A long goodbye to Caravan Book Store - plus Saturday's SLA Shootout Tour

Gentle reader...

When you love Los Angeles history, you learn to preemptively mourn the precious places of today. For history teaches that nothing fine can stay. And last week, we got the news we feared would come: Leonard Bernstein, second generation bookman and proprietor of Caravan Book Store on Grand Avenue was closing the shop his parents founded in 1954.

We're too young to remember Downtown L.A.'s original Booksellers Row, which grew up around the Central Library like a marvelous spreading Technicolor coral reef, bleaching out to dead white as Angelenos first abandoned their central city. But we can imagine the pleasure of hours spent haunting the aisles of a dozen highly individual old shops.

But we didn't have to imagine it as long as the Caravan still trundled along, packed to the rafters with beautiful old prints and sumptuous leather bindings, model ships under glass and ancient maps folded tight for time travel trips not yet taken. And most importantly, Leonard Bernstein, bookman, carrying on the fine, individualistic tradition that he learned from the cradle, a courtly, curious, connecting way of doing business that has been all but lost.

But let us not mourn Caravan too soon! The store is open through 2/24 with a last sale, and will continue in some new form to be announced. And to ensure that future generations have the pleasure of seeing what a real Downtown Los Angeles Booksellers Row shop was all about, we arranged for photographer Craig Sauer to make an explorable 3-D scan of the shop. For the full experience, sniff an old book while viewing... or head on down to 6th & Grand and see and smell the place for yourself while you still can!

We're back on the bus on Saturday with a rare bus adventure, as author Brad Schreiber and Detective Mike Digby lead us through Two Days in South LA: The 1974 SLA Shootout Tour You don't want to miss this wild criminal tale, featuring fascinating insights only known to law enforcement. Plus, new tours are posted through June, including the once-a-year Tom Waits tour, Charles Bukowski, Raymond Chandler, Blood & Dumplings and more. Join us, do!

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RECENTLY TOURED

Tag along on our bus adventures on Instagram. Here are scenes from the Lowdown on Downtown tour.

LAVA'S FORENSIC SCIENCE SEMINAR - SUN. 3/4

Four times a year, we gather in the teaching crime labs of Cal State L.A. to explore the history and future of American forensic science. On March 4, 2018, join us for Wrongful Convictions: Investigatory Case Studies from the California Innocence Project. Your $36.50 ticket benefits graduate level Criminalistics research.

COMING SOON

TWO DAYS IN SOUTH LA: THE 1974 SLA SHOOTOUT - SAT. 2/10... When we gave this tour last year, it quickly sold out, so it's back by popular demand. Join author Brad Schreiber (Revolution's End) to discover how the radical Symbionese Liberation Army's political kidnapping of heiress Patty Hearst came to a fiery end. New on this tour: get investigators' insights from retired LASD bomb and arson detective Michael Digby, who shares his deep knowledge of the SLA, much of it unpublished. Sorry, no discounts accepted on this Special Event tour. (Learn more and buy your tickets here.)

WEIRD WEST ADAMS - SAT. 2/17... On this guided tour through the Beverly Hills of the early 20th Century, Crime Bus passengers thrill as Jazz Age bootleggers run amok, marvel at the Krazy Kafitz family's litany of criminal misbehavior, visit the shortest street in Los Angeles (15' long Powers Place, with its magnificent views of the mansions of Alvarado Terrace) and stroll the haunted paths of Rosedale Cemetery. Featured players include the most famous dwarf in Hollywood, mass suicide ringleader Reverend Jim Jones, wacky millionaires who can't control their automobiles, human mole bank robbers, comically inept fumigators, kids trapped in tar pits, and dozens of other unusual and fascinating denizens of early Los Angeles. (Buy tickets here. Tour repeats 6/2.)

BOYLE HEIGHTS & MONTEREY PARK: THE HIDDEN HISTORIES OF L.A.'S MELTING POTS - SAT. 2/24... Come on a century's social history tour through the transformation of neighborhoods, punctuated with immersive stops to sample the varied cultures that make our changing city so beguiling. Voter registration, citizenship classes, Chicano Moratorium, walkouts, blow-outs, anti-Semitism, adult education, racial covenants, boycotts, The City Beautiful, Exclusion Acts and Immigration Acts, property values, xenophobia, and delicious dumplings--all are themes which will be addressed on this lively excursion. This whirlwind social history tour will include: The Vladeck Center, Hollenbeck Park, Evergreen Cemetery, The Venice Room, El Encanto & Cascades Park, Divine's Furniture and Wing Hop Fung. (Buy tickets here.)

THE LAVA SUNDAY SALON - SUN. 2/25... Our free cultural lecture and walking tour series returns to the basement level of Grand Central Market. Join poet Suzanne Lummis for an afternoon's sleuthing the mysteries and thrills of the Poem Noir genre, culminating in a curated reading in the Bradbury Building. Free, reservation required. (To RSVP, click here.)

ECHO PARK BOOK OF THE DEAD - SAT. 3/3... On a crime bus tour honoring the lost souls who wander the hills and byways of the "streetcar suburbs" that hug Sunset Boulevard, see seemingly ordinary houses 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.)

