The Forecast: Urban Exploration with a Chance of Free Walking Tours
Gentle reader...
We're so pleased to announce the May 29 return of our free Los Angeles history lecture series, the LAVA Sunday Salon. This series began at on Broadway at the old Clifton's Cafeteria in 2010 and moved to Les Noces du Figaro, with a brief stop at Library Bar on Hope Street. Now we're back on Broadway at the Salon's new home, historic Grand Central Market (basement level).
The first speaker is architectural historian Nathan Marsak, with an illustrated talk on lost Bunker Hill and that most delightful survivor: Angels Flight Railway. Immediately following the talk, Nathan joins Richard for a Broadway on My Mind walking tour of notable sites along Hill Street. Both of these events are free but individual reservations are required. Visit the links for more info, or to reserve your spot.
We're back on the bus on Saturday with our new Hollywood! tour, a heady blend of weird crime and stunning architecture. On Sunday, Kim will be signing her noir novel The Kept Girl at the Los Angeles Vintage Paperback Show. And next Saturday, it's manic millionaires and sex-crazed rocket scientists amok on a little time travel trip we call Pasadena Confidential. Join us, do!
RECENTLY TOURED
We left Los Angeles before dawn to take in the glories of the cactus and wildflower superbloom in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. Behold!
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
Our Kim Cooper will be signing copies of her acclaimed mystery novel The Kept Girl, based on a real 1920s Los Angeles cult murder investigation, this Sunday afternoon at the Vintage Paperback Show in Glendale. She'll also have copies of the new Raymond Chandler map, also with Art Deco L.A.-themed cover art by Paul Rogers. And the show is simply packed with dealers peddling the most depraved and delightful exploitation fiction, artwork and magazines. Will we see you there?
COMING SOON
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.)
ECHO PARK BOOK OF THE DEAD - SAT. 4/23... 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. Featuring the Hillside Strangler, the Bat Man's Love Nest and a visit to Sister Aimee Semple McPherson's exquisite Parsonage, now a museum. (Buy tickets here.)
CHARLES BUKOWSKI'S LOS ANGELES - SAT. 4/30... 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.)
EASTSIDE BABYLON - SAT. 5/7... 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.)
RAYMOND CHANDLER'S LOS ANGELES - SAT. 5/14... 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.)
SPECIAL EVENT: CRAWLING DOWN CAHUENGA: TOM WAITS' L.A. - SAT. 5/21... 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.)
Additional upcoming tours: Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice (6/11), Blood & Dumplings (6/18), Weird West Adams (6/25), Pasadena Confidential (7/9), The Real Black Dahlia (7/16), Charles Bukowski's L.A. (7/23), Raymond Chandler's L.A. (7/30).
OUR HISTORIC L.A. PODCAST
Back from hiatus! In episode #108, we explore policy challenges with Peter Lynn, Executive Director of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, and discuss the new Hybrid Industrial Live/Work Zone Ordinance with Patricia Diefenderfer, Senior City Planner with the City of Los Angeles. Click here to tune in. New: find stories on the map!
AND FINALLY, LINKS
Woody's Talking L.A. Blues.
Down around Lakewood, you'll find a number of these charmers. (We like to yell "Chalet!" when we see one.)
Audio vault: relive Mayor Tom Bradley's heartbreaking press conference from the morning after Central Library burned (1986).
Hollywood BID critic bemoans new HPOA records retention policy; deleted emails erase history.
The Port of Long Beach's tile mural in limbo.
An amazing series of photos documenting the wild displays of Downtown's late, lamented Farmacia Million Dollar.
Did pin-striping legend Von Dutch decorate the ATM at this Orange County biker bar?
See that my grave is kept clean.
Baking something special from the Clifton's Cafeteria recipe archives... mmm, looks good!
We make an unplanned excursion into the ruined Armour Meat Packing Plant near East Saint Louis, IL.
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yrs,
Kim and Richard
Esotouric