5-4-3-2-1... LIFT OFF! On A Time Travel Trip to Lost Bunker Hill edition
Gentle reader...
Sometimes in science fiction stories, you'll meet a stranded time traveller—one soul cursed to carry all the stories of a lost place. It's lonely and tragic to bear witness as the last of your kind, and not an easy part to play.
Here in 21st Century Los Angeles, we have someone very much like a fictional time traveller: Bunker Hill native son Gordon Pattison. In the 1960s, Gordon's Victorian neighborhood above Downtown was destroyed by a misguided redevelopment plan, and all his friends, young and aged, scattered to the winds. Then the beautiful buildings that he loved were looted, bulldozed and burned.
For decades, Gordon felt lousy about what had happened, but didn't know what he could do about it. Then he found our blog about old Bunker Hill, and we were privileged to help him to become the voice of his neighborhood, putting a very human face to a civic tragedy. And tonight at 8:30pm on KCET, and then streaming on their website, you can join Gordon for a visit to his lost neighborhood as part of the new history series Lost L.A.
The threat of misguided redevelopment is as real today as it was in 1960, as from Boyle Heights to Hollywood neighbors cling together in battle to save their homes. We think there's still a lot to learn from what went wrong on Bunker Hill, and that Gordon's stories can inspire a new generation of dedicated preservation warriors. Tune in and see for yourself!
Stuck for the perfect Valentine's Day present? There are still a few days to take advantage of our special offer for couples (or very good friends) who'd like to come adventuring with us. Through February 14, you can purchase a Pair Pass, granting a couple two seats on two regularly scheduled tours for just $160, a savings of $72. Want to share one with your sweetie? Click here for more info, or to reserve.
We're back on the bus on Saturday with nearly-sold-out journey into the noir nooks and crannies that inspired mystery writer Raymond Chandler—among them the 1896 time capsule lobby of the Barclay Hotel, which is going on the market soon and may lose its pristine beauty. Next Saturday, also nearly full, it's the Weird West Adams crime bus. And yes, you can use your Valentine's Day discount pass on either one of these tours, so join us, do!
RECENTLY TOURED
On our way to meet the bus for Sunday's South L.A. Road Trip (photos), we found ourselves on the just-reopened 101 Freeway in Boyle Heights, among the first civilians to see our city's newest ruin, the partially demolished Sixth Street Viaduct.
LAVA'S FORENSIC SCIENCE SEMINAR - SUN. 4/17
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 Murder Will Out: The Secret World of Trace Evidence benefits graduate level Criminalistics research. For more info, click here.
RECOMMENDED READING
A collaboration between our own Kim Cooper, her sister Chinta and their sassy 90-something grandma Cutie, Fall in Love For Life: Inspiration from a 73-Year Marriage is a true-life romance how-to guide steeped in vintage Los Angeles locations. Join Cutie and PopPop as they meet cute on a Hollywood tennis court, marry on Wilshire, nosh at the Farmer's Market and build their modern dream house (with pool) in Beverlywood. You'll laugh along with Cutie, the world's worst housekeeper, as she learns how to live with her wonderful fella, for life.
COMING SOON
RAYMOND CHANDLER'S LOS ANGELES - SAT. 2/13... 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. Tour repeats May 14.)
WEIRD WEST ADAMS - SAT. 2/20... 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.)
BOYLE HEIGHTS & THE SAN GABRIEL VALLEY: THE HIDDEN HISTORIES OF L.A.'S MELTING POTS - SAT. 2/27... Come on a century's social history tour through the transformation of neighborhoods, punctuated with immersive stops to sample the varied cultures that make our changing city so beguiling. Voter registration, citizenship classes, Chicano Moratorium, walkouts, blow-outs, anti-Semitism, adult education, racial covenants, boycotts, The City Beautiful, Exclusion Acts and Immigration Acts, property values, xenophobia, and delicious dumplings--all are themes which will be addressed on this lively excursion. This whirlwind social history tour will include: The Vladeck Center, Hollenbeck Park, Evergreen Cemetery, The Venice Room, El Encanto & Cascades Park, Divine's Furniture and Wing Hop Fung. (Buy tickets here.)
WILD WILD WESTSIDE - SAT. 3/12... 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.)
THE BIRTH OF NOIR: JAMES M. CAIN'S SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA NIGHTMARE - SAT. 3/19... 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.)
HOTEL HORRORS & MAIN STREET VICE - SAT. 3/26... 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.)
HOLLYWOOD! - SAT. 4/2... 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.)
PASADENA CONFIDENTIAL - SAT. 4/9... 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.)
THE REAL BLACK DAHLIA - SAT. 4/16... 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 don't wait to reserve. (Buy tickets here.)
LAVA's FORENSIC SCIENCE SEMINAR - SUN. 4/17... Murder Will Out: The Secret World of Trace Evidence, a four-hour presentation held at the teaching crime labs of Cal State Los Angeles. (For more info, click here.)
Additional upcoming tours: Echo Park Book of the Dead (4/23), Charles Bukowski’s L.A. (4/30), Eastside Babylon (5/7), Raymond Chandler's L.A. (5/14), Tom Waits' L.A. (5/21).
OUR HISTORIC L.A. PODCAST
In the latest edition of You Can't Eat the Sunshine, we get the inside scoop on Barlow Sanitarium's legendary gift shop from 99 year-old Margaret Freed, shopkeeper. Plus, a visit with performance artist Elisha Shapiro maestro of Downtown L.A.'s 1984 Nihilist Olympics. Click here to tune in.
AND FINALLY, LINKS
Grand Central Market when it was a grand, central market.
Starbucks transforms another dilapidated roadside gem into a coffee shop, this time a Googie-style burger stand in Redlands.
Heartbreaking: see 1932 Art Deco lamps on landmark Sixth Street Viaduct, destroyed by the city of Los Angeles.
How high does someone have to be to think moving the Schindler House to Palm Springs would be neat?
Redevelopment erases one family's history… but not just yet.
Noir won't stay buried.
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yrs,
Kim and Richard
Esotouric