Meet us (virtually) at noon tomorrow at 4th & Main Streets and the past will come alive

Gentle reader,

Greetings from your friendly historic Los Angeles sightseeing tour company, now offering digital programming until we can again organize groups to gather and explore the city we love.

Around this time on Fridays, we usually send you a newsletter packed with useful links and our musings on historic preservation and cultural happenings around the Southland.

But unexpectedly late this week, we got an opportunity to help preserve a Los Angeles archive so magical that it leaves us breathless to think about. (You’ll hear all about this, eventually.) Because this situation was time consuming, the newsletter, and the announcement of the topic of a very special May 22 webinar will be a little late—please stay tuned!

Tomorrow at noon we’ll be exploring Fourth & Main, Downtown Los Angeles’ Most Fascinating Intersection. As always, you can catch the webinar live, or watch the recording all week. This incredible corner is packed with so many layers of fascinating history, we don’t expect to reach the center. Featured lore includes Mr. Van Nuys and his grand Victorian hotel, and the teetotalers across the street, a shocking bank robbery that nobody involved wanted the world to know about, a City Hall dingbat’s flop preservation campaign, epic sibling rivalry, Art Walk, serial slaying and Woody Guthrie’s Skid Row dreams co-opted by a millionaire landlord. We’ve dug deep into the archives to deliver some very different Downtown stories—join us, do!

And on May 15, it’s A Gallery of Downtown Los Angeles Artists Celebrated and Obscure. In this webinar, we’re getting to know the visual artists who worked in the heart of the city, the buildings that inspired them and the curious tales they left behind. We’re shining a light on Bunker Hill painters Leo Politi and Kay Martin, muralists Einar Petersen and Hugo Ballin, and on some of the lesser known visionaries and street hustlers who fascinate us. Tune in and you might just find your new favorite artist.

Stay tuned as we roll out a new webinar program each Saturday. And remember if you can’t watch live or need to leave mid-stream, you can watch the recording for one full week. There’s still time to see The Rough Road to Llano del Rio, L.A.’s Utopian Colony in the Antelope Valley through Saturday night.

These webinars are now available as On-Demand recordings: Downtown L.A. Treasure Hunt • Wilshire Boulevard • Sunset Boulevard • John Fante • Art Deco Leisure Suits • Paul R. Williams • Saving South L.A. Landmarks • Birth of Noir • Storybook Architecture • Dark Side of the West Side • Hotel Cecil • L.A. Historic Preservation, 1900s-1980s • Southern California’s Architecture of Death • Crawford’s Markets • John Bengtson’s Silent Film Locations • George Mann’s Vintage L.A. • Pershing Square • Cafeterias of Old L.A. • Programmatic Architecture • Angels Flight • Grand Central Market • Ohio River Valley • Bunker Hill • Charles Bukowski • Raymond Chandler • Black Dahlia • Dutch Chocolate Shop • Bradbury Building • Tunnels • L.A. Times Bombing and 13 Uncanny Crimes & Mysteries.

And we’d love to see you tomorrow at noon for Fourth & Main, Downtown Los Angeles’ Most Fascinating Intersection.

yours for Los Angeles,

Kim & Richard

Esotouric