In Search of Lost Bunker Hill edition
A corner of the King Edward Hotel lobby, from our Instagram feed.
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Gentle reader...
In The High Window, Raymond Chandler wrote "Bunker Hill is old town, lost town, shabby town, crook town. Once, very long ago, it was the choice residential district of the city, and there are still standing a few of the jigsaw Gothic mansions with wide porches and walls covered with round-end shingles and full corner bay windows with spindle turrets. They are all rooming houses now…"
For Chandler, writing in the 1940s, the old Downtown neighborhood was a good place to track a killer and advance a detective story plot. His eloquent put downs hang in the air like the scent of summer jasmine, too beautifully phrased not to be true.
But while it had its seedy side, Bunker Hill was always so much more than a slum. 9000 people called it home when the land was cleared by eminent domain, the largest such seizure in American history.
We've devoted an entire website to revealing the nuances of Bunker Hill and have invited native son Gordon Pattison to tell his stories of real life above the city on our podcast and at the LAVA Sunday Salon. The more we learn, the more we love the place.
A great resource for anyone interested in Bunker Hill is the photo collection of the Los Angeles Public Library. A selection of these images are currently featured in two-room exhibition in the first floor galleries of LAPL, and in the new book, Bunker Hill in the Rearview Mirror: The Rise, Fall, and Rise Again of an Urban Neighborhood.
And you can come celebrate a lost piece of the Los Angeles puzzle at the opening reception on May 13.
We're back on the bus this Saturday, rolling through Raymond Chandler's lost noir city--not including Bunker Hill, of course, because it's been demolished. Join us, do!
COMING SOON
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.)
WEIRD WEST ADAMS - SAT. 6/27... On this guided tour through the Beverly Hills of the early 20th Century, Crime Bus passengers thrill as Jazz Age bootleggers run amok, marvel at the Krazy Kafitz family's litany of murder-suicides, attempted husband slayings, Byzantine estate battles and mad bombings, visit the shortest street in Los Angeles (15' long Powers Place, with its magnificent views of the mansions of Alvarado Terrace), discover which fabulous mansion was once transformed into a functioning whiskey factory using every room in the house, and stroll the haunted paths of Rosedale Cemetery, site of notable burials (May K. Rindge, the mother of Malibu) and odd graveside crimes. Featured players include the most famous dwarf in Hollywood, mass suicide ringleader Reverend Jim Jones, wacky millionaires who can't control their automobiles, human mole bank robbers, comically inept fumigators, kids trapped in tar pits, and dozens of other unusual and fascinating denizens of early Los Angeles. (Buy tickets here.)
PASADENA CONFIDENTIAL WITH CRIMEBO THE CLOWN - SAT. 7/11... The Crown City masquerades as a calm and refined retreat, where well-bred ladies glide around their perfect bungalows and everyone knows what fork to use first. But don't be fooled by appearances. Dip into the confidential files of old Pasadena and meet assassins and oddballs, kidnappers and slashers, Satanists and all manner of maniac in a delightful little tour you WON'T find recommended by the better class of people! From celebrated cases like the RFK assassination (with a visit to Sirhan Sirhan's folks' house), Eraserhead star Jack Nance's strange end, black magician/rocket scientist Jack Parsons' death-by-misadventure and the 1926 Rose Parade grand stand collapse, to fascinating obscurities, the tour's dozens of murders, arsons, kidnappings, robberies, suicides, auto wrecks and oddball happening sites provide a alternate history of Pasadena that's as fascinating as it is creepy. Passengers will tour the old Millionaire's Row on Orange Grove, thrill to the shocking Sphinx Murder on the steps of the downtown Masonic Hall and discover why people named Judd should think twice before moving to Pasadena. (Buy tickets here.)
THE REAL BLACK DAHLIA - SAT. 7/18... 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.)
AND FINALLY, LINKS
Last call for a Route 66 roadhouse.
The trouble with Chartres.
"Look, an American kid with a dream. Let's fleece her!" Strike Debt fights back.
New tools sought for redeveloping Ports o' Call in a post-CRA Los Angeles (and please don't change the name!)
When a walking tour (not ours') hits a locked gate, tempers flare.
The Masked Marvel mystery abides.
So you think it would be "fun" to test your DNA?
Historic preservationists in love.
Fan of the film The Conversation? Dig actual '50s surveillance recordings by Leo Jones, the real Harry Caul.
yrs,
Kim and Richard
Esotouric
RECOMMENDED READING
New from our friends at the Los Angeles Public Library, Bunker Hill in the Rearview Mirror, the latest in a series of little books celebrating the library's wonderful photographic archives and the lost buildings of Downtown Los Angeles.
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 LAVA blog, video of Nathan Marsak's LAVA Sunday Salon talk on Richardsonian Romanesque architecture in Los Angeles. Click here to see.
In the latest edition of You Can't Eat the Sunshine, we peel back the curtains to reveal a day in the life of Union Station, and learn how fast-acting Downey folk managed to save their beloved Googie diner from an illegal demolition. 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. The Sunday Salon returns on May 31 with Kristin Bedford's photographic odyssey into fascinating and seldom-seen spaces. 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
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)
South L.A. Road Trip: Hot Rods, Adobes, Googie & Early Modernism (8/2)
The Lowdown on Downtown (8/15)
SUPPORT OUR WORK
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