Provocative Preservation Projects 'R' Us, or: how did a couple of tour guides end up trying to landmark the Los Angeles Times, anyway?

Gentle reader...

On Thursday, the Cultural Heritage Commission voted unanimously to consider our nomination of the Los Angeles Times as a protected landmark. We're grateful for all the lovely emails of support sent by folks who read this newsletter. You can see video of the presentation and public comments, and read news coverage, here.

Now that the newspaper has left its historic Downtown home for a new headquarters in El Segundo, and the landmarking application is working its way towards City Council, we can take a moment to reflect on how on earth we got here.

It is perhaps unexpected that a small family-run tour company would take the lead on preserving one of the most culturally and architecturally significant structures in the Southland. But in a way, it's inevitable.

We were uniquely positioned a decade ago, as successful first wave bloggers, to be called in for a series of meetings at the L.A. Times under Sam Zell's short, disastrous ownership. Those meetings, ostensibly about improving the Times website, revealed a great newspaper in dire distress, and inspired our initial attempt to landmark the 1935 Art Deco building. (The city instructed us to come back when we could nominate all the historic buildings on the block, which wasn't easy, but ten years later, with a great team beside us, here we are.)

Preservation advocacy has been part of Esotouric since we began eleven years ago, but not usually of marquee properties like the Los Angeles Times. We specialize in advocating for things that hardly anyone else cares about, the giant tamales and writer's homes and 76 ball signs and funicular railways of the world.

But as the years flipped by, and the ownership situation grew more dire, the big preservation guns didn’t seem to see that the L.A. Times was heading towards an iceberg, or if they saw, they weren't concerned enough to pursue landmark designation.

But we sure were, a constant low worry. And eventually, the out-of-state owners (first Tribune and then tronc, successors to Zell's quick bankruptcy) split its media holdings from the real estate and sold Times Mirror Square to Canadian developers Onni Group, with their poor historic preservation track record. The iceberg had arrived at First and Spring.

Things moved fast, then. Tronc imploded, and agreed, finally, to sell the Times. After 18 terrible years of absentee ownership, an Angeleno now runs the paper, and is charged with the profound responsibility of building up a depleted journalistic engine and holding those in power accountable. (Do you think Los Angeles is a mess? Thank the greedy dudes from Chicago, who only liked Los Angeles for the cash they could squeeze out of us.)

The Los Angeles Times has left First and Spring, even left the city, but the buildings that were the paper's home since 1935 are still here, and they matter. The fate of these buildings, rich with explicit symbolism, is analogous to the fate of the city. Do we keep our past around to inspire us, or settle for anonymous glass boxes that could be built anywhere? Does the city consider preservation to be part of good public policy? Is history worth fighting for? We think it is.

Just before Thursday's landmark hearing, the newspaper's new owner removed historic artifacts from the Globe Lobby, artifacts that are explicitly listed in the landmark nomination and which he was instructed not to touch. Included among them is the noble eagle sculpture, which for more than a century symbolized management's stubborn opposition to labor unions. In the very recent past, the eagle came to symbolize a reporter's union, the L.A. Times Guild. We support the union 100%, and understand why some Times folks might be pleased that their owner rolled the eagle out the door when the city wasn't looking.

But moving it was wrong. Place matters. First and Spring is where the Times shaped Southern California for nearly a century. A new story will be told in El Segundo, and new artifacts will come to hold meaning.

Now Los Angeles gets to have a public conversation about saving the old Los Angeles Times buildings, a test case for the preservation of significant interiors and to see if the city will hold property owners accountable for violating the historic preservation ordinance. We hope to see the fine buildings preserved and the missing artifacts returned.

We started this campaign almost a decade before the property was sold to developers, and it’s just kismet that the landmark hearing would happen as the newspaper departed, claiming rent gouging. Our aim is to preserve places that matter, and advocate for respectful adaptive reuse that abides by zoning and best practices in planning—that’s it. Los Angeles won’t be better by bending over for every international development company’s whim. We’re counting on the newly independent Los Angeles Times to hold PLUM and City Council accountable, and for the city to do better, by the Times and by Los Angeles. After all, the whole world is watching.

As for the paper’s historic home, it seems to fall to us to fight for its immortal soul. We could use your help, so stay tuned!

We're on the bus on Saturday, celebrating the writer's 130th birthday week on a tour of Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles, from Art Deco Downtown oil company offices to boozy screenwriting sessions at Paramount. Join us, do!

