It all started with the 1947project...

Gentle reader...

Have you ever liked someone enough to loan them your library card? That's how our romance began—18 years after we first crossed paths as cranky college kids who cultivated an immediate, mutual loathing, for no good reason beyond not liking each others' looks.

But second time around, that antipathy had matured into something sweeter. And when Kim told Richard about the long hours she was putting in scanning newspaper microfilm for her cultural history of Los Angeles crime, he offered his UCLA Library faculty-level card and its instant access to the digital Los Angeles Times archives. Then he suggested she might try blogging her research and seeing where it went.

The result was the 1947project, a popular crime-a-day time travel blog that grew into a series of funky true crime bus tours that served as the inspiration for Esotouric.

None of this would have happened if Richard didn't decide he could trust Kim with his card, and if Kim hadn't been willing to relax her natural inclination not to share creative work until it was highly polished.

It just goes to show that you never know what good things can happen when you close your eyes, hold hands and take a leap of faith. Here's to collaboration, the headiest spirit of all.

Newly added to our calendar are a pair of special event tours. Palos Verdes Ancient & Modern (4/8) is an unusual seaside excursion spanning mid-century architecture to evidence of ancient gardens. Crawling Down Cahuenga: Tom Waits’ L.A. (6/3) is a 1970s musical history tour celebrating the power of love.

Also just announced, a chance to win a seat on the bus when you buy a crime lab seminar ticket before Tuesday. Raffle details are here.

We're back on the bus on Saturday with a noir-tinged tour of the time capsule sites that make up Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles. Join us, do!

SUPPORT OUR WORK

If you enjoy all we do to celebrate and preserve Los Angeles history and would like to say thank you, please consider putting a little something into our digital tip jar. You can also click here before shopping on Amazon. Your contributions are never obligatory, but always appreciated.

RECENTLY TOURED

Mist obscures Bunker Hill. If you squint, you can almost see ghostly Victorians between the glass towers.

LAVA'S FORENSIC SCIENCE SEMINAR - SUN. 1/22

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 January 22, 2017, join us as arson detective and author Ed Nordskog ("Torchered" Minds: Case Histories of Notorious Serial Arsonists) shares his most fascinating recent case, The Hollywood Fire Devil. Your $36.50 ticket benefits graduate level Criminalistics research. Click here to reserve.

RECOMMENDED READING

From our 1947project crime blogging colleague Mary McCoy, here's a different kind of young adult novel, steeped in vintage Los Angeles noir. We think it's just the thing for the morbid kid in your life.

COMING SOON

RAYMOND CHANDLER'S LOS ANGELES - SAT. 1/14... 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.)

FORENSIC SCIENCE SEMINAR AT CAL STATE LOS ANGELES - SUN. 1/22... Professor Donald Johnson hosts arson investigator Ed Nordskog's presentation, The Hollywood Fire Devil. In this recently adjudicated case, you'll follow along in real time as the largest coordinated arson investigation in history pits a multi-agency team against a bold and increasingly dangerous perpetrator who is terrorizing Los Angeles. Your $36.50 ticket benefits graduate level Criminalistics research. (Buy tickets here.)

THE LOWDOWN ON DOWNTOWN - SAT. 1/28... This is not a tour about beautiful buildings--although beautiful buildings will be all around you. This is not a tour about brilliant architects--although we will gaze upon their works and marvel. The Lowdown on Downtown is a tour about urban redevelopment, public policy, protest, power and the police. It is a revealing history of how the New Downtown became an "overnight sensation" after decades of quiet work behind the scenes by public agencies and private developers. Come discover the real Los Angeles, the city even natives don't know. Update: we may not be able to visit the Dutch Chocolate Shop, but will tour another seldom-seen Batchelder interior. (Buy tickets here.)

THE LAVA SUNDAY SALON & BROADWAY ON MY MIND WALKING TOUR - SUN. 1/29... Our free cultural lecture series recently relaunched on the basement level of Grand Central Market. Starting in January, the Sunday Salon is combined with a walking tour. Join architectural historian Nathan Marsak on a time travel trip to the lost world of Richardsonian Romanesque Downtown L.A. architecture. Free, reservation required.

SOUTH LOS ANGELES ROAD TRIP: HOT RODS, ADOBES, GOOGIE & EARLY MODERNISM - SUN. 2/5... This rare Sunday tour in our California Culture series rolls through Vernon, Bell Gardens, Santa Fe Springs and Downey, and the past two centuries, exploring some of L.A.'s most seldom-seen and compelling structures. Turning the West Side-centric notion of an L.A. architecture tour on its head, the bus goes into areas not traditionally associated with the important, beautiful or significant, raising issues of preservation, adaptive reuse, hot rod kar kulture and the evolution of the city. (Buy tickets here.)

TWO DAYS IN SOUTH LA: THE 1974 SLA SHOOTOUT - SAT. 2/11... On this Special Event tour celebrating our 10th anniversary as a tour company, we join forces with author Brad Schreiber (Revolution's End) to tour the locations where the radical Symbionese Liberation Army's political kidnapping of heiress Patty Hearst came to a fiery end. Sorry, no discounts accepted on this Special Event tour. Almost sold out! (Learn more and buy your tickets here.)

Additional upcoming tours: Boyle Heights & Monterey Park (2/18), Weird West Adams (2/25), Eastside Babylon (3/11), Pasadena Confidential (3/18), Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice (3/25), Special Event: Palos Verdes Ancient & Modern (4/8) and Special Event: Crawling Down Cahuenga: Tom Waits’ L.A. (6/3).

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

Sleuthing the forgotten history of Rosemead’s private airfield, and lightning trips to Catalina for lobster feasts.

Can preservationists save L.A.'s late modernist landmarks from the wrecking ball? We’re certainly trying!

Blues for the Formosa. Too cool to die?

70 years on, the mysteries of the Black Dahlia murder continue to bewitch us, as it has so many.

10 years after Harvey’s Broiler was illegally demolished, the preservationists who willed it back to life threw a party. (Here's video of the event.)

We applaud this trend of coffee shops restoring derelict L.A. landmarks.

For the centennial of America’s entry into World War I, local historians hope to revive forgotten Victory Grove in Elysian Park.

Steve Allen Theater, home of some of the weirdest, smartest programming in Los Angeles, to be demolished for condos.

yrs,
Kim and Richard
Esotouric