Join us this Thursday for The Bizarre B’nai B’rith Lodge Demolition Threat (Free L.A. Preservation Talk #1)

Gentle reader,

Recently, our preservation pal Steven Luftman wrote one of his fascinating, deeply researched landmark nominations for a gorgeous building in the Pico-Union District: the B’nai B’rith Lodge (S. Tilden Norton, 1923-24)…. and then the city, which had solicited community members to write the nomination, refused to accept it!

Weird, right? But so many things about historic preservation in this developer’s playground of a city are weird. Steven felt pretty blue about doing all this work, falling in love with the B’nai B’rith Lodge and its Batchelder tile facade, and then not being able to share the tale with others who care about history, architecture and preservation.

So we offered to create a virtual program to celebrate Steven’s B’nai B’rith Lodge research and explore the peculiarities revealed in the attempt to declare it a protected city landmark. Then we invited a very special friend to join us, architectural historian Nathan Marsak in his role as The Cranky Preservationist.

This is the first in a new series of free preservation focused virtual talks that are shorter than our ticketed Los Angeles history webinars and walking tours.

This program will stream as a live webinar on Thursday, June 30 at 7:00pm. Capacity is limited, and we want the chat room to be full, so please do not sign up if you’re not able to watch live. You’ll be able to view the program later on demand.

For more info, or to reserve your spot (if you’re planning to watch live), click here. Recommended reading before you tune in: Steven’s landmark nomination, currently stuck in City Planning limbo and only available at this link.

We hope you can join us on Thursday night, to learn about a building that has shaped the city and the wider world, and that can be of service for another century. We just need to encourage property owner Catholic Charities to take the green and fiscally responsible path of adaptively reusing the historic building for its new foster youth compound, while expanding onto its enormous surface parking lot.

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 on demand, in-person walking tours, and a souvenir shop you can browse in. Or just share this link with other people who care.