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RECOMMENDED READING

Raymond Chandler was born 130 years ago this week, and rests forever under San Diego grass, but his literary creations refuse to die. Today sees release of the newest Raymond Chandler Estate-approved Philip Marlowe novel, Only to Sleep by Lawrence Osborne. This time out, the shamus is old and retired down Mexico way when a case comes calling. If you're keener on Marlowe in L.A., there's the new The Annotated Big Sleep, our own Chandler map or this Saturday's tour.

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

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.)

BOYLE HEIGHTS & MONTEREY PARK: THE HIDDEN HISTORIES OF L.A.'S MELTING POTS - SAT. 8/25... 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, Divine's Furniture and Wing Hop Fung. (Buy tickets here.)

THE BIRTH OF NOIR: JAMES M. CAIN'S SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA NIGHTMARE - SAT. 9/8... This tour digs deep into the literature, film and real life vices that inform that most murderous genre, film noir, rolling through Hollywood, Glendale and old Skid Row, lost lion farms, murderous sopranos, fascist film censors, offbeat cemeteries -- all in a quest to reveal the delicious, and deeply influential, nightmares that are author Cain's gift to the world. (Buy tickets here.)

HOTEL HORRORS & MAIN STREET VICE - SAT. 9/15... 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.)
SPECIAL EVENT: CURSE OF THE SHE-DEVIL: A TRUE STORY OF REVENGE, BETRAYAL, BOMBS AND REAL ESTATE IN 1919 LOS ANGELES - SAT. 9/22... In this sequel to his popular tour about the 1910 Bombing of the Los Angeles Times, arson and bomb detective Mike Digby takes us on a scrupulously researched journey through early Los Angeles, exposing a brazen conspiracy to kill, maim or terrorize anyone who stood in the way of a beautiful young woman inheriting the fortune of her estranged husband. While following the forensic leads of the unfolding case on a route rich in time capsule crime scenes, Mike will compare and contrast the historical investigation to the modern crime analysis methods he has used in his law enforcement career. And every passenger gets a copy of Mike's new book about the case. (Buy tickets here.)
Additional upcoming tours: Eastside Babylon (9/29), Charles Bukowski's L.A. (10/6), Echo Park Book of the Dead (10/13), Raymond Chandler's L.A. (10/20) and The Real Black Dahlia (10/27).

OUR HISTORIC L.A. PODCAST

In Episode #128, Chronicling Mid-Century Modern Long Beach and Lomaland’s Lovely Relics, we talk landmarks, preservation and the cultural relics of the amazing Theosophical community Lomaland, now on view at SDSU. Click here to tune in. New: find stories on the map!

AND FINALLY, LINKS

Kind words in the You See LA: Summer 2018 guide: "Esotouric runs the best bus tours of Southern California. I know, I know, buses are intrinsically uncool, but obsessives Richard Schave and Kim Cooper promise to take you into the 'secret heart of Los Angeles,' and they deliver."

What Happened To The King Eddy's Magnificent Fire Door Mural?

Activists pushing forward with plan to convert Parker Center into homeless housing.

File under: good volunteers are more precious than gold. How the Hoagie Historian is fighting to save Philly's beleaguered History Museum.

On a Metafilter thread about creepy feelings, intuition and real danger, one of the best short ghost stories we've ever read.

Legendarily intact silver mine ghost town Cerro Gordo sold to consortium that intends to bring more people up to explore the past. Hoping for the best—and thorough bag checks before anyone leaves the site!

Don't be fooled. This "preservation settlement" is a demolition, which is why no legit preservation group seeking to save Roosevelt High School's landmark Building R has signed off on it.

Last time Los Angeles hosted the Olympics, civil rights got trampled in the service of hiding human blight. Let's not treat Angelenos so shabbily again.

A race to remove the war dead from trenches at the WWI Ypres Salient battlefield, crowdfunded before developers put a neighborhood on their graves.

What did you do in the 710 War, mommy?

Hollywood’s Silent Movie Theater gutted as owners attempt to rebrand the venue, which became toxic after Cinefamily staff spoke out about abuse. It's not a protected landmark, so there's no requirement to preserve historic resources.

C.C. de Vere is on the trail of an MIA cultural landmark: where is Chinatown's beloved Joan of Arc statue?

RIP to Jonathan Gold, L.A's own Pulitzer winning food critic, a writer forged in the lost shadow league of the independent weeklies and mentor to some of our best young voices.

yrs,
Kim and Richard
Esotouric