Gentle reader,
For the past couple of years, we’ve been advocating for the preservation and reactivation of Rancho Los Amigos, the 19th century County Poor Farm in Downey that has been neglected for decades, and in recent years has been left unsecured to suffer enormous losses to arsonists, vandals and metal thieves.
Colleen Adair Fliedner, author of the centennial history of the facility, wrote on our blog about how the massive parcel could again be a place of safety, healing and life transformation for homeless Angelenos, and joined us to share the rich history in an on-demand webinar.
Environmental horticulturist and historic tree advocate Dr. Donald R. Hodel recently came aboard, to advocate for a care plan for the massive and suddenly browning 1888 Bunya Pine tree planted in Rancho’s central quad, just across from the landmark Craftsman home of Superintendent William Harriman, which an arsonist torched in 2017. (The stone and brick footprint and porch survive and could be the starting point for a restoration, some day.)
We shot this video yesterday morning, on a site visit with County reps to learn about what’s happening with the ongoing demolitions at the potential National Register campus, and to try to ensure some significant trees and structures that are supposed to be saved are kept safe.
Sadly and unexpectedly, our visit coincided with a crew loudly sawing down the towering 134 year old Bunya Pine, which despite best efforts after we advocated with the County to install irrigation, was unable to recover from the recent lightning strike that damaged its delicate circulatory system. May its memory be a blessing.
This tree was the example of the Bunya Pine selected by Don Hodel for his book Exceptional Trees of Los Angeles (1988), but there are many on the Eastside of town who would argue he should really have picked El Pino.
This beloved tree on the border of Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles is threatened by a dense development project, but with some changes in plan it can still be saved. Tune in next Tuesday at 7pm for El Pino In Peril, which is #4 in a series of free historic preservation webinars about landmarks that need your help and attention.
We’re dark this weekend, but return on Saturday, October 1 with a brand new walking tour, Franklin Village Old Hollywood Time Travel Trip. Sign up to discover how offbeat spiritual, cultural, music industry, motion picture, architectural and true crime history knit together to tell an extraordinary neighborhood story.
There are more fall tour dates coming soon, so stay tuned, and read on for all the breaking preservation and public corruption news you can use.
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, gift certificates and a souvenir shop you can browse in. Or just share this link with other people who care.
CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS
It was too hot for our Downtown L.A. real estate and murder tour Human Sacrifices, but we gave David Stoelk from Spectrum News a sneak peek: True-crime tour has an eye on LA's homeless crisis.
Bruce Quinn joined us on last Saturday's Westlake Park tour, and posted a very nice video review to his YouTube channel. We appreciate the kind words!
A rare project for the right person: Los Angeles HCM no. 464, Fargo House, where Charles M. Williams invented and brainstormed Arroyo preservation with Charles Fletcher Lummis, is on the market. Looks smelly—and fascinating!
Our wish: may Lummis' next birthday find something doing at his derelict Southwest Museum. Read his will and join us in the hope of good stewardship.
Penny Wolin's Hollywood SRO hotel portraits from 1975 are so pure. We need to get the cheap residential hotels away from the developers and speculators, so oddball Angelenos can survive.
Illegal demolition activity was observed inside the Clairville Plumbing & Heating building adjacent to the historic Eagle Rock Route 66 Standard service station, with materials dumped around that building. Soon after, The Cultural Heritage Commission accepted a landmark application. The first hearing is 10/6.
Our webinar Saving the Sentinel Trees on Old Bunker Hill, Then and Now (Free L.A. Preservation Talk #3) is now on YouTube for ease of sharing. Meet a couple of living relics from Downtown’s past. If these green (mostly) sentinels could talk!
As the best house on Roxbury Drive is bulldozed with no architectural salvage, concerned locals strategize how to eliminate the poison pill in the city's historic preservation ordinance, which states a landmark must appear in... magazines?!
Boys Town's beloved Collar & Leash pet store neon dog sign has been preserved as public art, with plans to reinstall it in William S. Hart Park in West Hollywood. Dog lover Hart (whose house museum is in peril) is smiling up above.
Santa Clarita's invaluable local history website is a digital dinosaur, in danger of becoming extinct. If the city pays for modernization, it will become a civic resource maintained by the local library. You can help!
Unlike the NoMad, where Raymond Chandler worked in the oil business, the just remodeled Mayfair never closed through the pandemic, housing people under Project Roomkey. Now the hotel where Chandler threatened suicide is on the market—and we believe it should be affordable housing.
Another suspicious L.A. church fire, as Victory Baptist at 4802 McKinley is destroyed before Sunday service. USC scanned their gospel archives, now presumed lost. A rare arson arrest has been added to the church fire layer on our preservation hotspots map.
We weighed in on the upcoming auction of 908-910 South Broadway and its hemmed in Banksy mural. Would you pay $14 Million more for the kid on the swing?
Tanya Ward Goodman pays a visit to the Old Trapper's Lodge folk art environment in the company of the artist's grand-daughter and great-grand-daughter, to witness recent damage to the threatened landmark through the eyes of those who helped create it and recognize the figures as portraits of their kin. Tanya's father Ross J. Ward created the New Mexican folk art environment Tinkertown, subjects of her acclaimed memoir Leaving Tinkertown.
Application to rename several blocks surrounding MacArthur Park "The Guatemalan Square" has collected a lot of signatures, but appears invalid, since none of the three organizers lives in the neighborhood.
This is grim: the admin for a 120,000 member California history Facebook group has shut it down, after FB's buggy AI porn seeking algorithm made the community impossible to maintain.
A sickening Instagram page is documenting the horrors the tenants of "SB Main" aka Board of Trade (Curlett & Beelman, 1929) are suffering since Greystar bought the neglected National Register landmark from Barry Shy, along with his other historic properties. This is a crime scene.
Bowling alleys are an endangered species in Los Angeles—but this new city filing hints at a new one, plus arcade, coming to the Beverly Center!
Troubling reporting about the L.A. Times' owner's editorial interference, gnat-like attention span and self-dealing, based on interviews with dozens of staff. Pay the bills and butt out, PSS!
The LAPL blog highlights the rich history of Cahuenga Branch Library and its East Hollywood neighborhood ending with the newly reinstalled Vermonica just across Route 66.
Corruption Corner: This newly filed exhibit in the Jose Huizar RICO case shows L.A. corruption watchers the notorious closet cash stash, which seems to have been wrapped in a vintage Our Town El Sereno t-shirt, repping a supportive Facebook page run by a CD14 deputy…. Former Dean of USC’s Social Work School agrees to plead guilty to bribery for funneling $100,000 to secure County contract… Housing is a Human Right investigators fanned out over Downtown and Westlake to confirm the sickening truth: 4600+ affordable units held vacant, demolished or converted to market rate… More weirdness with Relevant Group's Morrison Hotel project, as City Planning cancels the 9/28 public hearing because the Final EIR is not ready. With the Morrison under investigation for illegal gutting and creditors suing, what's next? Weirder still: as we go to press, all evidence of the open code enforcement investigation has been scrubbed from the LADBS website!
Farewell to the 1888 Bunya Pine tree at Rancho Los Amigos, chopped down yesterday morning