Noir Keeps You Cool edition

Gentle reader...

Yesterday, we got a peek behind the scenes at Clifton's Cafeteria, scheduled to re-open on September 22 after just shy of four years restoration and transformation. Will you recognize the old gal? Follow us down the rabbit hole, and see for yourself.

If there's one thing that takes the edge off a long, hot summer, it's the cool respite of an air-conditioned movie theater. The only problem is that one has to watch whatever modern bit of fluff is screening. If your tastes, like ours, run to more classic fare, may we suggest this Saturday's Birth of Noir bus adventure, a cinematic road trip through iconic locations in Downtown, Hollywood and old Glendale? The bus is cool, and the company agreeable. Join us, do!

OUR HISTORIC L.A. PODCAST

In the latest edition of You Can't Eat the Sunshine, we're back from hiatus with a bang as we talk shop with restoration architect Brian Kite and peep inside the wild 1950s diary of Clifton's Cafeteria camera girl Vilma. Click here to tune in.

COMING SOON

THE BIRTH OF NOIR: JAMES M. CAIN'S SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA NIGHTMARE - SAT. 9/12... This tour digs deep into the literature, film and real life vices that inform that most murderous genre, film noir, rolling 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 author Cain's gift to the world. (Buy tickets here.)

WEIRD WEST ADAMS - SAT. 9/19... Thrill as Jazz Age bootleggers run amok, marvel at the Krazy Kafitz family's litany of headline-making misdeeds, see L.A.'s shortest street and its neighboring mansions, stroll the haunted paths of Rosedale Cemetery, stop at Marvin Gaye's murder house and learn how miffed locals fought racist housing laws to the highest court. (Buy tickets here.)

EASTSIDE BABYLON - SAT. 9/26... Go East, young ghoul, to Boyle Heights, where the Night Stalker was captured and to Evergreen, L.A.'s oldest cemetery. To 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. To Commerce, where one small neighborhood's myriad crimes will shock and surprise. To 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... Think there's no weird history on the Westside? Come thrill to tales of teenaged terrors, tortured tots, wicked wives, evil spirits, cults, creeps and assorted maniacs, like Weird Ward, boy husband of the nefarious cult leader who compelled her followers to carry her dead victims all across 1920s L.A., and the peculiar Helen Love, murderess who nearly escaped justice when she willed herself into a coma. Plus a true-life Hansel and Gretel story, the grand hotel that was a flop house for the Synanon Cult and a ghastly killing beneath the pier. It's 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... This new tour reveals the unwritten history of the sleepy suburb that birthed the American dream factory, a neighborhood packed 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 tour Cross Roads of the World (Robert V. Derrah, 1936) and much more. (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.)

THE REAL BLACK DAHLIA - SAT. 10/31... 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. (Buy tickets here.)

RAYMOND CHANDLER'S L.A. - SAT. 11/7... Follow in the young writer's footsteps near his downtown oil company offices to sites from The Lady in the Lake and The Little Sister, meet several real inspirations for the Philip Marlowe character 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. Plus a stop at Scoops for noirish gelato creations and a visit to Larry Edmunds Bookshop. (Buy tickets here.)

BLOOD & DUMPLINGS - SAT. 11/14... 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. (Buy tickets here.)

ECHO PARK BOOK OF THE DEAD - SAT. 11/21... New on our calendar, a crime bus tour meant to honor the lost souls who wander the hills and byways of the "streetcar suburbs" that hug Sunset Boulevard. 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. Plus a visit to Sister Aimee Semple McPherson's exquisite Parsonage, now a museum. (Buy tickets here.)

RICHARD'S 47th BIRTHDAY BUS TOUR OF THE PALOS VERDES PENINSULA - SAT. 11/28... 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.)

PASADENA CONFIDENTIAL - SAT. 12/5...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, black magicians and all manner of maniac in a delightful little tour you won't find recommended by the better class of people. (Buy tickets here.)

HOTEL HORRORS & MAIN STREET VICE - SAT. 12/12... Through the 1940s, downtown was the true city center, a lively, densely populated, exciting and sometimes dangerous place. 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.)

LAVA'S FORENSIC SCIENCE SEMINAR - SUN. 10/18

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. For more info, click here.

RECOMMENDED READING

New from Sarah Weinman, the suspense scholar whose sleuthing of the true crime roots of the Lolita story blew many minds last fall, an anthology celebrating the neglected distaff face of mid-century crime fiction. Included is Dorothy B. Hughes' stunning In A Lonely Place, a Southern California love and mistrust story set against the backdrop of the Black Dahlia era of postwar trauma. The book was adapted into a terrific Nicholas Ray film starring Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame. Can't get enough? Volume 2, The 1950s, is also available from Library of America.

AND FINALLY, LINKS

As a competition to redesign Pershing Square launches, we still think the 1910 edition is worth reviving.

No way to treat Norma Jean's memory, or an historic neighborhood.

Love letter to City Terrace, land of murals and houses that look like castles.

Weird children over the edge.

The hills have moles.

Wayne Thom's Los Angeles is cool and a little terrifying.

We're pleased L.A. County now has an historic preservation ordinance, but making landmarking advocates pay (unspecified) nomination costs is just bad historic preservation policy.

RIP Sassony Arcade sign.

Lisa Napoli shares the many stories of Skid Row, including that of our Lowdown on Downtown tour guest host, Amos Sandifer.

We love trash!

The Cadillac Hotel: ground zero in the gentrification wars again, only this time, it's murder. (We'll visit on our Wild Wild Westside tour, to share Kim's oddball personal crime tale of the place.)

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