An Art Deco Jewel Shines Anew edition
Gazing out at the vacant lot that was East L.A.'s First Street Store, demolished for a charter school. From our Instagram feed.
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Gentle reader...
What a pleasure, during our sold-out, debut Hollywood! excursion last Saturday, to gaze out the bus window and see the landmark Gilmore Gasoline Service Station (R.J. Kadow, 1935) buzzing like an Art Deco hive in its new life, as a Starbucks drive-thru coffee shop. The sight of the gleaming ivory and green jewel stopped us in our tracks!
For too many years, the old station moldered on its prominent corner, victim of a greedy landlord who drove its gas station tenants off with unsustainable rent hikes. Vacant, fenced, it became a magnet for taggers and a source of pain for the preservation-minded.
As a landmark, nominated by the neighborhood that loved it, the station couldn't be easily torn down to reap the "highest and best use" of its prime Hollywood location (think mini-mall, or mixed use residential). But time can be nearly as effective as the wrecking ball, when demolition-by-neglect is on the menu.
So three cheers for a corporation that has the resources and the vision to transform this bit of urban blight back into the proud treasure that always lurked beneath the grime, and the good taste to let the building speak for itself. For the cost of a restoration, Starbucks has bought itself a billboard, and a whole lot of goodwill.
(Psst, forward-thinking corporations: save this one next!)
We're off the bus this weekend, but back next Saturday with a time travel trip through the sleazy delights of a lost Downtown: Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice. Join us, do!
COMING SOON
HOTEL HORRORS & MAIN STREET VICE - SAT. 4/11... From the founding of the city through the 1940s, downtown was the true center of Los Angeles, a lively, densely populated, exciting and sometimes dangerous place. After many quiet decades, downtown is making an incredible return. But while many of the historic buildings remain, their human context has been lost. This downtown double feature tour is meant to bring alive the old ghosts and memories that cling to the streets and structures of the historic core, and is especially recommended for downtown residents curious about their neighborhood's neglected history. (Buy tickets here.)
THE REAL BLACK DAHLIA - SAT. 4/18... Join us on this iconic, unsolved Los Angeles murder mystery tour, from the throbbing boulevards of a postwar Downtown to the quiet suburban avenue where horror came calling. After multiple revisions, this is less a true crime tour than a social history of 1940s Hollywood female culture, mass media and madness, and we welcome you to join us for the ride. This tour always sells out, so do not delay. (Buy tickets here.)
ECHO PARK BOOK OF THE DEAD - SAT. 4/25... New from the deranged minds of Esotouric, an historical crime bus tour meant to honor the lost souls who wander the hills and byways of the "streetcar suburbs" (Echo Park, Silver Lake, Elysian Park, Angeleno Heights) that hug Sunset Boulevard. Climb aboard to see seemingly ordinary houses, streets and commercial buildings revealed as the scenes of chilling crimes and mysteries, populated by some of the most fascinating people you'd never want to meet. Featured cases include Edward Hickman's kidnapping of little Marion Parker and the bizarre "Man in the Attic" love nest slaying, plus dozens of incredible, forgotten tales of Angelenoes in peril. Guests will also see some of the most beautiful historic architecture in Los Angeles, including a visit to Sister Aimee Semple McPherson's exquisite Parsonage, her one-time home, now a museum. (Buy tickets here.)
CHARLES BUKOWSKI'S LOS ANGELES - SAT. 5/2... Come explore Charles Bukowski's lost Los Angeles and the fascinating contradictions that make this great local writer such a hoot to explore. Haunts of a Dirty Old Man is a raucous day out celebrating liquor, ladies, pimps and poets. The tour includes a visit to Buk's DeLongpre bungalow, where you'll see the Cultural-Historic Monument sign that we helped to get approved, and a mid-tour provisions stop at Pink Elephant Liquor. (Buy tickets here.)
RAYMOND CHANDLER'S LOS ANGELES - SAT. 5/9... Join us for a journey from the downtown of Chandler's pre-literary youth (but which always lingered at the fore of his imagination) to the Hollywood of his greatest success, with a stop along the way at Tai Kim's Scoops for unexpected gelato creations inspired by the author. We'll start the tour following in the young Chandler's footsteps, as he roamed the blocks near the downtown oil company office where he worked. See sites from The Lady in the Lake and The Little Sister, discover the real Philip Marlowe (the inspiration for Kim's novel The Kept Girl) and get the skinny on Chandler's secret comic operetta that we discovered in the Library of Congress nearly a century after it was written. (Buy tickets here.)
SPECIAL EVENT: CRAWLING DOWN CAHUENGA: TOM WAITS' L.A. - SAT. 5/16... In our very occasional guest tour series, a delightful excursion that only comes around once a year, the Tom Waits bus adventure hosted by acclaimed rock critic David Smay (Bubblegum Music is the Naked Truth, Swordfishtrombones). This voyage through the city that shaped one of our most eclectic musical visionaries starts in Skid Row and rolls through Hollywood and Echo Park, spotlighting the sites where Waits was transformed through the redemptive powers of love and other lures: the Tropicana Motel, Francis Coppola's Zoetrope Studios, the raunchy Ivar Theatre and so much more. Join us for a great day out in 1970s Los Angeles celebrating the music, the culture and the passions of Tom Waits. (Buy tickets here.)
