Introducing à la carte deep Los Angeles history webinars

Gentle reader,

Something uncanny and wonderful happened on last Saturday’s Leo Politi Loves Los Angeles tour, and we’re going to need to sit with it a little longer before we can properly tell the tale. Patience, please.

But we didn’t want these hours of gratitude to pass without conveying our deep appreciation for the opportunity to be of service to this city we love.

Thank you for being part of this community of L.A. angels, for sharing your local preservation campaigns and snapping photos of demolition notices, for calling for help when bulldozers are rolling, for showing up for precious independent and legacy businesses, and for believing, as we do, that Los Angeles is still a great city despite all her troubles, and the place where more ideas are exchanged and more dreams manifest into physical reality than anywhere else on earth.

Our Thanksgiving song for you comes from the San Fernando Valley’s own juvenile delinquent gutter saint, Judee Sill, who departed this life 44 years ago yesterday, leaving a small cult of shaken shopkeepers and captivated fans. Maybe you’ll join us in that latter sect.

Here’s something new, by public request: we’re making our lock down era webinars available for individual viewing, in addition to the monthly and annual all-you-can-watch subscription options. Available as of tonight are four popular programs—on The Bradbury Building, Raymond Chandler, Hotel Cecil & Storybook Architecture—but if there’s one you’d like to see that’s not yet uploaded, send us a note and we’ll do that one next just for you. The full list of webinars is here.

Tomorrow’s tour is a stroll through the two National Register districts south of MacArthur Park, Alvarado Terrace & South Bonnie Brae Tract, in search of some of the fascinating characters who inhabited the lovely mansions when they were new and through much funkier days. Have you ever seen the shortest street in town, or heard about the diner that doubled as a zoo? You will, if you sign up now.

And because next weekend’s Know Your Downtown Los Angeles tour is completely full with folks asking every day if we can squeeze them in, we’ve added another date on March 16, and published additional new bus and walking tours taking us into April. Join us, do!

yours for Los Angeles,

Kim & Richard

Esotouric

Psst… If you’d like to support our efforts to be the voice of places worth preserving, we have a tip jar and a subscriber edition of this newsletter, vintage Los Angeles webinars available to stream, in-person tours and a souvenir shop you can browse in. We’ve also got recommended reading bookshelves on Amazon and the Bookshop indie bookstore site. And did you know we offer private versions of our walking and bus tours for groups big or small? Or just share this link with other people who care.

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UPCOMING BUS & WALKING TOURS

• Alvarado Terrace & South Bonnie Brae Walking Tour (Sat. 11/25) • Know Your Downtown L.A.: Tunnels To Towers To The Dutch Chocolate Shop Walking Tour (Sat. 12/2 - SOLD OUT, repeats in March) • Highland Park Arroyo Walking Tour (Sat. 12/9) • Miracle Mile Marvels & Madness Walking Tour (Sun. 12/17) • Human Sacrifice: The Black Dahlia, Elisa Lam, Heidi Planck & Skid Row Slasher Walking Tour (Tues. 12/26) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 Walking Tour (Sat. 1/20) • Broadway: Downtown Los Angeles’ Beautiful, Magical Mess Walking Tour (Sat. 1/27) • Bunker Hill, Dead and Alive Walking Tour (Sat. 2/3) • Westlake Park Time Travel Trip Walking Tour (Sat. 2/10) • Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue Time Travel Trip Walking Tour (Sat. 2/17) • The Real Black Dahlia Crime Bus Tour (Sat. 2/24) • Echo Park Book of the Dead Crime Bus Tour (Sat. 3/9) • Know Your Downtown L.A.: Tunnels To Towers To The Dutch Chocolate Shop Walking Tour (Sat. 3/16) • The Run: Gay Downtown History Walking Tour (Sat. 3/23) • John Fante’s Downtown Los Angeles Birthday Walking Tour (Sat. 4/6)