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Goodbye to Goodform in Jay Sebring's Salon

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Gentle reader,

They say a person dies twice: when they stop breathing, and when the last living person who still remembers them dies.

But there’s a third death that befalls creative artists, and that is the dismantling of an environment that posthumously reflects their particular spirit. The survival of such places depends entirely on the stewardship of the living, something sadly lacking in Los Angeles today—not for lack of desire, but because resources are so thinly stretched.

That’s why in a few days, the pioneering Southern Californian hairdresser Jay Sebring (1933-1969) will die again, when his historic Fairfax Avenue salon, established in 1959 and operating under different owners for nearly all of the last 65 years, shuts down.

The building’s recent buyer, an anonymous consortium operating as Fairfax Avenue Holdings, LLC, has filed an unlawful detainer case to evict Goodform, a lovely salon run by lovely people. And they’re not going to fight it in court.

We got to know the Goodform crew in 2019, as a side effect of the Mansonland bus tour we were giving with guest host Brad Schreiber. We shot a Spectrum 1 News featurette inside.

And while we don’t host bus tours anymore, co-owner Michelle Guzman remembered how much we loved the time capsule space and invited us down to say goodbye. We seem to always be saying goodbye to Los Angeles places and people we care about.

If you’d like to support our preservation work, you can do that below. You can also tip us on Venmo (Esotouric) or here. Your support helps us look out for Los Angeles and we thank you!

The stylists will be fine—they’re moving to chairs elsewhere in the neighborhood. The owners will be, too. But the city will be a little dimmer with the loss of the successor to Jay Sebring’s salon, not just as a treasured legacy business and a too rare third place, but as a living symbol of what used to be possible here.

We love Angelenos like Jay Sebring and are honored to tell their unique and inspiring stories on our tours and in our webinars—visionary transplants who shed their old names and identities, put down roots in the fertile, forgiving soil on the edge of the continent, tap into their imaginations and by having faith in themselves change the culture for everyone.

When Thomas John Kummer invented Jay Sebring, he opened the door for American men to enjoy personal grooming and aesthetics, to kick off their shoes and relax into the intimacy and comradeship of the salon experience, as women have done for generations.

He even managed to make natural slob Jim Morrison look like a Greek god… briefly.

We yearn for the dopes and crooks in charge of Los Angeles to clean up the dirty real estate schemes that are holding so many commercial spaces perpetually vacant and make it again possible for a Jay Sebring to live cheaply, lease a storefront, listen to the voice within himself that is great, and manifest that inner voice in the material world.

We’re all losing so much, just so a very small minority can speculate and profit. This could stop tomorrow if the city implemented a commercial vacancy tax. Our cowardly City Council refused to even hold a vote about putting a vacant housing tax motion on the 2022 ballot, so we’re not holding our breaths. Still, it’s sane public policy that would quickly fix many of the ills facing Los Angeles, and with better leadership, it’s possible.

So we bid goodbye to Goodform and Jay Sebring’s creation at 725 N. Fairfax Avenue, still intact until Tuesday, September 4, 2024. Its future is uncertain, but its past is a beautiful part of the city’s story and fabric, forever. And you can still see it for yourself for a few more days. Visitors are very welcome. Please report back in the comments below if you stop by.

And speaking of broke transplants reinventing themselves and changing the world, Saturday’s tour (repeating on 12/14) explores how Chicago born, London educated Raymond Chandler used the period of anxious unemployment after being fired from his oil company job to create the iconic private detective Philip Marlowe, and through short stories, novels and screenplays craft a noir vision of Los Angeles as a spoiled, corrupt and dangerous place that hides its evil behind a pretty, thin veneer. Join us, do!

Fun fact: The Kept Girl, Kim’s non-fiction mystery novel featuring Chandler in his oil executive days unfolds over this very week in 1929, and you can get a taste of the tale with Chapter One here.

Can’t join us for an in-person tour? We’ve got a deep dive into newly uncovered Chandler lore available on our webinar channel, and a wee Raymond Chandler map for armchair exploration.

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.


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 and a subscriber edition of this newsletter, 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. You can share this post to win subscriber perks. 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.

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UPCOMING BUS & WALKING TOURS

• Raymond Chandler’s Noir Downtown Los Angeles (Sat. 8/31)• Alvarado Terrace & South Bonnie Brae Tract (Sat. 9/7) • Franklin Village Old Hollywood (9/15) • Highland Park Arroyo (Sat. 9/21) • The Real Black Dahlia (Sat. 9/29) • Know Your Downtown L.A.: Tunnels to Towers to the Dutch Chocolate Shop (10/5) • Broadway: Downtown Los Angeles’ Beautiful, Magical Mess (Sat. 10/12) • The Run: Gay Downtown L.A. History (Sun. 10/13) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 (Sun. 10/27) • Westlake Park Time Travel Trip (Sun. 11/3) • The 1910 Bombing of the Los Angeles Times Walking Tour with Detective Mike Digby (Sat. 11/9) • Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice Downtown L.A. (Sat. 11/16) • Charles Bukowski’s Westlake (Sat. 11/23) • Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue (Sat. 12/7) • Raymond Chandler’s Noir Downtown Los Angeles (Sat. 12/14) • Miracle Mile Marvels & Madness (Sun. 12/22) • Human Sacrifice: The Black Dahlia, Elisa Lam, Heidi Planck & Skid Row Slasher (Thurs. 12/26)


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