86 Years Ago This Week edition
SEEN ON OUR TRAVELS
From under the awning of the 1906 King Edward Hotel, the restored Hart Brothers' hotel neon shines.
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Gentle reader...
When you love something vulnerable, you want to do everything you can to keep it safe from harm.
In the case of Angels Flight Railway, the plucky wee funicular that is the last remaining bit of old Bunker Hill, that meant that we spearheaded a petition campaign asking the mayor to cut the red tale that's prevented the cars from operating for nearly two years.
As our campaign grew in numbers and sparked an official request for an MTA report, the funicular's non-profit board reached out to say thank you, and to talk about other things that could help. One of these was an updated, mobile-friendly website, essential before a much-needed fundraising campaign began.
So Richard spent the past few weeks redesigning the Angels Flight website. It went live this week, just in time for the announcement of a $10,000 matching grant from the Bohnett Foundation.
And that's what we've done for Angels Flight lately. You can do your part by donating, by signing the petition, or simply by spreading the word. And with luck, good will and a bit of elbow grease, we hope soon be able to invite you to join us for that short, thrilling ride to the top of Bunker Hill.
The coming week is a great time to catch up with Kim's vintage Southern California mystery fiction, as the Kept Days book sale (for Kindle or paperback) synchs up with the 1929 action in her Esotouric Ink debut, The Kept Girl.
We're back on the bus on Saturday, with Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice, a nearly sold out true crime excursion through some of the prettiest spots in Downtown LA. Join us, do!
COMING SOON
HOTEL HORRORS & MAIN STREET VICE - SAT. 8/29... 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 BIRTH OF NOIR: JAMES M. CAIN'S SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA NIGHTMARE - SAT. 9/12... Ride along on a very pulpy path on a wide-ranging tour that digs deep into the literature, film and real life vices that inform that most murderous genre, film noir -- from Double Indemnity (where Raymond Chandler's Hollywood career intersects with Cain's) to The Postman Always Rings Twice to Mildred Pierce and beyond. The tour rolls through Hollywood, Glendale and old Skid Row, lost lion farms, murderous sopranos, fascist film censors, offbeat cemeteries -- all in a quest to reveal the delicious, and deeply influential, nightmares that are Cain's gift to the world. (Buy tickets here.)
WEIRD WEST ADAMS - SAT. 9/19... 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.)
EASTSIDE BABYLON - SAT. 9/26... 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.)
WILD WILD WESTSIDE - SAT. 10/3... For the first time, we've set our true crime sights on points west of Robertson, and the results are truly mind-boggling. Originally offered in our 2008-2009 seasons, this revived crime bus tour spotlights some of the weirdest, most horrific and downright unbelievable crimes of historic West Los Angeles, Venice and Santa Monica. You'll thrill and shudder to tales of teenaged terrors, tortured tots, wicked wives, evil spirits, cults, creeps and assorted maniacs. Get on the bus to meet Weird Ward, the boy husband of the nefarious cult leader who compelled her followers to carry her departed victims all across 1920s L.A. (as featured in Kim's novel, The Kept Girl), and the peculiar Helen Love, who nearly escaped justice when she willed herself into a coma during her very odd murder trial. Along the Venice shore, you'll see where a pair of real life witches tortured their own Hansels and Gretels as neighbors pretended not to hear the tots' cries, and marvel at the grand hotel that was formally a flop house for ex-junkies in the Synanon Cult. Come discover the real and terrible history of L.A.'s westside, on a tour so wild, we had to say it twice. (Buy tickets here.)
SKID ROW HISTORY WALKING TOUR & ROOFTOP SCREENING - THURS, 10/8... These events, co-hosted by our Richard Schave, are offered under the umbrella of LAVA - The Los Angeles Visionaries Association. Free, reservations required for the tour and for the film.
