The Los Angeles Times of El Segundo?
Gentle reader...
What will become of the Los Angeles Times?
News hounds have been asking this question for nearly two decades, since the family-owned paper was sold off to Chicago vulgarians and the reporting and editorial staff cut and cut again, like a turkey carcass bound for the soup pot.
It's been hard to watch a once great paper founder, especially in an era when its former peers in the east break important national stories almost daily, much of it news of great interest to the Golden State.
And in recent years, the question has become even more literal—what will become of the Los Angeles Times' buildings?—after the Chicagoans sold off the historic newspaper headquarters and Arts District printing plant to developers. In the case of the historic HQ opposite City Hall, Onni Group has announced plans to demolish half the block for high rises.
Which brings us to the recent news of a possible buyer for the Times, a wealthy individual, local, expressing an interest in supporting independent journalism with a light hand and open pocketbook. The remaining staff and interested news hounds listened with a mix of hope and skepticism, followed with a dash of ice water as Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong announced that once he owned the paper, its operations would be moving... to El Segundo!
Curious to see the proposed new Los Angeles Times building by the sea, by way of the sewage treatment plant, we hopped on the freeway and made the trek so you don't have to. And honestly, it was a draining and depressing experience.
Leaving the city of Los Angeles is a bold move, and even if it saves a new owner some money and personal travel time, bound to be an unpopular one. Times staffers who live within commuting distance of Downtown may find their lives significantly complicated, while the remote office will make it hard to replace the hundreds of skilled people lost during the lean years.
And should the newspaper leave its landmark, but not landmarked, buildings, what will become of Gordon Kaufmann's magnificent 1935 art deco jewel box with its museum of Chandler Family history in the Globe Lobby, Rowland Crawford's masterfully moderne Mirror Tower and William Pereria's refined and futuristic Times-Mirror Square addition? Remodeled, remuddled, ultimately demolished?
We fretted about these questions in our year-end preservation list (see section B1), and share Mayor Garcetti's hope that a solution can be reached to keep the Los Angeles Times in its namesake building. Because if Dr. Soon-Shiong does buy the paper and does move it to El Segundo, the Times will find itself facing a tough question already playing out in Chicago: does the familiar logo of a sold-off newspaper building belong to the developer who buys the bricks, or to the publication which has moved elsewhere? We'd hate to see the thin neon tubes that spell THE TIMES peeled off the Kaufmann Building, but it could happen.
What will become of the Los Angeles Times? Just good things, we hope. The paper and its buildings and its readers deserve nothing less.
We're on the bus on Saturday in the footsteps of Charles Bukowski, as the hard-drinking postal worker finds the voice within himself that is great, and turns his chaotic romantic life into moving and hilarious literature. Join us, do!
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RECENTLY TOURED
A special guest at Ramona Bradbury's Pasadena Museum of History talk about growing up with her father, Ray Bradbury: Robert Clinton of Clifton's Cafeteria, who shared hilarious memories of his favorite literary patron.
LAVA'S FORENSIC SCIENCE SEMINAR - SUN. 5/20
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 May 20, join us for an inquiry into the Grim Sleeper serial killer investigation. Your $36.50 ticket benefits graduate level Criminalistics research.
COMING SOON
CHARLES BUKOWSKI'S L.A. - SAT. 4/28... 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.)
RAYMOND CHANDLER'S LOS ANGELES - SAT. 5/5... 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. 5/12... 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 (author of 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.)
THE LOWDOWN ON DOWNTOWN - SAT. 5/19... 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 - probably your last chance to see it before construction begins! (Buy tickets here.)
WEIRD WEST ADAMS - SAT. 6/2... 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.)
Additional upcoming tours: Eastside Babylon (6/16), Wilshire Boulevard Death Trip (6/23), Pasadena Confidential (6/30) and The Real Black Dahlia (7/14).
OUR HISTORIC L.A. PODCAST
In Episode #125: a last visit to the Caravan Book Store to talk with second generation bookman Leonard Bernstein, plus public policy maven Donald Spivack on the two biggest challenges facing Los Angeles. Click here to tune in. New: find stories on the map!
AND FINALLY, LINKS
Recommended reading in advance of our May 20 forensic science seminar on the case, The Grim Sleeper: The Lost Women of South Central by Christine Pelisek, whose reporting named a serial killer whose very existence had gone unnoticed for decades.
The race to preserve a strange little Channel Islands horse.
If Highland Park can't support a second-generation vintage typewriter repair shop, it might not be as hip as it thinks it is.
Hollenbeck Park, a 19th century gem bisected by freeways, poised to be made over. Interesting timing.
City of Los Angeles following the lead of AIDS Healthcare Foundation in turning old motels into permanent supportive housing. This is good for people experiencing homelessness and for the preservation of the historic built environment.
Assuming what Brian Calle says about the finances of the L.A. Weekly is true, he and his pals were fools to buy it. Which would explain a lot about how they’ve handled everything since then.
Fans of Charles Bukowski's Barfly and the lost cocktail bars of Los Angeles will love this obsessive search for the B-roll locations. Every dive had a great neon sign.
Next time you're in La Jolla, say hello to Raymond Chandler in Raúl Guerrero’s mural celebrating the writer’s favorite local, The Whaling Bar (RIP). Meanwhile, Wing Howard’s famous Whaling Bar mural lives on in La Valencia Hotel’s boardroom.
The International Walter Pater Society will shine a decadent light on British fin-de-siècle aestheticism May 11-12 at the Clark Memorial Library. We're sorry to miss this, but that's the Saturday of our Tom Waits bus tour. Who says L.A. has no culture?
Zillionaires Against Humanity turns the sabotage of the Skid Row Neighborhood Council by business interests into art.
Something's screwy at Watts Towers, and Charles Mingus, unpermitted murals and a staff suspension figure in.
Our favorite Clifton’s Cafeteria camera girl, Vilma the Unconquerable, is featured in Los Angeles Magazine.
Video Vault: As the BlueLA electric car sharing service launches, a flashback to last summer, when The Cranky Preservationist stumbled onto a fake charging station in Westlake and vented much steam.
Landmarking makes all the difference: Crossroads of the World mega-project now plans to incorporate historic Hollywood Reporter building (no word on the gorgeous 1930s garden apartment buildings that are also under landmark consideration).
Pasadena plans new anti-suicide barriers for the National Register Colorado Street Bridge, with design recommendations to come. They can’t be uglier than the current chain link solution… we hope!
yrs,
Kim and Richard
Esotouric