A New Day Dawns for The Los Angeles Times. But is it too little, too late for the city she serves?

Gentle reader...

Today, after eighteen painful years of absentee corporate ownership, the Los Angeles Times is once again in the hands of a obscenely wealthy Southern California family.

No, not the Chandlers, who infamously sold off the sheet that had made their fortune while savaging populist politicians, manipulating infrastructure investment for personal profit, warring with labor and somehow, along the way, building a magnificent journalistic enterprise.

The new owners are the family of Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, a biotech billionaire who is saying all the right things about the power of a free press now, though he's previously lashed out at reporters for reporting critically about his businesses.

The history of the Los Angeles Times, from multi-generational local ownership to corporate raiders and back again, is a white-knuckle L.A. noir ride. Even the sale was an E-ticket ride. It must have been cathartic for the paper to take this final rear view assessment ahead of today's sale closing, and the piece is recommended reading for citizens who'd like to get up to speed.

Now that the newspaper has a chance to return to its former glory as a well-staffed, hard-driving chronicle of its time and place, we're looking in the rear view mirror, too, and it's not a pretty sight. Los Angeles has changed a lot in eighteen years. As the Times shrank and struggled under poor management, the city ran like a teenage booze party without a chaperone.

City Council members making tacit (and illegal) agreements to always vote yes on projects in each others' districts. Landlords kicking tenants out of rent stabilized apartment buildings and listing them on AirBnB. Crumbling infrastructure. Scant voter turnouts. A homeless crisis that shocks the system. We could go on, but it's depressing.

A great newspaper won't solve every problem. But when citizens and public servants know that real journalists are watching, civic life is demonstrably better. And in a burgh like ours, where the self-styled "City family" that runs the joint desperately needs a visit from Child Protective Services, we hope that even as the newspaper leaves its historic Downtown home (sigh), its editorial focus is laser-locked on the corner of First and Spring, and keeping our elected leaders and department heads accountable.

All of Los Angeles and the world beyond will be watching, and wishing the best, for Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong and the newly unionized L.A. Times. Onward, to the next 137 years!

We're on the bus on Saturday with the second run of our newest crime bus tour, Wilshire Boulevard Death Trip. Come soak in the glory of great art deco architecture and some of the strangest crimes ever perpetrated in this very strange town. 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.

RECOMMENDED READING

Little Shoes: The Sensational Depression-Era Murders That Became My Family’s Secret by Pamela Everett... We’ve learned over more than a decade telling the stories of forgotten tragedies in old Los Angeles on the Esotouric crime bus that one awful moment can send out ripples that are felt across the generations. Often, the peripheral victims know only that something bad happened in grandma’s day, but not what. Author Pamela Everett knew her father was extremely anxious about her safety. It wasn’t until after his death that she learned the specifics of the family nightmare: that her two young aunts were killed in a notorious 1937 mass murder, the Babes of Inglewood case. In investigating the old crime, attorney and innocent project advocate Everett discovers a version of her family and of Los Angeles that she doesn’t recognize, and comes to believe that the courts rushed to judgment to convict and execute a convenient scapegoat, WPA crossing guard Albert Dyer. The book is a measured and moving meditation on time, trauma, love and memory, and the strange power of crime scene photography to preserve powerful representations of everyday life that have immeasurable value to those who come after.

LAVA'S FORENSIC SCIENCE SEMINAR - SUN. 9/23

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 September 23, join us for an inquiry into the Southside Slayer cold case serial killer investigation. Your $36.50 ticket benefits graduate level Criminalistics research.

COMING SOON

NEW! WILSHIRE BOULEVARD DEATH TRIP - SAT. 6/23... Wilshire Boulevard is an iconic Los Angeles thoroughfare—from its prehistoric origins as a path forged by extinct megafauna to the spectacular Art Deco monuments of the Miracle Mile. It’s also ground zero for some deeply strange, only-in-Los Angeles crimes and oddities that played out against the backdrop of the boulevard. The deceptively simple route contains a multitude of mysteries, from cruel plots, divine inspiration, historic preservation, love gone sour, lucky breaks and weird tales, Wilshire Boulevard Death Trip, a dark day’s out among the city’s most glittering architectural gems. (Buy tickets here.)

