Only In Los Angeles: A Giant Donut Gets A Makeover
Gentle reader...
Los Angeles has always been the place where people come to reinvent themselves, with powder and paint, new clothes and new features. The only limit is imagination.
On Valentine's Day down in Bellflower, just as the golden hues of sunset were melting into purple, we found ourselves gaping awestruck at a building that embodies these transformative qualities.
Bellflower Bagel is a jaunty Googie-style 1950s roadside food stand, all curved steel and gleaming glass with tasty carbs within. And up atop the lollipop sign: the great American supercolossal donut, nipped, tucked and repainted into a very convincing bagel, with a pretty pink inner ring (we think it's meant to be lox spread).
What a wonderful city, where even a donut can give itself a makeover!
We're back on the bus on Saturday with nearly-sold-out excursion through the many historic neighborhoods of the West Adams district, on a little true crime and social history journey that we call Weird West Adams. Next Saturday, we'll wrap up the twice-yearly California Culture tour series with Boyle Heights & San Gabriel Valley: The Hidden Histories of L.A.'s Melting Pot. Join us, do!
RECENTLY TOURED
The most independent survivor of the 1950s Big Donut chain, the Bellflower branch shows off its Hollywood makeover / conversion.
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
Architectural historian and preservationist Dr. Richard Longstreth dug into his personal photographic archives to take us on a virtual 1960s-era Road Trip: Roadside America, From Custard's Last Stand to the Wigwam Restaurant through the weird old America that's mostly not there anymore. From motels to drive-ins, gas stations to tourist attractions, Dr. Longstreth reveals the charm, wit and tragedy of offbeat architectural gems at the end of their useful life. We salute the young scholar for spending all his ready cash on gas and film, and the mature one for sharing today.
COMING SOON
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
Join us for You Can't Eat The Sunshine as we visit with fascinating characters for wide-ranging interviews that reveal the myths, contradictions, inspirations and passions of the place. There’s never been a city quite like Los Angeles. Tune in if you’d like to find out why. New: find stories on the map!
AND FINALLY, LINKS
Silver Lake just got a little less sleazy. RIP Circus of Books!
Look for the lilacs.
Developer still plans to destroy Bob Baker's Marionette Theater, an L.A. landmark.
We love new neon signs, but not when they come with digital billboards that threaten to spoil the perfect vistas of our National Register Broadway Theater District.
A creative response to scofflaw billboard company that illegally hacked Silverlake trees.
Well HELLO pretty lady! An offbeat car wash sign makes an impression in El Sereno.
The Sierra Club shines a light on the unsavory actions of the Coastal Commission board.
The money shot is at 2:58. RIP grand Art Deco pillars that welcomed Angelenoes to Boyle Heights for 84 years. CalTrans should've saved them.
Hollywood BID watchdog claims credit for 37% reduction in arrests of homeless people by private security guards.
Happy 60th birthday to the Googie-tastic Covina Bowl! (Preservationists fear it might not see 61.)
Our favorite sassy book clerk tells (almost) all.
The greatest girl gang you never heard of, and how.
SUPPORT OUR WORK
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yrs,
Kim and Richard
Esotouric