Gentle reader,
On the night of August 22-23 in 1791, African slaves on the island of Haiti rose up and began taking their freedom from French colonists, in what became known as the Saint-Domingue Revolution. August 23 is celebrated by UNESCO as the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition.
California was never a slave state, but when Bridget “Biddy” Mason (1818-1891) walked here behind the wagons of her Mormon convert “owner” Robert Marion Smith, Smith expected his new white neighbors would look the other way.
Instead, Mason was one of fourteen enslaved Americans granted her freedom in a remarkable legal pleading. She went on to establish herself as a pioneering Angeleno, a midwife and medical practitioner, a major landowner, a church and civic leader.
Recent efforts by councilmember Kevin de León to rededicate Pershing Square in Mason’s honor have been poorly received for being a-historical and disrespectful of the park’s status as a war memorial. Local historians have taken up pen to object to the renaming and the language of the motion: here’s feedback from Courtland Jindra, Nathan Marsak (and again) and Bob Wolfe.
But while controversial, the renaming proposal has served to bring overdue attention to one of the greatest examples of public space and civic art in Los Angeles: the pocket park dedicated in honor of Biddy Mason in 1990.
If you’ve never visited Biddy Mason Memorial Park, don’t kick yourself. It’s hidden in plain sight and easy to miss. You can get there by walking by the Italian restaurant Maccheroni Republic opposite Grand Central Market on Broadway, by exiting the Bradbury Building by the hard to find south door, or by accessing the small shopping concourse in the 300 block of South Spring Street next to the parking garage and opposite the Ronald Reagan State Building.
If you do find Biddy’s park, you’ll be impressed by its public art installation created by Dolores Hayden & The Power of Place, with the long wall by Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, the intimate time machine elevator lobby by Betye Saar and landscape architecture by Burton & Spitz. The entire scheme is thoughtful and inspiring, with a mix of hardscape narrative panels, replica historic artifacts and photographs, shade trees, public seating and a sense of peaceful repose in the heart of the city.
On the day that the councilmember held his press event announcing the proposed renaming of Pershing Square, which we’ve been advocating for for a decade, we walked over to Biddy Mason Memorial Park and shot a video to introduce the place to those who aren’t aware of it. And we figured, as long as the city was talking about honoring Biddy Mason, we’d include our wish list of how the space could be improved, maintained and made more accessible.
That was two months ago, and that video is below.
This summer we’ve been swamped with preservation crises, and just didn’t get around to sharing the video. But we did visit Biddy’s park a lot, bringing guided tour groups through it, having lunch and meeting with friends, just enjoying the space.
And it was on one of these lunch meetings that we saw the small miracle that’s at the top of this post.
A worker from the Business Improvement District crew climbed a ladder and started fishing out years of spider webs and dead leaves from the spouts of the neglected metal water features. Then he flipped a switch. The pumps still worked! So now when you visit, there’s a soft burbling sound, a hint of mist on the breeze and a place for dragonflies and birds to stop and quench their thirst. It’s wonderful.
This morning, we went to Evergreen Cemetery to visit Biddy Mason and tell her that her fountains are working again, and that she’s the talk of the town and will soon have ceremonial signs all down Spring Street. The stone where we placed a rose was unveiled in 1988, after Mayor Tom Bradley led a procession of 3000 souls from the First AME church she helped to found to the grave that was for 97 years unmarked.
And while our wish list for improving her park is already out of date, we’re sharing it on this auspicious day, with thanks to all who make an effort to make our city more pleasant and equitable and keep our fountains flowing, and who keep our past alive so that we can better understand what it means to be an Angeleno.
Sunday’s tour is Broadway: Downtown Los Angeles’ Beautiful, Magical Mess, and it’s a great opportunity for you to visit Biddy Mason Memorial Park, since the tour starts and ends right across the street at Grand Central Market, and to see the newly installed The Run banners celebrating the gay history of the neighborhood, too. Join us, do!
Yours for Los Angeles,
Kim & Richard
Esotouric
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UPCOMING BUS & WALKING TOURS
• Broadway: Downtown Los Angeles’ Beautiful, Magical Mess (Sun. 8/25) • Raymond Chandler’s Noir Downtown Los Angeles (Sat. 8/31)• Alvarado Terrace & South Bonnie Brae Tract (Sat. 9/7) • Highland Park Arroyo (Sat. 9/21) • The Real Black Dahlia (Sat. 9/29) • The Run: Gay Downtown L.A. History (Sun. 10/13) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 (Sun. 10/27) • Westlake Park Time Travel Trip (Sun. 11/3) • The 1910 Bombing of the Los Angeles Times Walking Tour with Detective Mike Digby (Sat. 11/9) • Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice Downtown L.A. (Sat. 11/16) • Charles Bukowski’s Westlake (Sat. 11/23) • Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue (Sat. 12/7) • Raymond Chandler’s Noir Downtown Los Angeles (Sat. 12/14) • Miracle Mile Marvels & Madness (Sun. 12/22) • Human Sacrifice: The Black Dahlia, Elisa Lam, Heidi Planck & Skid Row Slasher (Thurs. 12/26)
CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS
On the anniversary of Marilyn Monroe’s death, Karina Wilson chronicles the traumas suffered by the quasi-orphan Norma Jeane Baker, and how she transformed herself into the gilded star Marilyn and too briefly found a safe nest on 5th Helena Drive, the newly landmarked home still threatened by its owners.