PASADENA CONFIDENTIAL - SAT. 6/30... 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.)

THE REAL BLACK DAHLIA - SAT. 7/14... 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.)

CHARLES BUKOWSKI'S L.A. - SAT. 7/21... 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. 7/28... 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.)

MANSONLAND - SAT. 8/4... Sorry, the debut excursion is sold with waiting list.

THE LOWDOWN ON DOWNTOWN - SAT. 8/18... 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. (Buy tickets here.)

Additional upcoming tours: Boyle Heights & Monterey Park (8/25), Curse of the She-Devil (9/22)

OUR HISTORIC L.A. PODCAST

In Episode #127, Fighting For the Soul of Los Angeles: historic preservation battles in hyper-gentrifying Hollywood and one man asks "why are these private security guards shaking down street vendors and homeless people?" Click here to tune in. New: find stories on the map!

AND FINALLY, LINKS

We’re honored to be featured in the new guidebook The 500 Hidden Secrets of Los Angeles in the category of The 5 Most Interesting Architecture & Design Tours: “The most creative tour company in town. They know lost Los Angeles like no one else." Thanks—we try!

From the Studs Terkel Radio Archive: Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry discuss the Manson Murders in 1974.

Neighborhood Councils are easy to game, and a well-funded "grassroots" movement called YIMBY is playing them fast and loose.

Villa Carlotta was a special community, its tenants protected by rent control. Now this beautiful building is a transient joint. Any legal loopholes owner CGI Strategies is using should be closed tight by the city of LA. Here's our podcast about Villa Carlotta.

The Story of Vilma's 1958 Oldsmobile 88, and her blogging daughter's newly restored vintage ride.

An historical marker for Raymond Chandler in his sleazy Bay City? We can get behind this idea for calling out history in Santa Monica. (Preserve more old buildings, too--please!)

“What is it like to be the brother of Robert Kennedy’s assassin?” That odd tour bus is ours (Pasadena Confidential), and we try to keep a low and respectful profile in the neighborhood.

As the true costs are revealed for the proposed replacement tower on the Parker Center site, we urge the city of Los Angeles to seriously consider the calls to preserve this modernist landmark. Saturday, the city removed Joseph Young’s protected Theme Mural of Los Angeles. Video.

Writing about recent murders is an incredibly delicate process, because there are living victims who can still be harmed by words.

Where Laypeople Learn About L.A.’s Most Gruesome Crimes: Esotouric’s Forensic Science Seminars are not for the faint of heart. (L.A. Magazine)

West Hollywood approves the enormous Robertson Lane project, which moves and carves the National Register landmark Factory building into a meaningless morsel. That ain't "preservation," pal.

Cerro Gordo silver shaped the west. Now you can shape the ghost town's next century—if you've got $925,000 and a dream.

Shame on Frank Gehry, who has gone to the courts to secure permission to demolish Kurt Meyer's lyrical, landmarked Lytton Savings Bank. Meyer put his architecture career on hold to save Central Library; this fine architect and Angeleno deserves better.

Thanks to the Wiggins Settlement and the efforts of LA CAN, the Hotel Cecil will remain a schizophrenic building, with just over half the rooms dedicated as SRO low-income units and the remainder renovated hotel rooms. Elisa Lam sleuths will meet some interesting people. PDF link.

Ouija board mania sends Los Angeles women to the bughouse! (Catholic News Service, April 1920)

Another fine mid-century Pereira in Peril, but the citizens of Fullerton aren't taking the risk to their Hunt Branch library lightly. Can this gorgeous gift from Norton Simon be saved?

Thomas Mann's house was saved from demolition, and now it has a library once again.

yrs,
Kim and Richard
Esotouric