Gentle reader,
How are you holding up? We hope you’re somewhere safe and navigating this new, tough(er) Los Angeles with grace and hope, or at least something tasty on your plate.
Are you on Nextdoor? We’re trying to establish an Esotouric channel on that community app, and would appreciate it if you recommended our page.
We find the little rituals of normalcy are helpful and distracting.
Our first walking tour of 2025 is tomorrow’s Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue, which means we’ve been busy charging the PA, prepping the slideshow, picking up ice for Richard’s famous wheeled cart agitated lemon water, printing booklets and touching base with our special guest, artist Evan Whale, whose The End of Sunset series crafted from the wreckage of demolished neighborhood signs and buildings tell the story of the first stop on the tour.
If you missed our video visit to Evan’s recent art show, you can watch it below.
Tour prep includes checking the route for any unexpected surprises—you’d be amazed the kinds of nutty stuff that can pop up overnight—and since the tour starts just next door, we took a moment to pay our respects to the dusty vacant hillside that until a few months ago was the site of Stires Staircase Bungalow Court, a potential city landmark containing ten rent controlled cottage homes, wrecked so a developer can profit—even though there was plenty of vacant land on the parcel that could have been developed instead.
While the pretty white buildings were still standing though heavily vandalized, we ascended in search of a shrine to the Virgin nestled in a tree and met a wandering minstrel and we found a different shrine in one of the wrecked cottages. Then finally, we documented the destruction by claw machines.
From the sidewalk now, it looks like nothing but dirt, trash and weeds, but climbing up the hill, we immediately found signs of life.
They are the spirit of Los Angeles, brave, and gorgeous and just a little sleazy. These hearts and flowers go out to you, dear Angelenos, in hopes they brighten your spirits.
This city is tough and our people are so kind. Earthquake, flood, pestilence, fire. L.A. has been tried before and has come back strong, and we’ll do it again!
Would you like to see the Stires bungalow site, hear about Evan Whale’s art made from destroyed neighborhood landmarks and learn how a time capsule Victorian neighborhood grew and was saved so close to Downtown? Then you can join us tomorrow morning for the walking tour. Or just swing by the 1200 Block of West Sunset on your own, have a taco or two at Guisados, and take in the ugliness that squats in the midst of such beauty.
Before the fires, it was a struggle to protect historic buildings, especially residential structures. Now? With an estimated 12,000 buildings lost between the Eaton and Palisades fire zones, most of them residential, existing tenants are at enormous risk of displacement in favor of new occupants who can pay much more to live in brand new apartments, even if the tenants want to stay in their homes and the eviction is illegal.
The preservation fight truly is a battle for the soul of Los Angeles.
But don’t be fooled into thinking that there isn’t plenty of housing available right now. This city is full of vacant buildings (including huge hotels) and Airbnb units, some legal, some not. What we need now is bold leadership to take on the landlord lobby and release all that hoarded housing for Angelenos to use, so our people can stay here, can live with dignity, and be part of the great work that is to come.
No L.A. renter needs to be kicked out on the curb to house a fire victim!
As for us, we’ll be shaking our salvaged Beach Nut baby food jar full of spangled hearts and frantically making wishes. Ching ching ching!
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 and Reddit sharing preservation news as it happens. New: we’re on Nextdoor now, 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 (Sat. 1/18) • Broadway (Sat. 1/25) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 (Sat. 2/1) • Film Noir / Real Noir (Sat. 2/15) • The Real Black Dahlia (Sat. 3/1) • Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice Downtown L.A. (Sat. 3/8) • Bunker Hill, Dead and Alive (Sat. 3/15) • Raymond Chandler’s Noir Downtown Los Angeles (Sat. 3/22) • Franklin Village Old Hollywood (Sun. 3/30) • John Fante’s Downtown L.A. (Sat. 4/5) • Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue (Sat. 4/12) • Leo Politi Loves Los Angeles (Sat. 4/19) • Downtown Los Angeles is for Book Lovers (Sat. 4/26)
CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS
A rediscovered treasure of Rustic Canyon Pacific Palisades infrastructure advocacy from June 1964 hits hard right now. Save Our Stream! And they did!
The end of the line for the Reel Inn and Topanga Ranch Motel, just before the Palisades fire took the Malibu landmarks. Grateful to Clay Bush Greenbush of L.A. County Fire Dept. Community Fire Brigade for trying to save these precious places, and taking their very last photos.
Now that he is free of his sick body—his death hastened by having to evacuate the Sunset fire—David Lynch consciousness remains in Los Angeles and will transform the sick city he loved. Look for his influence. It will be hard to miss: Optimism, creativity, community, guts!
New on John Bengtson's Silent Locations: the whole world loves old Hollywood, and now Finnish film preservationist Sarah Lagrillière has used lost drainage infrastructure and building photo clues to sleuth out where Charlie Chaplin shot One A.M. in 1916.
Miracle! Despite the terrifying footage that circulated on January 7, the fire damage map shows that the Kauffman Estate aka Villa de Leon at 17948 Porto Marina Way survived the Palisades Fire.
The Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center was mostly destroyed by the Eaton Fire, but Merch Motel reports a long forgotten mural hidden inside a wall is now revealed, a beacon of hope and heritage.
And the Altadena Historical Society is delighted to find that the new County landmark Owen Brown Grave Site survived the fire, a monument not just to the man (John Brown’s son), but to the cause of Abolition and its deep roots in Los Angeles County.
As councilman for the budding Downtown Los Angeles Arts District, Joel Wachs changed policy to legalize warehouse loft living, as featured in our podcast 12 years back. Now the Andy Warhol Foundation he runs is chipping in to the $12M LA Arts Community Fire Relief Fund for displaced artists.
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