Farewell to Terry Ellsworth, the True Soul of the Arts District

Gentle reader,

We come to you today with a tear stained note on the passing of Terry Ellsworth (September 1, 1948—November 4, 2022), a dear friend who many of our tour guests got to know when he guided us through his little pocket of the Arts District as the final stop on the Lowdown on Downtown tour.

If you never had the chance to see the Arts District through his eyes, or if you’d like to renew your friendship, you can sit a spell with Terry in two interviews he recorded for our podcast You Can’t Eat The Sunshine in 2013. He’s featured in Episode #35: The End of the Rainbow and Episode #42: The Arts District, Then & Now.

Terry’s story is a daily inspiration in our historic preservation and tenants rights advocacy. Old buildings that creative people can afford to live in long enough to build communities are literal life savers, and Terry learned this when his heart failed and he had to have a transplant, as resident of a single room occupancy hotel on the gritty side of Alameda Street. His neighbors didn’t have much either, but they hustled to raise funds to support him and took turns caring for him, so he didn’t want for anything.

Terry didn’t just survive that surgery, but he thrived afterwards, buoyed up by the wave of love that carried him through. And that love poured out of him, in the gratitude and generosity that shaped and steered his artist’s life.

This was the story he shared on tours, about how after living all over Los Angeles and serving the snooty folks whose art he hung and who shopped in the boutiques where he learned the art of seamless hospitality, he found the end of the rainbow on the edge of Skid Row.

Terry was a living link to an Arts District that no longer exists, one of the few original settlers who managed not to get forced out by the supercharged gentrification policies that have disgraced councilman Jose Huizar up on Federal racketeering charges.

When Terry got there, it wasn’t called the Arts District at all. Pioneers had discovered the blocks of empty 19th century warehouses between Little Tokyo and the L.A. River and moved in, living illegally in commercial spaces, throwing rent parties, hosting performance art scenes in the street, drinking and dancing at Al’s Bar, nailing a real airplane to the American Hotel, enjoying frontier life in the shadow of Downtown’s skyscrapers.

When word got out about all the cool things happening east of Alameda, stodgy city inspectors wanted to evict everybody. Councilman Joel Wachs stood up for his weird constituents, and passed the 1981 Artist‐in‐Residence Ordinance, which amended the restrictions on living in industrial zones and defined “live‐work” as one‐third housing to two‐thirds work space. And for years, the Arts District really was a place for working artists to live, work, exhibit and influence each other.

We started giving the Lowdown on Downtown tour in 2010, and included stops to visit original Arts District residents in their loft homes where they built large scale sculptures. But as real estate values exploded as developers bribed Jose Huizar for zoning changes, these folks were soon displaced.

Terry was the golden thread who could navigate the fast changing Arts District, speaking beautifully on what it had been like, and about the cultural and human landmarks that weren’t around anymore, but who came back as he conjured them from loving memory.

And he was living proof that politicians who cared more for their constituents than for foreign billionaires absolutely can make policy changes that quickly transform and improve the lives of Angelenos. We need that kind of representation, we deserve it and dammit, we’re going to get it.

As he personally thanked each guest for visiting and passed out his card, he reminded them that now they had a friend in the Arts District, and that any time they were in the neighborhood, they should feel free to reach out. He meant it, too.

The city is a little darker today, without this sweet sage soul shining. But we feel like he’ll always be there, on “his” block at the corner of Traction and Hewitt, the hip life coach who took his pay in pie, looking out for L.A.

May each of your find your end of the rainbow as Terry did, and pass along the wisdom that brought you there.

yours for Los Angeles,

Kim & Richard

Esotouric

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Upcoming walking tours into the Secret Heart of Los Angeles:

• Saturday, November 12 - Angelino Heights and Carroll Avenue Time Travel Trip

• Saturday, November 19 - Highland Park Arroyo Time Travel Trip (Richard’s Birthday)

• Sunday, December 4 - La Brea Tar Pits Time Travel Trip

• Saturday, December 10 - All Around the Auto Club West Adams History Tour

• Saturday, December 17 - Bunker Noir! True Crime on Los Angeles’ Bunker Hill Tour