring the sign back into compliance. We’re grateful Downey is taking the time to listen to experts in the preservation community, and hopeful about the future of the sign.
Joyce Boarding House: after illegally swapping original windows for plastic, owner Matin Mehdizadeh seeks to flip landmark SROs for $4.2M. No mention of HCM status. Learn more about the displacement of tenants and extensive illegal demolition. Action item: ask Office of Historic Resources to require repair before any sale. Call (213) 847-3676 or email melissa.jones@lacity.org.
Checking on El Pueblo, which is fine except for some spray paint and way too many shuttered shops, we met Bubbles, Olvera Street's resident artist. He can be found working on his sketchbook every day, and hopes you'll say hi. Just don't ask to buy a drawing!
Los Angeles used to be lousy with newsstands—many of them bookies!—but Larchmont's Above the Fold is one of the last standing. They've been evicted as part of the Rite Aid bankruptcy. Hope this legacy business can find someplace near/reasonable to land. Sign the petition to help make that happen.
New from Bunker Hill historian Nathan Marsak, in the form of a My Dinner with Andre style dialogue: My Final Words on Cooper Donuts. The true stories of LGBTQ activism in L.A. are so compelling, we don't need phony ones celebrated with taxpayer funds.
When then councilmember Kevin de Leon sought to burnish his tarnished reputation by designating an LGBTQ+ landmark in Downtown L.A. for Pride Month 2023, he picked the fake Cooper Donuts Square uprising. Historians objected and tried to help CD14 get the history right, but the office was stubbornly attached to the myth. So we made the best of it, and asked LAPD to apologize for how they mistreated gay Angelenos. May the words of Commander Ruby Flores echo all down The Run, where the ghosts still frolic and hide in the shadows. Never again.
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