In 1910, Dynamite Destroyed the L.A. Times; In 2019, You Can Help Preserve It

Gentle reader...

The history of the Otis and Chandler families and the L.A. Times is the history of Los Angeles. Now the buildings where that history unfolded are threatened by a redevelopment project that would demolish one significant building, and leave a gaping hole in another, all against the backdrop of the FBI's still unfolding political corruption investigation.

But there is still hope. You can be part of history, by advocating for these landmarks. At a time when Los Angeles is facing some of its biggest challenges, we believe it's essential to preserve the places that tell the story of who we are and how we got here.

THE STORY: A year ago, we were happy preservationists of the Los Angeles Times buildings. In September, the Cultural Heritage Commission accepted our nomination, disagreeing with claims that William L. Pereira’s 1973 Executive Building should be excluded. The nomination would next go to PLUM, where we worried Councilman Jose Huizar, would reject it outright, to clear the way for Canadian developer Onni Group to erect two towers. However, between the CHC and PLUM hearings, the FBI raided Huizar’s City Hall office and home, and Huizar was removed from PLUM. Nevertheless, PLUM deferred to Huizar’s request and altered the landmark nomination by removing Pereira’s building. Then in February, the Los Angeles Times reported that Onni Group had given $50,000 to Huizar’s political fund two months prior to the PLUM vote. It is against the backdrop of this appearance of quid pro quo vote buying that the Planning Commission will decide the fate of Times Mirror Square next Wednesday, October 16.

THE SITE: A square block sitting kitty corner from Los Angeles City Hall, comprised of Gordon B. Kaufmann’s 1935 L.A. Times Building, Rowland Crawford’s 1948 Mirror Tower, William L. Pereira’s 1973 Executive Building, and a Pereira-designed parking garage.

THE THREAT: Canadian developer Onni Group wants to demolish the garage and Executive Building to build two high-rise towers. The Executive Building is fully integrated into the 1935 L.A. Times Building. This project would not only destroy a significant work by Pereira, but leave a gaping hole in the side of the most architecturally significant structure on the site.

HOW YOU CAN HELP: Join us at City Hall (on Wednesday, October 16 at 10:30am), or send an email (by Tuesday, October 15), asking the Planning Commission to “do the right thing” and approve a redevelopment plan that preserves and protects this architecturally and culturally significant place, while rejecting the appearance of political corruption steering land use decisions in Los Angeles. All the details for those interested in attending the Planning Commission hearing in City Hall or sending an email can be found here. There's also a Facebook event link you can share. Questions? Email us!
WANT TO 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. Or you can join us for a tour... & tell your friends.
AND WHAT'S THE NEXT TOUR? Saturday's excursion is Echo Park Book of the Dead, in which we roam the streetcar suburbs of early Los Angeles on the trail of an assortment of maniacs, oddballs, fiends and visionaries. Their weird tales play out against some of the city's loveliest buildings. Join us, do!

UPCOMING TOURS & SPECIAL EVENTS

ECHO PARK BOOK OF THE DEAD - SAT. 10/12... 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 - SUN. 10/13... 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. The Lazarus Files is a cold case with a chilling twist: the killer was an LAPD detective! Your ticket benefits graduate level Criminalistics research. (Almost sold out! More info here.)

CHARLES BUKOWSKI'S L.A. - SAT. 10/19... 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, the library where he found his "god" John Fante, a rare chance to tour one of Hank & Jane's pads and a mid-tour provisions stop at Pink Elephant Liquor. (Buy tickets here.)

THE REAL BLACK DAHLIA - SAT. 10/26... (Sold out with waiting list, click here for more info.)

WEIRD WEST ADAMS - SAT. 11/2... On this guided tour through the Beverly Hills of the early 20th Century, you'll 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. Plus, a very special bonus: preservation-minded Angelenos have invited us to tour their landmark Moorish mansion! (Buy tickets here.)

WILSHIRE BOULEVARD DEATH TRIP - SAT. 11/16... 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 horrors and mysteries. Join us for a dark day out among the city’s most glittering architectural gems. (Buy tickets here here.) Additional upcoming tours:
Richard's Birthday Tour (11/30)... Pasadena Confidential (11/23)
Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice (12/7)... The Real Black Dahlia (1/4)
Eastside Babylon (1/11)
MORE THAN SATURDAY AFTERNOON TOURS We offer private versions of most of our tours (up to 55 people), and Downtown L.A. walking tours for smaller groups. Does your L.A.-area library, club or historical society host guest speakers? Ask them to book us.

