Does a Pasadena Hammer Slaying Hold the Key to the Los Feliz Murder Mansion Mystery?
Gentle reader...
It's not typical that a 1950s-era crime makes modern headlines, but that just what happened after Rudy Enriquez, the owner of a notorious property in the Los Feliz hills, died last year.
Rudy had inherited the house at 2475 Glendower Place from his parents, and used it for storage. Because the previous owners, Harold and Lillian Perelson, had died in an unexplained murder-suicide, and because an urban legend suggested that Rudy's stuff was the hastily abandoned property of the deceased, the place had become a magnet for ghost hunters and urban explorers. And now, for the first time since 1960, it was being listed for sale.
After speaking with journalist Tim Walker about this crime and stigmatized properties in general, Kim was inspired to write about another local hammer murder which took place just five months after the nightmare in Los Feliz. This Pasadena case, which happens to be featured on Saturday's tour, just might hold the answer to abiding mystery of what happened to the Perelsons.
And speaking of offbeat Pasadena history, we hope you'll tune in to the latest episode of You Can't Eat the Sunshine for Richard's interview with Roger E. Kislingbury, colorful collector of vintage saloon photographs, restorer of esoteric gambling machines and owner of the Crown City's finest Victorian mansion.
We're back on the bus on Saturday with Pasadena Confidential, a tour celebrating the strange and sometimes terrible things that could only happen in that very special suburb. And next weekend, it's our most popular crime bus tour, The Real Black Dahlia and the Murder Will Out forensic science seminar. Join us, do!
RECENTLY TOURED
On last Saturday's Hollywood! tour we strolled through landmark Crossroads of the World, and paid our respects at the wee cottage that was Huell Howser's final office.
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
As featured on our Pasadena Confidential tour, the stranger-than-fiction biography of a homegrown genius, whose passions sent Man to the moon, and himself to the farthest reaches of consciousness. Digging into the mysteries of Jack Parsons' life, scientific and spiritual work and his unexplained death—was it misadventure or was it murder?—has taken us to some pretty far out places, and the trail continues to glow with little flecks of moon dust. It's a great Los Angeles story that isn't finished yet.
COMING SOON
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.)
LAVA SUNDAY SALON - SUN. 5/29... The return of our free cultural lecture series, now located on the basement level of Grand Central Market. For the May Sunday Salon, LAVA Visionary Nathan Marsak presents on old Bunker Hill and Angels Flight. The Sunday Salon is now full, with a waiting list, so do sign up in case of cancelations. Reservations are still being taken for the Broadway on My Mind walking tour of Hill Street after the talk. Due to limited space, reservations are required for both of these free events.
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
In episode #109, pre-Prohibition photo and gambling machine collector Roger E. Kislingbury shares his adventures in search of the good stuff out on the blue highways of America, and curator Gail Phinney of the Palos Verdes Art Center walks us through her new Palos Verdes Modern architecture exhibition. Click here to tune in. New: find stories on the map!
AND FINALLY, LINKS
New on the Esotouric blog: explore the historic Dutch Chocolate Shop in lifelike 3-D.
If you haven't got anything nice to say about Pershing Square, come sit with us.
Bob Baker's marionettes in the crosshairs. (Click here to see how you can help, and here for a preview of the new L.A.-centric show.)
Seek and ye shall find.
Some lucky person got inside the giant Sears in Boyle Heights.
A time travel trip to Highland Park's Page School for Girls, and a connection we were tickled to make. Love that Jo!
Visit Hollywood's historic Yamashiro Restaurant while you still can; the lease negotiations aren't going well.
When you're a concert promoter, every open space is a potential venue, migratory birds be damned. (Petition link to lodge a protest.)
And that's not the only natural space Rec and Parks is selling off to corporate interests.
Troubling Ellis Act stats.
Change in store for our favorite trapped-in-amber burger joint?
Arcadia's long-stalled Van De Kamp's windmill set to spin anew.
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yrs,
Kim and Richard
Esotouric