Gentle reader,
On a recent jaunt down to South Los Angeles to check in on some simmering preservation problems, we stopped for a picnic at Augustus Hawkins Nature Park, which we happen to think is the best park.
Carved out from a former industrial site, tucked between a residential neighborhood and busy commuter line, it’s rich with native trees and towering cactus, butterflies, a duck and turtle pond, happy families and some surprises.
We owe thanks to Raul, a friendly park interpreter who clocked us for cat lovers and pointed out the hidden pussycat in the picture. We hope the kitty’s sweet face reminds you to keep your eyes peeled for small bits of everyday magic, even in familiar places.
Saturday’s tour is Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue, and if you’ve been thinking of joining us, but counting your pennies, perhaps the Cheshire Cat’s special offer will encourage you to sign up.
Click the button for $35 tickets (regular price $50) good on the June 13 walk.
And check the website for tours now listed through November, including Franklin Village Old Hollywood, Film Noir / Real Noir, Bunker Noir, Richard’s birthday version of Weird West Adams walk and Hallowe’en Day exploring Evergreen Cemetery in Boyle Heights.
Yours for Los Angeles,
Kim & Richard
Esotouric
Are you on social media? We’re on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, Substack Notes, TikTok, Nextdoor and Reddit sharing preservation news as it happens. New: some of these newsletters are on Medium, too.
Our work—leading tours and historic preservation and cultural landmark advocacy—is about building a bridge between Los Angeles’ past and its future, and not allowing the corrupt, greedy, inept and misguided players who hold present power to destroy the city’s soul and body. If you’d like to support our efforts to be the voice of places worth preserving, we have a tip jar, 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 tours for groups big or small? Or just share this link with other people who care.
UPCOMING WALKING TOURS
• Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue (6/13) • Know Your Downtown LA: Bradbury Building, Basements of Yore and the Dutch Chocolate Shop (6/20) • Westlake Park Time Travel Trip (6/27) • Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice (7/11) • Hollywood Noir (7/18) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 (7/25) • Raymond Chandler’s Noir Downtown L.A. (8/1) • Film Noir / Real Noir (8/8) • Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue (8/29) • Franklin Village Old Hollywood (9/12) • Westlake Park Time Travel Trip (9/26) • Bunker Noir! True Crime on Los Angeles’ Bunker Hill with Nathan Marsak (10/3) • Charles Bukowski’s Westlake (10/10) • Film Noir / Real Noir (10/24) • Hallowe’en at Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 (10/31) • The Real Black Dahlia (11/7) • Richard’s Birthday Weird West Adams Tour & Elmer McCurdy Museum Visit (11/14) • Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue (11/21) • Hollywood Noir (11/28)
CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS
Calling all cafeteria kids: after years of yo-yo hours, the under-new-management Clifton’s re-opens this week with World Cup match viewing. Read on for video from our visit to scope out the scene this afternoon.
In 2015, Angelenos flocked to Broadway to see their beloved Clifton’s Cafeteria once again. That version of the landmark never clicked, sadly, but the love never faded. As the building reopens, if only for pop-up sporting events, we’re thinking of absent friends and hoping it’s for real.
We stopped by on opening afternoon afternoon and here’s the skinny on Clifton’s: it’s not a cafeteria, you can bring your own meal (try Arto’s Broadway Deli half a block west in St. Vincent Court), the bars are open, it’s free to walk in and watch World Cup games and will be open every day at 11am for the next two months. (Also people are making out in dark corners.)
Our friend Dan Kapelovitz didn’t win election to the Los Angeles Superior Court, but he did put out an amazing campaign video with music by Thee Wylde Serfs.
To fix Los Angeles: make it a No Scoundrel Zone. Were you called LA’s worst landlord for terrorizing RSO tenants? Then no, you can’t work with the Mayor to flip senior housing into a Homekey shelter and skim millions off the top. We defy anyone to read the dossier prepared by the Cheviot Hills-based Integrity Project and tell us City Hall is anything but a racket. Citizens shouldn’t have to do this work, but in the absence of a robust press, it’s a last chance to save Los Angeles.
Here’s our livestream from Westwood Memorial Park with all the sweet fans who came to pay their respects to Marilyn Monroe on her 100th birthday. Sending love to that lonely Hollywood kid who felt safest in the dark watching movies and all who are mourning her still.
On L.A. election eve, we found Hollywood Center Motel—a compromised “landmark” that doesn’t protect the historic housing, only some of which was allowed to burn down—wide open to squatters, skaters and taggers. No signs warn of the asbestos danger.
Max Kutner writes in The Hollywood Reporter about the motel’s mysterious, convenient fire, with a pull quote from Kim: “This wasn’t about a cool Instagrammable sign. This is the soul of the city being ripped out inch by inch.”
Did you catch the Hollywood Center Motel PLUM hearing, after it was left open to burn suspiciously? Full video is here, including Kim asking Nithya Raman and her political pals to DO SOMETHING about demolition by neglect.
Urban warfare over the dome of St. Luke?! After the recent terrifying activities, called out by councilmember Rick Cole in what looks like battle reporting, we’ve taken our newsletter about this gorgeous, abandoned Art Deco landmark from behind the paywall. Did flash bangs harm the stained glass? Can it be revived?
Recommended, but tough, reading: Sam Quinones’ Dreamland dispatch about how the working poor who can’t afford to move have been driven mad by the outdoor asylums next door and civic contempt.