Echo Park Book of the Dead (10/12)
$64.00

Wilshire Boulevard Death Trip (11/16)
$64.00

Charles Bukowski's Los Angeles (10/19)
$64.00

RECOMMENDED READING

Eternity Street is that rare book that every Angeleno should read, because it will fundamentally transform their sense of this city and their own place in it. John Mack Faragher's history of the westernmost frontier in the decades surrounding statehood is eminently readable, suffering no fools as the knaves and knights of the pueblo work out their karma on the fields of battle, love and politics. If geography is destiny, then Los Angeles was destined to be a bloody place, a crossroads for seekers fueled by greed, lust and strong spirits. But what fantastic stories they left smeared in gore! (More book recommendations here.)

AND FINALLY, LINKS

New on the Esotouric blog: City Librarian John Szabo unveils The Well of the Scribes, a lost Central Library artifact recently rediscovered in Arizona.

Take Two's latest Throwback Thursday interview: Kim shares the weird history of El Monte's greatest tourist attraction, Gay's Lion Farm. Piece starts at 28:07 into the episode.

New on R.I.P. Los Angeles, the feel-bad blog this city deserves: The Stucco Man laughs because he already got paid, the pending loss of a magnificent block of Edwardian homes has Nathan spitting tacks, but the joke's on him for caring, the de-greening of Toluca Lake.

David Ulin urges the Natural History Museum not to screw up the La Brea Tar Pits with a shiny new design that erases our precious Angeleno memories. Leave the mammoths be!

As the American Cinematheque seeks to sell off its landmark Egyptian Theatre to Netflix, Vidiots reinvents itself with an historic theater of its own. We can't help feeling a little responsible for the poor Belasco, being rush retrofitted after we raised a stink about plans for the Egyptian.

Troubling words from Santa Susana Field Laboratory clean up activists: Trump administration proposes quick and dirty demo of meltdown contaminated buildings, in violation of agreed upon process. (We found those secret docs just in time.)

As the Sunset Strip is upzoned for massive hotel and apartment projects, West Hollywood moves to designate the low-rise Roxy, Whisky and Rainbow as cultural landmarks.

Disappointed Angelenos have long since stopped hoping to get any of the classic Clifton's Cafeteria recipes at the weird bar its become. But LAist has Valerie Gordon reverse engineering the late, lamented strawberry cake!

So Cal's Signature Googie Architecture may be rapidly disappearing… but our pal Alan Hess is dedicated to preserving and celebrating these quintessential roadside landmarks, like Corky's of Sherman Oaks

Join us at Whittier's Whittwood Branch Library on October 21 for an evening's conversation on the weird side of Southern California history... it's free, and it's freaky!

Every bookworm will one day be food for worms. If you're thinking about final resting places, note that the city-run Mount Hope Cemetery in San Diego is quite affordable, and you can share eternity close to Raymond & Cissy Chandler.

The Academy Museum looks backward to get its delayed opening and fundraising back on track. Bill Kramer doesn’t need to say, “I told you so.”

Angelenos deserve answers for how a routine evening Metro trip ended for Jason Murphy in a shallow pool in the concrete L.A. River bed. His widow has crowdfunded an investigation by an ex-LAPD detective and top criminalist; they see huge problems.

Kim shares a more forgiving perspective on what runaway evangelist Sister Aimee Semple McPherson might have been up to in the desert in Douglas Towne's Phoenix Magazine feature story. Want to learn more? Join us on Saturday's Echo Park Book of the Dead tour for a visit to her fascinating house museum!

Attention, Alpine Village fans! Won't you send an email or make public comment to help get this cool community destination declared a protected L.A. County monument?

Tag along for a minute or two on our occasional 1910 Los Angeles Times Bombing tour with Detective Mike Digby, as captured by Spectrum News.

Grim tale of a murder-suicide leaves us with questions about the pastor who installed speed freaks with a bedridden congregant, whose house was flipped for $700K and demolished after the crime.

Townscape Partners seeking to flip entitled Frank Gehry project, before demolishing the landmark Lytton Savings. With the project stalled and developer looking to get out, is there still hope to save Kurt Meyer's lyrical palace of banking?

With the heartbreaking tale of the death of the Bunker Hill pedway coral tree, Lisa Napoli reminds us that caring Angelenos are better policy makers and stewards than all those well paid folks "in charge" in Los Angeles.

yrs for Los Angeles,
Kim and Richard
Esotouric