Big Trouble on L.A.'s Historic Landmarking Commission
Gentle reader...
A few of you joined us a week ago at City Hall for the landmarking hearing for William L. Pereira's endangered 1963 Metropolitan Water District campus. What an eye-opener the hearing was! After dozens of passionate citizens, including the architect's daughter, spoke out in favor of preserving the buildings, the Cultural Heritage Commission voted and we held our collective breath.
One commissioner, President Richard Barron, was disinclined to landmark, blaming condition issues which many in the room knew included the developer's recent intentional vandalism. The next commissioner, Jeremy Irvine, took Barron's lead, though with obvious regret. But the next two two commissioners, Vice President Gail Kennard and Barry Milofsky made it clear that they believed Pereira's MWD campus retained its historic qualities and ought to be a city landmark. Both made strong cases before their pro-preservation votes.
With a 2-2 vote, it would fall to the fifth commissioner, Elissa Scrafano, to cast the tie breaking decision. But where was she? Although she'd been involved with the process up until this point, and her name was on the hearing's agenda, she was not up on the dais.
That's when a room of passionate preservationists who had spent half their day in City Hall learned that Mayor Garcetti had unaccountably removed the fifth commissioner from the Cultural Heritage Commission, and in so doing turned it into a toothless body that was barred for procedural reasons from landmaking any controversial property.
Because a 2-2 tie vote defaults to "no action," the developer would be allowed to demolish the work that Monica Pereira had come all the way from Arizona to tell us was among her architect father's favorite commissions.
As the situation sunk in, members of the audience abandoned their polite masks. "Bullshit! You should be ashamed of yourselves!" yelled one, storming from the room.
We've blogged about the hearing, and made video available if you'd like to see for yourself. And we've got a possible solution for the gutted CHC commission and this distressing vote, a solution which needs your help to bring about.
Please, sign the petition asking that Mayor Eric Garcetti act promptly to restore a full seated body of Cultural Heritage Commissioners, and that the CHC stop the clock on the unjust Metropolitan Water District "no action" decision. And tell your friends who care about Los Angeles history to sign it, too.
It's ironic that our civic landmarking process should be revealed to be compromised this of all weeks. Los Angeles has one of the nation's oldest and strongest historic preservation ordinances, something Kim calls out with pride in the introduction to her newly-published guidebook, How To Find Old Los Angeles.
But an ordinance is only as effective as the politicians and bureaucrats who control it allow. Let's remind Eric Garcetti and the CHC that we expect nothing less than fair hearings for our landmarks.
We're back on the bus this Saturday with Blood & Dumplings, a true crime and weird history tour through the San Gabriel Valley. On Sunday, it's the free LAVA Sunday Salon at Grand Central Market, as The Ukulady brings us into her magical world through ukulele tunes, interactive crafting and a cartooning how-to. Next Saturday: the Hollywood! crime bus tour. Join us, do!
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RECENTLY TOURED
The Bradbury Building atrium in violet, like something from another world.
LAVA'S FORENSIC SCIENCE SEMINAR - SUN. 12/11
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. On December 11, 2016 (note new date!) join us for The Spider-Man Bandit & The Artificial Human Head: Breakthroughs in Crime Scene Investigation. Track a fearless cat burglar/killer through the decades, as his 1970s-era crimes are exposed when the cold case unit tests old DNA. Then learn about new research in blunt force injury, with a chance to perform a hands-on assault on a head built for breaking. Your $36.50 ticket benefits graduate level Criminalistics research. For more info, click here.
RECOMMENDED READING
New from our Kim Cooper and U.K. travel guide mavens Herb Lester is How To Find Old Los Angeles, a glove box companion for urban time travelers. Included within are 153 historic sites where you can eat, drink, wander and fall in love with our city's rich and often oddball history. Let Kim be your guide as you stamp your Angeleno's passport with giant donuts, notable neon, shadowy dive bars and secret gardens. Available as a souvenir on our bus tours or by mail, and wherever fine paperbacks are sold.
COMING SOON
BLOOD & DUMPLINGS - SAT. 9/24... Forget Hollywood, babe, 'cause the quintessential L.A. town is definitely El Monte, its history packed with noirish murders, brilliant thespians, loony Nazis, James Ellroy's naked lunch and the lion farm that MGM's celebrated kitty called home. See all this and so much more, including the Man from Mars Bandit's Waterloo, when you climb aboard the daffiest crime tour in our arsenal, and the only one that includes a dumpling picnic at a landmark playground populated with fantastical giant sea creatures. Special on this tour: the secret diary of Vilma, El Monte's sassy Clifton's Cafeteria camera girl. Not frequently offered, you won't want to miss this ride. (Buy tickets here).
LAVA SUNDAY SALON / WALKING TOUR - SUN. 9/25... Our free cultural lecture series recently relaunched on the basement level of Grand Central Market. For the September Sunday Salon, you're transported to the Ukulady's world, where she shares her music, mirth, cartoons and crafting in an interactive, hands-on experience. After the Salon, a free Broadway on My Mind walking tour explores lost jails and law enforcement spaces around the Civic Center. Due to limited space, reservations are required for both of these free events. The walking tour is currently full.
HOLLYWOOD! - SAT. 10/1... 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).
ECHO PARK BOOK OF THE DEAD - SAT. 10/15... 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).
RAYMOND CHANDLER'S LOS ANGELES - SAT. 10/22... 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.)
THE REAL BLACK DAHLIA - SAT. 10/29... 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.)
Additional upcoming tours: Weird West Adams (11/5), Eastside Babylon (11/12), Charles Bukowski's L.A. (11/19), Special Event: Richard's Birthday Bus Tour of Long Beach & the South Bay (11/26), Pasadena Confirdential (12/3) and Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice (12/10).
OUR HISTORIC L.A. PODCAST
Episode #115, Hollywood Book Culture & Downtown’s Chimney Swifts, we talk about the golden age of bookshops with film historian Bob Birchard, then visit the Ornithology section of the Natural History Museum for an insider's look at Vaux' swifts, tiny travelers who nest in landmarks. Click here to tune in. New: find stories on the map!
AND FINALLY, LINKS
Restoring the Earl Carroll Theater neon sounds great, until you read that the developer thinks LEDs might be sufficient.
Los Angeles Magazine takes a deep dive into Grand Central Market, which contrary to its curator’s opinion, was never a sh*thole. (See our past musings on the 99-year-old market's delicate balance here.)
Sleuthing Craig Smith’s long, bad trip.
Vandalized Angels Flight Railway got a much needed bath and we were there.
Valley Village preservationists sue Los Angeles over unwritten vote trade agreement in City Council.
Century-old Harrelson Block badly damaged in vape shop fire.
Give me a child until s/he is 7 and I'll show you an historic preservation activist... for life!
What a long, strange trip it’s been since the Dutch Chocolate Shop was “rediscovered” on one of our tours. Next chapter… to be determined.
The Google streetview camera captured us giving a private Black Dahlia tour outside the old Crown Grill last fall.
Tracking the ongoing destruction of Ricardo Legorreta's Pershing Square design. Yes, we'd like to see the vintage park restored, but why wreck the existing park before there's funding for anything new?
When brand consultants reach Skid Row. Presented without comment: here’s what’s next for the Cecil Hotel.
Terry, the Virgil of the Arts District (you've meet him on our Lowdown on Downtown tours.)
Free film noir screened in historic Union Station.
It’s hard to get excited about a Tail O’ The Pup food truck. Call us when the historic hot dog shaped stand is back in business.
yrs,
Kim and Richard
Esotouric