An abiding Los Angeles mystery: did Gaylord Wilshire ever see the towering neon sign atop his namesake apartment building? The permit was stamped on June 21, 1927 and he died in New York on September 7. We hope he did!
New from Rev. Dylan Littlefield: The Election Is Over. The Work Continues. The people of Skid Row, MacArthur Park, and the Hotel Cecil are not political talking points. They are image-bearers of God.
Preservationists have sued to force Los Angeles to protect the landmark Barry Building—and possible native village site underneath it—from the billionaire owners’ unconvincing claim of demolition for no new project. New on our newsletter about the demolition threat: scroll down for attorney Jamie T. Hall’s petition for writ of mandate to halt the bulldozers and all the ways the City puts its thumb on the scale for billionaires.
Among the allegations of wrongdoing by the City are improper ex parte communications and collusion with the property owner, deliberate suppression of public records, lack of quorum and disrespectful behavior by elected officials during public hearings, pre-PLUM hearing coordination with a possibly scripted vote, the taking of official actions after losing legal jurisdiction and the improper termination of tribal consultation.
And although the matter of demolishing the Barry Building is now in the courts, and the preservationists say the City no longer has any authority, the Cultural Heritage Commission meets on 6/18/26 to review the demo permit. Should be a weird hearing.
And check out this must-read anonymous public comment in the Barry Building council file: “I’m critical of Los Angeles’ government because I live here, I pay my taxes, and I want better for the city. I shouldn’t have to ‘just move away,’ our local government should be the one to change and have some… respect for the humans who choose to fight to continue living in and loving this city.”
The Farting Muffler Shop’s holy sidewalk relic, the candy striped telephone pole in front of the bland new housing project that replaced El Pedorrero, has been chopped down. RIP to the weird old East Los Angeles and a folk art marvel.
CIM Group has big plans for the derelict block of Hollywood Boulevard at Cherokee it’s held vacant and blighted for 5+ years, and they don’t include reactivating 100 year old commercial spaces or salvaging brick or vintage EXIT signs. RIP ghosts of Hollywood Book City & friends.
Remember when “Mr. Tempo” Jorge Cueva mocked Angelenos as he destroyed the Pig ‘n Whistle? His chain struggles with evictions, license woes and lawsuits and now Hollywood Blvd. tour guides say the ruined landmark has closed.
Cheers to preservation pals Steven Luftman and Save Iconic Architecture who landmarked the Standard Hotel / Thunderbird Inn (Herbert R. Kameon, 1962). Reopening in July as Ian Schrager’s PUBLIC—the “L” is not optional—it’s looking pretty sharp!
Nearly a decade ago, the Attie Building owner claimed to be developing the parcel, evicted Playmates and let the Art Deco landmark and its iconic You Are The Star mural (Thomas Suriya, 1983) rot. Enough already. Hollywood needs people, not spec projects!
One of our favorite spiritual time capsules, Theosophy Hall at 33rd & Grand, now has an in-house theatrical troupe. Debut production is “Antigone” (June 26-28).
MacArthur Park is a protected city landmark with vulnerable sentinel trees near the perimeter. Mayor Karen Bass wants to fence it off because it’s a perpetual PR problem, something a well-run city could manage without an expensive tree-threatening fence! We also have concerns about the aesthetic impact on the already vandalized General Otis sculpture and other vistas, and the public safety impact of restricting options for leaving the park in a hurry. Right now, if you want to get out, you just make a bee-line for the sidewalk, which is never far. We have confirmed that the matter of the fence will be heard by the Cultural Heritage Commission, and we’ll let you know when that’s scheduled.
Sunland locals are appealing a dense subdivision on 19 acres in oak woodlands off McGroarty, concerned about its location in a Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone. L.A. doesn’t plan responsibly, so citizens have to go to court.
CEQA appeal of AltaMed’s attempt to build El Corazón, a corporate art museum, on park land at 1st and Broadway goes to City Council Committee on 6/23. Public comment is in-person only, but you can submit in writing before the hearing.
That city-owned neon hotel sign Diane Keaton somehow took possession of was auctioned off yesterday, and it sold cheap. Phooey!
Empty Los Angeles asked Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez for the “list of dozens and dozens of [rent-stabilized] units in my district… that are currently Airbnb units. This is happening.” We believe it’s true, but the CM refuses to provide the addresses.
New on the Los Angeles Bungalow Housing Map: residents of 2217-2223 W Laverna should be aware their landlord is seeking to subdivide the 1924 compound into tiny houses via SB 684. RSO units ought to be protected; know your rights.
In November 2025, Sonder shut down without notice, leaving guests scrambling and preservationists worried about their historic buildings. Good news for Lane Mortgage on 8th Street: it’s reopened as a Wyndham, and the Batchelder lobby is perfect.
Cheers to everyone who has read, shared and contributed to Cielito Lindo’s GoFundMe campaign to keep the nearly 100-year-old taquito stand at the top of Olvera Street serving. Now tell L.A. City Hall: maintain your buildings and forgive Covid rent debt!
Angelenos feel gaslit. Does this city have no project management system? At the other end of Olvera Street, a motion was passed to give the burro photo op stall a new lease after the City Attorney took it to eviction court. So why is Richard Hernandez Chase still getting evicted, pleading with Karen Bass?
Why did mayoral candidate Nithya Raman pose for a photo, but not come out to help him? Please read his letter to the mayor and let her know you care about this special family business that has served Angelenos for generations. Tell your councilmember to do something about the ignored motion to give him a new lease ASAP. Read more about the threat to Jorge the Burro in our newsletter.
