Viva Times Mirror Square, the newest (mostly) protected landmark in the City of Los Angeles!

Gentle reader...

We are delighted to announce that Times Mirror Square, the historic home of the Los Angeles Times from 1935 through 2018 when its new owner moved the newsroom to El Segundo, is the newest (mostly) protected landmark in the city.

That designation is due to the successful nomination that we drafted, with the aid of a dedicated crew of architects, historians, reporters and descendants of the newspaper's founders, which received so much support from the preservation and history-loving community, and from the Cultural Heritage Commission. Thank you, friends!

We couldn't know it when we began this work eleven years ago, but this preservation battle would end up shining a powerful light on the greed and corruption that is ruining Los Angeles. We believe that anything that gets apathetic Angelenos looking critically at City Hall is good, even if it's a partial preservation loss.

Although the decision to amputate William Pereira's 1973 corporate headquarters from the landmark was decided long ago by the yet-to-be-indicted councilman Jose Huizar, and formally approved yesterday with no comment by full City Council, Times Mirror Square is now safer than it has ever been. Any project that developer Onni Group, or a different owner, proposes for the site will be reviewed for suitability by the Cultural Heritage Commission. And no work, from minor alterations to full demolition, will occur without close scrutiny. That's a huge win.

But there is so much more. This landmark nomination has brought incredible people into our lives, and sparked partnerships and brainstorming that we're confident will have a profound and positive impact on historic preservation and quality of life issues not just in Los Angeles, but in California and beyond.

As our nation's incoming progressive Congress begins to codify its vision for a Green New Deal, and California legislators present a slew of bills aimed at tackling the state housing crisis, and the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times reacts to City Council's vote to partially demolish its historic headquarters with a furious editorial demanding Ethics Reform Now, we believe 2019 will be the dawn of a new age in historic preservation and adaptive reuse.

It's long past time that policymakers make Repurposing the Past a core part of how cities grow, not just for the profit of developers, but for the people who live in and love their cities, and for generations to come. Old buildings aren't dusty relics. They're reminders of where we came from, and what we can be. This is why we fight so hard to save the soul of Los Angeles.

So stay tuned for some exciting offshoots of the Times Mirror Square landmarking and its associated Pereira in Peril consciousness-raising campaign. We think you'll be inspired and intrigued by what's just around the bend, and will want to be part of the fun.

If you'd like to acknowledge the blood, sweat, tears and gnashing of teeth we endured while fighting City Hall, perhaps you'll take advantage of our Holiday Gift Certificate Sale and give the gift of a bus adventure into the secret heart of Los Angeles.

We're back on the bus on Saturday with our last tour of the year, Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice. Join us on a time travel trip through the beauty and terror of Downtown Los Angeles, a place that has always attracted the most colorful criminals, and not just in City Hall. 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.

LAVA'S FORENSIC SCIENCE SEMINAR - SUN. 1/27

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 January 27, join us for an inquiry into Arson and After, from cold case clearance to the impact on an arsonist's family. Your $36.50 ticket benefits graduate level Criminalistics research.

GIVE THE GIFT OF... US!

The holidays are upon us, and with them the obligation to come up with something agreeable for all kinds of people. We'd like to make gift shopping easy on you, with the gentle suggestion that an Esotouric gift certificate is always the right size and color. The recipient can chose from something naughty or nice from our wide range of bus adventures, and you'll save on our regular ticket prices when you buy three or more before 12/24. For more info or to reserve, click here.

COMING SOON

HOTEL HORRORS & MAIN STREET VICE - SAT. 12/8... Last tour of the year! 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. 1/5... 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.)

WEIRD WEST ADAMS - SAT. 1/12... 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 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 other unusual and fascinating denizens of early Los Angeles. (Buy tickets here.)

ECHO PARK BOOK OF THE DEAD - SAT. 1/19... 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.)

RAYMOND CHANDLER'S LOS ANGELES - SAT. 2/2... 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.)

Additional upcoming tours: Boyle Heights & Monterey Park (2/16), The Lowdown on Downtown (2/23), Special Event: Silent Echoes Film Locations Tour (3/2, waiting list), Special Event: Mansonland (3/9, waiting list), Special Event: Mansonland (3/30, waiting list) and Special Event: The 1910 Bombing of the Los Angeles Times (4/6).

OUR HISTORIC L.A. PODCAST

Episode #132 is Illuminating Los Angeles: Elmore Leonard & The Triforium. Meet Gregg Sutter, who is hosting a new bus tour about the screenwriter he aided for 33 colorful years, then get the skinny on reactivating Joseph Young's 1975 musical phantasmagoria. Click here to tune in. New: find stories on the map!

AND FINALLY, LINKS

After 120 years, iconic California dream seller Sunset Magazine stripped for parts by Time Warner and private equity vultures.

Silver Lake says goodbye to Tokio Florist and a Japanese-American legacy. What a beautiful house, filled with history!

Here's a rare example of bipartisan legislation: when all the ugliness of 2018 is forgotten, we'll remember it as the year we saved The Mother Road.

After FBI raids, big questions for Jose Huizar's Pershing Square Renew and Angels Landing schemes.

What happens to a protected landmark after the owner allows it to burn down? 29 years later, the city seems to have forgotten about the George W. Wilson Estate. NELA activists still care.

We can't wait to explore Invisible L.A. through the ambitious "Dick" Whittington photo digitization project. This is the secret city that haunts our dreams!

Fullerton gets it, even if Jose Huizar and City Council don't: William Pereira's Hunt Branch Library named a protected Local Landmark.

A fond farewell to James Ellroy's Lonely Places Denver screening series, with a shout out to the two bus tours we gave with the self-styled Demon Dog of American Letters in 2007.

The Hollywood alley that Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd made famous was used first by pioneering female directors.

What part of "Clifton's needs to be a cafeteria" is so hard to understand?

One of the saddest tales of real estate speculation on Broadway was the flipping and closure of Sassony Arcade, which was always packed with young people and featured in a lovely late Charles Bukowski poem. Here's yet another plan to rehab the building.

yrs,
Kim and Richard
Esotouric