Gentle reader,
Yesterday morning we got up early to attend yet another in an interminable series of court dates for councilmember Curren Price’s conflict of interest and embezzlement case and can finally report that things are moving.
Judge Sean D. Coen’s task was to consider Price’s demurrer, by which the councilmember sought to have much of the case thrown out on procedural grounds.
This was the second time Price had filed a demurrer, and after brief arguments from his attorney Michael Schafler, this one, too, was overruled.
The case will continue. And Judge Coen was quick to schedule the next stage.
He sent Deputy D.A. Casey Higgins and Schafler out into the hallway to confer on possible hearing dates. Left alone at the table across from the D.A.’s investigator Timothy Oswandel, the councilmember slumped in his seat and twiddled his thumbs, then apparently remembered he was being filmed by a Spectrum News camera in the empty jury box and straightened up.
The lawyers returned and met the judge at his calendar. The pre-trial hearing, which is estimated to last about a week, will begin on Monday, November 3.
Our prayer is that the 84 beautiful, vacant RSO Selma Las Palmas Courtyard Apartments in Hollywood will not catch fire between now and then. Usually when we visit, we see the guards who are assigned to patrol the property, and we appreciate that someone—longtime property owner Mort La Kretz or Crossroads project developer Harridge Development Group—is paying for them to be there.
Just across Sunset Boulevard at the derelict, unguarded Hollywood Center Motel, which has a new owner seeking demo permits the city has yet to grant, the residential units appear unsecured, with their contents strewn around the grounds; LAFD put out a small fire on the main house balcony on Sunday afternoon.
After Saturday’s Franklin Village walking tour, we stopped at Las Palmas and shot the video at the top of this newsletter to highlight a remarkable paragraph in the D.A.’s opposition to the demurrer that would be overruled a few days later.
On page 69, the people explicitly allege that the councilmember’s wife Del Richardson’s company received nearly $200,000 from Harridge, ostensibly for her services urging inconvenient tenants to vacate their units, and that she hosted an event for the Crossroads project on the very day Price voted to oppose landmarking the apartments in which he had a financial interest.
This was a prosecutorial bombshell that we felt the sweet old buildings deserved to hear for themselves.
After all, it’s not their fault that developers, politicians and city planning staff apparently believe the dirt under them would be worth more as a vacant, tagged up, speculative high rise development than as the foundation for dozens of Angelenos thriving in dignified housing in a walkable, transit-rich neighborhood.
We’ve tracked down the 8/29/2018 City Council video from its obscure location on the City Clerk’s website, and uploaded it to YouTube for ease of access.
We draw your attention to the public comments by Susan Hunter with the Coalition to Preserve Los Angeles and Miki Jackson, both of whom suggest there is some impropriety around the vote on the nomination prepared by the Art Deco Society of Los Angeles.
Miki Jackson also testified to the PLUM Committee on 8/21/2018, when she asked Price to recuse himself due to the conflict of his wife’s business relationship with Las Palmas, as did Susan Hunter. Price didn’t vote on that day, but he did a week later.
So many landmarking hearings during the Garcetti administration seemed to be a little bit hinky when they concerned valuable real estate. Our own application for the Los Angeles Times compound was rewritten by confessed racketeer Jose Huizar to benefit a donor, which really sucked.
Now, at last, it seems like somebody with power is paying attention, and we hope that respect for heritage housing can be a path by which this filthy town gets cleaned up.
In our video, Kim mentions Raymond Chandler’s response to living in a city where elected and appointed officials and cops ran the rackets that were the domain of the mafia in the East: he invented a cynical white knight private detective, Philip Marlowe, and set him loose to expose L.A.’s seamy secrets while solving cases and suffering no man’s insolence.
Not mentioned—because Richard interjected to discuss courtroom procedure—was that Chandler was inspired to craft plots based on real crimes, including a notorious murder that happened steps away on the parcel that became Crossroads of the World!
It doesn’t feel like an accident that high profile City Hall corruption would once again strike the corner of Sunset and Las Palmas, nor that we would feel compelled to try to make sense of it through storytelling. (Free will is for saps, anyhow.)
So watch this space for a lot more court reporting this fall, which we anticipate will be pretty colorful as “City Family” witnesses are called, giving Angelenos a rare opportunity to learn, under oath, exactly how one of these opaque council offices functions when big donors ask for something, citizens be damned.
Wouldn’t it be wild to learn exactly how these charming pre-war apartment buildings ended up on the chopping block? For as preservation pal Miki Jackson points out in her righteous public comment after the votes were tabulated, CD13 councilmember Mitch O’Farrell had originally supported designation, but then changed his tune at the PLUM hearing chaired by confessed racketeer Jose Huizar. Could O’Farrell be subpoenaed to explain his reasoning? Stay tuned!
If you’re interested in real life L.A. noir, we certainly welcome you to join us at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center for Price’s pre-trial hearing.
But if your attention span isn’t suited for long days on a hard bench on your best behavior, you might prefer to attend NoirCon in Palm Springs in late October. It’s a fantastic program of panels, films and mingling, no bailiff will be breathing down your neck, and single day passes are available.
We’re deeply honored to be the recipients of the 2025 Anne Friedberg Award for Contributions to Noir and its Preservation, recognizing our work celebrating writers like Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain, leading tours like this Saturday’s Film Noir / Real Noir, and calling out public corruption in the City of Angels in the spirit of noir heroes like Thomas H. James and Clifford Clinton.
We’ll be accepting the award (via Zoom) from the wonderful Howard Rodman on Friday night, right before David Lynch’s Lost Highway screens.
And should you attend any day of NoirCon, and you snap a selfie under the marquee, reading the event booklet or with some other cool, identifying artifact and then email it to us with the secret code phrase “gimme the cabbage, you dope,” you’ll get $10 off on a ticket on our newest walking tour, Hollywood Noir, debuting on Saturday, November 29!
This Saturday’s Film Noir / Real Noir tour begins in the shadow of Angels Flight Railway bound for iconic time capsule filming locations and real crime scenes that inspired Hollywood to turn mid-century Downtown L.A. into a sleazy and beguiling back lot. We’re joined by special guests Joan “Red” Renner and Bunker Hill native son Gordon Pattison, and it’s going to be a real time travel trip. Join us, do!
Yours for Los Angeles,
Kim & Richard
Esotouric
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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
• Film Noir / Real Noir (9/20) • Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue (9/27) • Charles Bukowski’s Westlake (10/4) • Know Your Downtown LA: Bradbury Building, Basements, Dutch Chocolate Shop (10/11) • The Run: Gay Downtown History (10/18) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 (11/1) • Highland Park Arroyo Time Travel Trip (11/8) • Richard’s Birthday: Alvarado Terrace & South Bonnie Brae Tract (11/15) • The Real Black Dahlia (11/22) • Hollywood Noir (11/29) • Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice (12/6) • Westlake Park Time Travel Trip (12/13) • Miracle Mile Marvels & Madness (Sunday, 12/21) • Human Sacrifice: The Black Dahlia, Elisa Lam, Heidi Planck & Skid Row Slasher Cases (12/27)