Dr. Simon Jesberg's Eye and Ear Hospital (Edward Cray Taylor and Ellis Wing Taylor, 1928) at 500 W. Lucas is a vacant husk since Para Los Ninos sold to Hong Kong based biotech company HMG/Coree for $5.4 M in 2016. Westlake is full of useful empty buildings. In this one, Dr. Jesberg collected 1400 items people had swallowed or inhaled—donated after his death to be a teaching tool at County General Hospital.
Rev. Dylan Littlefield reflects on the march to City Hall by residents of the derelict Hotel Cecil. Good things are happening, but perhaps most importantly, these people who have been ignored for far too long felt heard!
Another wild ride in the old Los Angeles bookstore trenches from Paul Hunt: Kelly Goodside’s Tumultuous Adventures in Bookselling, including cameos from Scotty's Castle, crooked redevelopment agencies and Night Stalker Richard Ramirez.
By getting then-Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to halt landmark efforts for the iconic neon sign, then replacing tubes with LED, Felix Chevrolet could redevelop with no preservation restrictions. Lost is the great 110 Freeway vista. Here kitty kitty...
Est. 1928, Leo and Sadye Galenson's National Radio Shop served the Southwest's appliance needs. In 1942, Leo was arrested for repossessing a fridge and washer bought on time by a fellow who had joined the Navy. Federal law paused that debt. Bet the signs are still under there!
Fascinating teenage hobo's memoir of riding the rails to California in the dark spring of 1930, finding no work at the port, so kicking off for a hardscrabble ramble around Depression era America.
Cheers to Lynell George and Westways for this plea to preserve the memory maps of Los Angeles, so natives aren't violently yanked out of their profound connection with place. Ground up development is more profitable, but it's not always best.
Hoffman Candy Company (Charles F. Plummer, 1929), recently landmarked by the Art Deco Society of Los Angeles and more stunning in person than in photographs. Get down to 6600 Avalon and feast on this sweet daylight factory!
Why is Mayor Karen Bass seeking to appoint Jacob Saitman, who manages solar assets for Lightsource bp in other states, to the LA City Planning Commission? He'd replace Jacob Noonan, who has an Urban Planning degree, experience.
Lance Mazmanian was Leonard Cohen's Macintosh tech. It didn't end well.
An update on the fire damaged, left wide open Pacific Dining Car: Tom Carroll from the Los Angeles Times asked us to stop by the site and see if the owner had complied with the order to comply from LADBS. Yes! As of August 15, the restaurant is boarded up and secure, as seen in the video above. Thank you, all who called or emailed! Our photos of the current state of the building appear in Tom’s LATimes.404 video in which we’re interviewed about demolition by neglect and the frustrations of trying to protect a derelict landmark before a fire breaks out.
Also on August 15, we observed a Curren Price courthouse bombshell: in a minute long hearing, the City Attorney agreed to show emails and other documents about the indicted councilmember's wife's development client activity and Price's unrecused votes to Deputy DA Casey Higgins. Stay tuned for a red hot hearing.
Wow! Prelinger Archives just posted Philip J. Leff's rare surrealist short "Symphony In Motion," featuring Downtown L.A. shoppers, neon and cars set to Stravinsky. It screened in March 1950 as part of Cine-Art at the Coronet Theatre (aka the Largo).
These allegations about the City Attorney scanning protest footage for a political critic, contacting LAPD, are disturbing. The office should be shutting down illegal Airbnbs and protecting constituents, not wasting resources on the boss' personal beefs.
Fascinating and infuriating post by Bunker Hill historian Nathan Marsak about the magnificent Kay Martin collection of paintings and drawings of the lost neighborhood, gifted to Angelenos forever, but spirited away by the Natural History Museum like so many lost arks. Bring 'em back to DTLA!
A happy update on Sunshine the Queen Palm, the last living resident of old Bunker Hill, saved from the axe and moved off site for Colburn School expansion construction. She's not just alive, she's... well, see for yourself!
The Hollywood Arby’s sign, soon to be landmarked, is illuminating a new neighbor: Prince Street Pizza’s pop-up hot slice operation is now serving via the drive-thru window, with pizza box branding riffing on the vintage sign.
Cheers to preservation pal James Dastoli, whose landmark nomination for Chateau La Martine (Max Maltzman, 1929) at 627 South Normandie is moving forward. 103 RSO units! Preserving Los Angeles history while protecting renters is such great public policy.
Pristine new restoration from UCLA Film & Television Archive with the Library of Congress: The Voice of Hollywood (1931). The luminous Jean Harlow cooing into a neon-ringed microphone is just part of the fun.
The LA Times covers efforts to save what's left of Terminal Island, but until we commented on the article and they added a link, ignored local San Pedro reporter Emma Rault, who broke the story, and the feral cat pal who tipped her off. Without them, the Port might have demolished already!
Onni Group sues to get out of a purchase agreement across from the Times Mirror Square project that would require demolition of Pereira's 1973 addition, claiming the neighborhood has gone to hell. Pereira in Peril... no more?
Gloria J. Romero, former California Senate Majority Leader, is alarmed by the Crane Boulevard land use case that L.A. media is ignoring. Are City Hall staffers setting policy for politicians, trampling the Brown Act?
A new deep history webinar just added to our single serving storefront: The Treasures and Tragedies of Elysian Park. Get a taste for $5, or gorge yourself with a subscription to every webinar: 100% obsessed with Los Angeles.
On International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition, it's a Biddy Mason Memorial Park Miracle