HOLLYWOOD! - SAT. 10/10... A brand new bus adventure! Climb aboard the Esotouric crime bus and discover the unwritten history of the sleepy suburb that birthed the American dream factory. From literary lions to criminal masterminds, terror plots to teenage thrill seekers, music mavens to abiding mysteries, the neighborhood is packed to the rim with with fascinating lore and architectural marvels. You won’t see the stars’ homes or hear about their latest real estate deals, but we’ll show you where some colorful characters breathed their last, got into trouble that defined the rest of their lives and came up with ideas that the world is still talking about. So for unforgettable stories you won’t hear on anyone else’s Hollywood tour, climb aboard and discover the secret heart of the city we love. Tour stops include Crossroads of the World (Robert V. Derrah, 1936) and the sites of the legendary Garden of Allah hotel and Schwab’s Drugstore. (Buy tickets here.)
CHARLES BUKOWSKI'S LOS ANGELES - SAT. 10/17... 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.)
RICHARD'S 47th BIRTHDAY BUS TOUR OF THE PALOS VERDES PENINSULA, SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA's BEST KEPT SECRET: Pack a picnic lunch (we’ll supply the birthday cake and coffee) and join us for an all-day outing exploring the history, landscape and built environment of the Palos Verdes Peninsula. This is a one-time only special event bus adventure that will never be repeated. (Get more info and buy tickets here.)
AND FINALLY, LINKS
“When you walk round that corner, there are 37 souls walking up and down with you. Why does nobody care?”
A celebration of L.A.'s weirdest buildings, including our beloved Tamale. Why not make a day of it?
And Long Beach's sad little coffee pot may be perking up.
Bless the archivists and the amateur historians, and deliver their holdings from grasping politicians.
Interesting circumstances for a book tour...
You actually can go home again… but the tacos cost a fortune.
One gentrified Highland Park building, under the microscope. (And with all the media attention, how awful that nobody helped the tenants.)
They paved paradise, put up a… well, one of these.
A small step for the County Supervisors, and a giant leap for historic preservation in unincorporated Los Angeles.
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
BOOK SALE - AUG. 29 TO SEPT. 4
86 years ago this week, the action unfolds in our debut Esotouric Ink publication, a noir Los Angeles novel based on the real mystery of the Great Eleven cult and starring the young Raymond Chandler and real-life Philip Marlowe. If you've been meaning to pick it up, you can take advantage of the Kept Days sale from August 29 through September 4, starting at just 99¢. Not a Kindle user? Save $5 off the paperback in the Esotouric Shop with the discount code "chandlerinlove"
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 V is for Vice: Eight Decades of Sin & Scandal, from the Sunset Strip to Beverly Hills benefits graduate level Criminalistics research. Join us on Sunday, October 18. For more info, click here.
FROM THE VIDEO VAULT
Enjoy this color 1940s Southern California travelogue courtesy of the Internet Archive. See Hollywood to the Huntington -- Polo Ponies -- Rose Parade Orange King -- Forest Lawn -- Chinatown and Olvera Street -- Santa Anita -- The Bird Farm -- Palm Springs resort life and Desert Circus Parade -- Snow and missions. All so great, but to finally see Gay's Lion Farm in living color has made our month!
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.
PRESERVATION CAMPAIGNS
Help bring two L.A. icons back from the dead, when you join the campaign to restore John Parkinson's 1910 design for our greatest lost park, and sign the petition to return Angels Flight Railway to regular service.
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, Charles Bukowski-inspired fine art prints and Raymond Chandler maps both vintage and contemporary.
TOUR CALENDAR
The Birth of Noir (9/12)
Weird West Adams (9/19)
Eastside Babylon (9/26)
Wild Wild Westside (10/3)
Hollywood! (10/10)
Charles Bukowski's L.A. (10/17)
The Real Black Dahlia (10/31)
Blood & Dumplings (11/14)
Echo Park Book of the Dead (11/21)
Pasadena Confidential (12/5)
Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice (12/12)