Meet Mr. Peepers, a fine feathered fellow who makes his home at Vasquez Rocks

Gentle reader...

Sunday's LAVA Sunday Salon and walking tour, dedicated to the perfectly reasonable idea that Welton Becket's Parker Center is a landmark worth preserving, was a bittersweet event. It felt good to visit this beautiful icon of modernism with a large group of interested Angelenos, and to learn about its history, significance and controversies. But Friday's unanimous City Council vote to demolish Parker Center left us feeling like we were whistling past the graveyard, and more than slightly blue.

So yesterday, we packed a picnic lunch and, after giving our talk at the Los Angeles Breakfast Club (a charming organization dedicated to good fellowship that hasn't changed much in nine decades) headed up to the Antelope Valley, to scout socialist colony ruins that our bus can visit on the June 17 Desert Visionaries tour.

On the way, we stopped at Vasquez Rocks Natural Area County park, where we hiked the peculiar jagged landscape, hypnotized by the almost alpine effect of thousands of tiny blossoms coating the hillsides. The rains have been kind to Southern California.

No Vasquez Rocks visit is complete without poking one's head into the office to ask if Mr. Peepers is seeing visitors. He nearly always is. A few moments spent in the company of this tiny, friendly and gorgeous rehabbed raptor will make even a preservation problem as big as Parker Center seem manageable. We brought back a little video visit to cheer your spirits, too.

We're on the bus on Saturday with Echo Park Book of the Dead, a time travel trip through the dark side of the streetcar suburbs. Then next week, it's a special all-day tour of Palos Verdes architecture and history. New tours are posted through July. Join us, do!

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RECENTLY TOURED

Terry Eagan, the master of faux bois at the Huntington Gardens, taps at a fairy doorway. Look for his hidden scenes when you visit.

LAVA'S FORENSIC SCIENCE SEMINAR - SUN. 4/23

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 April 23, 2017, join us for From The Crime Lab To The Coroner's Office, an afternoon of historic murders and modern day investigation techniques. Your $36.50 ticket benefits graduate level Criminalistics research. Click here to reserve.

RECOMMENDED READING

As preservationists take on the powers that be in an effort to preserve Welton Becket's iconic modernist Parker Center (1955), it's a fine time to get familiar with the complexities of Chief William H. Parker's character, in this dual biography of the top cop and his criminal counterpart, Boyle Heights mob king Mickey Cohen. L.A. Noir is by John Buntin, who occasionally hosts an Esotouric tour based on the book.

COMING SOON

ECHO PARK BOOK OF THE DEAD - SAT. 4/1... 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.)

PALOS VERDES: ANCIENT AND MODERN - SAT. 4/8... On this Special Event tour celebrating our 10th anniversary as a tour company, join us on a deep dive into coastal California lore. From the Spanish Colonial Revival romance of Malaga Cove to Paul R. Williams' jazzy 1960s SeaView tract homes, from Frank Lloyd Wright associate Aaron G. Green's organic architecture to evidence of ancient plantations, you can expect the unexpected and a delightful cast of guest speakers. Sorry, no discounts accepted on this Special Event tour. (Learn more and buy tickets here.)

THE REAL BLACK DAHLIA - SAT. 4/15... 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.)

CHARLES BUKOWSKI'S L.A. - SAT. 4/22... 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. New: souvenir Bukowski's L.A. booklet available. (Buy tickets here.)

FORENSIC SCIENCE SEMINAR AT CAL STATE LOS ANGELES - SUN. 4/23... Almost sold out! Professor Donald Johnson hosts "From The Crime Lab To The Coroner's Office," featuring author Brad Schreiber's historic crime research and an introduction to crime scene investigations. Your $36.50 ticket benefits graduate level Criminalistics research. (Buy tickets here.)

RAYMOND CHANDLER'S LOS ANGELES - SAT. 4/29... 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 LAVA SUNDAY SALON & BROADWAY ON MY MIND WALKING TOUR - SUN. 4/30... Our free cultural lecture series recently relaunched on the basement level of Grand Central Market with a walk to follow. This month, our focus is the history and current restoration of the Fort Moore Pioneer Memorial, above Chinatown. Free, reservation required.

BLOOD & DUMPLINGS - SAT. 5/6... 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.)

Additional upcoming tours: Hollywood! (5/13), Weird West Adams (5/20), Special Event: Crawling Down Cahuenga: Tom Waits’ L.A. (6/3), Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice (6/10), Special Event: Desert Visionaries: Llano del Rio, Antelope Valley Indian Museum & Aldous Huxley’s Pearblossom Ranch (6/17), Eastside Babylon (6/24), Pasadena Confidential (7/8), The Real Black Dahlia (7/15), Charles Bukowski's L.A. (7/22) and Raymond Chandler's L.A. (7/29).

OUR HISTORIC L.A. PODCAST

Back from hiatus! In Episode #117: SeaView, a Mid-Century Time Modern Capsule on the Palos Verdes Penninsula, we talk with resident-historians Price Morgan and Larry Paul, and architect and historian Alan Hess, about this remarkable subdivision by Paul R. Williams. Click here to tune in. New: find stories on the map!

AND FINALLY, LINKS

With new blood comes new ideas: Board of Supervisors may create legal aid service for L.A. County tenants... but turning AirBnB units into Section 8 housing might be the dumbest idea yet for dealing with L.A.’s homeless crisis.

One wonders why City Council thinks it knows better than the Cultural Heritage Commission and LA Conservancy when the subject is the historic and architectural merits of Parker Center.

The question on every Atwater Village barfly’s lips: will Club Tee Gee’s head-scratching historic neon (“is that a Y or a G”?) shine on for another 70 years?

Video Vault: LAVA presents Poem Noir and Pulp Fiction in the Bradbury Building.

David Ulin is eager to again take that time travel trip on Angels Flight Railway.

Are there any Jewish mid-century architecture lovers looking for a Progressive Conservative temple to attend? Whittier's Temple Beth Shalom is on the verge of closing due to low attendance. Please spread the word. There’s a lot of history (and a very cool building) at stake!

yrs,
Kim and Richard
Esotouric