Beneath the Barclay Hotel, a lost 19th century world awaits you
Gentle reader...
Although we make it our business to take patrons into the most beautiful and hard-to-reach sites in the southland, there are some places that just aren't suitable for large guided tours. Of course, we yearn to share these inaccessible spots with the people we know would love them.
And that's where science comes in. Urbanist Jane Jacobs famously wrote "old ideas can sometimes use new buildings. New ideas must use old buildings." So we've partnered with Craig Sauer, a Long Beach-based photographer who uses cutting edge Matterport technology to create immersive three-dimensional architectural renderings, and embarked on a documentary series: spaces we love, captured by Craig in lifelike 3-D.
First we climbed through the long grass by the railroad tracks to document JK's Tunnel, a World War 2-era hobo folk art environment. Then we ducked under the rolled down gate of the Dutch Chocolate Shop, a masterpiece of early 20th century art tile.
Our latest project is the most ambitious yet: two explorable floors of the landmark 1896 Barclay Hotel, the oldest continuously operating hotel in Los Angeles. The grand lobby is a magnificent example of Beaux Arts decoration, with elegant plasterwork and gleaming stained glass. And underneath that, the basement and tunnel level awaits, a mysterious zone lit from above by tiny amethyst glass panels in the sidewalk. It's our great pleasure to introduce you to one of our favorite time capsules, and set you free to explore at your own pace. And you don't even need a tetanus shot.
It's a busy weekend with a pair of nearly sold out events, and we'd love to see you here or there. On Saturday, we roll in the footsteps of Beth Short, the tormented young woman at the heart of The Real Black Dahlia murder mystery. Sunday, we'll be at Cal State Los Angeles for four hours of courtroom and laboratory insights at the Murder Will Out forensic science seminar. Join us, do!
RECENTLY TOURED
Move over, Museum of Jurassic Technology. We have a new favorite offbeat cultural institution: St. Louis' City Museum!
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
Eternity Street is that rare book that every Angeleno should read, because it will fundamentally transform their sense of this city and their own place in it. John Mack Faragher's history of the westernmost frontier in the decades surrounding statehood is eminently readable, suffering no fools as the knaves and knights of the pueblo work out their karma on the fields of battle, love and politics. If geography is destiny, then Los Angeles was destined to be a bloody place, a crossroads for seekers fueled by greed, lust and strong spirits. But what fantastic stories they left smeared in gore!
COMING SOON
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
Miffed Marilyn fans take on development-happy LA councilman.
And just like that, a great old LA park's very name is erased. (Please note: Gil Cedillo is the same history-blind councilman who gave a section of the historic Zanja Madre irrigation pipe to a private foundation, which promptly destroyed it.)
We love everything about Jessamyn West on the new Librarian of Congress.
Wild ponies, centuries old artifacts and no people? Sable Island might just be heaven on earth.
Fearing a public vote on L.A.'s broken planning system, Mayor Garcetti goes on a hiring spree.
Excavating Chicago serial killer H.H. Holmes' lost glass bending factory.
SUPPORT OUR WORK
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yrs,
Kim and Richard
Esotouric