EASTSIDE BABYLON - SAT. 5/30... Go East, young ghoul. Come visit Boyle Heights, where the Night Stalker was captured and a mad dad ran amok. Roam the hallowed lawns of Evergreen, L.A.'s oldest cemetery and home of some memorable haunts and strange burials. Visit East L.A., where a deranged radio shop employee made mince meat of his boss and bride--and you can get your hair done in a building shaped like a giant tamale. Explore the ghastly streets of Commerce, where one small neighborhood's myriad crimes will shock and surprise. Visit Montebello, for scrumptious milk and cookies at Broguiere's Farm Fresh Dairy washed down with a horrifying case of child murder. That's Eastside Babylon, our most unhinged crime bus tour. (Buy tickets here.)
BLOOD & DUMPLINGS - SAT. 6/20... Forget Hollywood, babe, 'cause the quintessential L.A. town is definitely El Monte, its history packed with noirish murders, brilliant thespians, loony Nazis, James Ellroy's naked lunch and the lion farm that MGM's celebrated kitty called home. See all this and so much more, including the Man from Mars Bandit's Waterloo, when you climb aboard the daffiest crime tour in our arsenal, and the only one that includes a dumpling picnic at a landmark playground populated with fantastical giant sea creatures. Not frequently offered, you won't want to miss this ride. (Buy tickets here.)
AND FINALLY, LINKS
The "dining room" Sheets is immortal.
"Gentrification is killing us," says the owner of the fabulous botánica at 3rd and Broadway.
Remind us again why it's okay for landmark WPA post offices to be sold off to rich dudes?
Video interlude: the 1970s were a special time. Plus: Brute Force is streaming, and the universe is benevolent.
If a neighbor falls in his apartment, does it make a sound?
We should all seek to leave our city lovelier, like he did.
Night time is the bright time in old Los Angeles.
When public space is partially, barely, privatized, nobody is happy. Spring Street Park: a cautionary tale.
Arts District developer seeking to erase 126-year-old street name. Save Merrick!
Petition seeks to stop the demolition of historic L.A. houses for rampant townhouse development.
SUPPORT OUR WORK
If you enjoy all we do to celebrate and preserve Los Angeles history and would like to say thank you, please consider putting a little something into our digital tip jar. Your contributions are never obligatory, but always appreciated.
yrs,
Kim and Richard
Esotouric
RECOMMENDED READING
As the vanishing snowpack inspires our Governor to enact unprecedented restrictions on urban water use comes this new study of the complicated, controversial and always-timely figure of William Mulholland, and the engineering feat that transformed the West.
A novel set in 1929 Los Angeles, starring the young Raymond Chandler, his devoted secretary and the real-life Philip Marlowe in pursuit of a murderous cult of angel worshippers. Available on all Esotouric tours, or direct from Esotouric Ink, from Amazon and for the Kindle.
A collaboration between illustrator Paul Rogers and our own Kim Cooper, featuring 50 iconic noir locations and packed with surprising lore and gorgeous artwork inspired by the vintage Dell Mapback mysteries of the 1940s. Available from Kim or Amazon, and on our tours. (Looking for Aaron Blake's out-of-print 1985 map? Click here.)
FORENSIC SCIENCE SEMINARS
Four times a year, we gather in the teaching crime labs of Cal State Los Angeles under the direction of Professor Donald Johnson to explore the history and future of American forensic science. Your $36.50 ticket to the Serial Killer Summer Session presentation benefits graduate level Criminalistics research. Join us on Sunday, August 16. For more info, or to reserve, click here.
FROM THE VIDEO VAULT
Now on the Esotouric blog, a virtual visit to Clifton's Cafeteria, circa 2010. Click here to see.
In the latest edition of You Can't Eat the Sunshine, we take a Highway 14 road trip, to get the skinny on the sun-frizzled poppy crop and hiking options around Vasquez Rocks. Click here to tune in.
Help bring an L.A. icon back from the dead. Join the campaign to restore John Parkinson's 1910 design for our greatest lost park.
The LAVA Sunday Salon is our monthly cultural clearing house of new ideas presented by LAVA Visionaries, the most fascinating folks in town. Back from hiatus, the Sunday Salon returns on April 26 with Joan Jobe Smith's astonishing tales of her life as a 1960s go go dancer. Free, reservations required.
We discovered Raymond Chandler's most delightful literary secret. Now we need your help to stage his comic operetta in Los Angeles!
Need an L.A.-centric gift in a hurry? Visit The Esotouric Emporium of L.A. Lore, our curated guide to the best in regional books, films and artifacts. How about a gift certificate for a bus adventure into the secret heart of Los Angeles, a solo 6-Pack or shareable 12-Pack? We also carry vintage photos of lost Bunker Hill as well as earlier scenes, Charles Bukowski-inspired fine art prints, Raymond Chandler maps (vintage) or (contemporary) and 76 ball antenna toppers.
TOUR CALENDAR
The Real Black Dahlia (4/18)
Echo Park Book of the Dead (4/25)
Charles Bukowski's L.A. (5/2)
Raymond Chandler's L.A. (5/9)
Special Event: Crawling Down Cahuenga: Tom Waits' L.A. (5/16)
Eastside Babylon (5/30)
Blood & Dumplings (6/20)
Weird West Adams (6/27)
The Real Black Dahlia (7/18)
Charles Bukowski's L.A. (7/25)