FORENSIC SCIENCE SEMINAR AT CAL STATE LOS ANGELES - SUN. 3/4... Professor Donald Johnson hosts a very special program, "Wrongful Convictions: Investigatory Case Studies from the California Innocence Project." Your $36.50 ticket benefits graduate level Criminalistics research. (For more info, or to reserve your seat, click here.)

EASTSIDE BABYLON - SAT. 3/10... 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 in the shadow of the world's biggest tamale. To Commerce, where one small neighborhood's myriad crimes will shock and surprise. To Montebello, scene of a horrifying case of child murder. That's Eastside Babylon, our most unhinged crime bus tour. (Buy tickets here.)

SPECIAL EVENT: DESERT VISIONARIES 2: LLAN0 DEL RIO, ST. ANDREW'S MONASTERY, ANGELES CREST CREAMERY & ALDOUS HUXLEY'S PEARBLOSSOM RANCH - SAT. 3/17... By popular demand with a twist, here's a sequel to last year's day-long excursion that celebrates the dreamers who reinvent themselves against the particular landscape of the high desert through visits to places where their dreams crossed over into waking life. Featuring baby goats, utopian colonies, mid-century modern monastic pottery and literary retreats, it's sure to be a delightful day's adventuring. (For more info, or to reserve your seat, click here.)

PASADENA CONFIDENTIAL - SAT. 3/24... 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.)

HOTEL HORRORS & MAIN STREET VICE - SAT. 3/31... Through the 1940s, downtown was the true city center, a lively, densely populated, exciting and sometimes dangerous place. But while many of the historic buildings remain, their human context has been lost. This downtown double feature tour is meant to bring alive the old ghosts and memories that cling to the streets and structures of the historic core, and is especially recommended for downtown residents curious about their neighborhood's neglected history. (Buy tickets here.)

THE REAL BLACK DAHLIA - SAT. 4/7... 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 usually sells out, so don't wait to reserve. (Buy tickets here.)

THE LOWDOWN ON DOWNTOWN - SAT. 4/14... 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. Features a visit to the Dutch Chocolate Shop, a tiled wonderland not open to the public. (Sorry, tour is sold out with waiting list. Stay tuned for the next date.)

Additional upcoming tours: Blood & Dumplings (4/21), Charles Bukowski’s Los Angeles (4/28), Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles (5/5), Special event: Crawling Down Cahuenga: Tom Waits’ L.A. (5/12), Hollywood! (5/19), Weird West Adams (6/2).

OUR HISTORIC L.A. PODCAST

In Episode #124: author Brad Schreiber talks about his book Revolution's End and the upcoming Esotouric bus tour inspired by his true crime research. Plus, Arcadia's Linda Jensen & Adam Wadlow on heir award-winning holiday display of vintage, illuminated Blow-Mold plastic figures. Click here to tune in. New: find stories on the map!

AND FINALLY, LINKS

We're still shooting for 1000 YouTube subscribers. Can you help by clicking the red button? New videos include the LAVA Sunday Salon & site visit, Fort Moore Pioneer Memorial - History, Restoration & Interpretation of a Los Angeles Landmark.

More on the exciting gift to the National Trust and Huntington, after the current owners’ lifetimes, of a 1920 Myron Hunt estate . But good taste precludes reporting on the obvious, actuarial question: are the owners old folks? (A: They’re not young.)

Move the Los Angeles Times out of its namesake building? Not so fast, "Tronc" (ugh): the newly unionized journalists want a say in where they work. Preservationists feel pretty strongly about this, too.

On our Raymond Chandler bus tour, we could talk for ten minutes about the author's occult fascination with the female bookstore clerks of Hollywood, or we could just show this scene. Dorothy Malone at 21 was electrical. RIP, brainy lady!

Connecting the dots of the closure of the old French Hospital. Corruption leaves hundreds of needy patients out in the cold, and a 19th century L.A. landmark shuttered.

Batchelder's Dutch Chocolate Shop as you have never seen it before (unless you have spider eyes!).

The only known photograph of Damien Marchesseault, L.A.'s tragic 7th mayor, has been found... on eBay!

Sad to see West Hollywood allow developer Faring Capitol, which specializes in wrecking historic buildings, to chop up a National Register-eligible gay/cinema landmark and call it "preservation."

Can Street Art Be Moved Without Destroying It? Atlas Obscura tackles the Vermonica problem. Where there's light, there's hope!

We love the beguiling cover art for Paul J. Howard's Los Angeles horticultural catalog, 1929.

Unsolved Texas mystery: an anti-development activist found dead in the cat-filled bungalow she fought to protect. RIP Mary Cerruti (one of us).

Betrayal of preservation promises at Historic Wintersburg, a nationally significant Japanese-American landmark in Huntington Beach. Please send an email to help save this beautiful place.

Judging by the comments, Angelenos are singularly unimpressed with tenant USC's re-naming of a sacred war memorial after America's worst major airline.

What’s new at Lloyd Wright’s landmark Sowden House? Weed culture and a salon series evoking the unsolved Black Dahlia murder. For a virtual 3-D tour, click here.

Here's a gem we found deep in the stacks at the Huntington Library: Miss Bette Davis gets lei'd at Hollywood's Waikiki nightclub, 1937.

We're not fans of Business Improvement Districts and how they privatize public space and policing with no transparency. But in Venice, they're just cashing the checks and doing nothing.

yrs,
Kim and Richard
Esotouric