Gentle reader,
Often in this newsletter or in conversation we’ll refer to someone as our preservation pal, in recognition of a working friendship built on a shared passion for looking out for Southern California’s cultural resources.
It’s not unexpected that likeminded folks would come together, and the history of historic preservation advocacy is one of affinities, collaborations, legendary dinner parties, excursions into abandoned places and more than a few romances.
Preservation people are smart, curious, creative, obsessive and fun. And based on our experiences with our older preservation pals, loving the past helps keep you young. Give it a try!
Meet Jean Bruce Poole, our dear friend and collaborator on a long simmering book project—of which more later—who turned 101 earlier this month. Recently, we met her at her old workplace, the Avila Adobe at El Pueblo Monument, where she visited with interim General Manager Edgar Garcia and made a video talking about her groundbreaking work as Historic Museum Director.
Then we took a stroll down Olvera Street, which was like taking the air with a golden age movie star, as old friends who had worked with Jean decades ago poured out of the restaurants, shops and museum spaces to take her hand, get caught up and ask when she was coming back again.
Since he knows Jean so well, Richard volunteered to do the impromptu interview, and El Pueblo put out this delightful video in honor of her birthday and the golden thread of stewardship that has kept this landmark in the heart of the city alive and precious for generations.
We hope you enjoy getting to know our preservation pal Jean Bruce Poole and the landmark she loves so much and helped shape through her passion and dedication.
Do you have a favorite place on Olvera Street to eat, shop or take visitors? Recommendations for special things to seek out? Please share in the comments below!
And speaking of auspicious birthdays, the noir detective novelist Raymond Chandler was born 137 years ago today.
To celebrate, we’ve got a special sale good for a ticket for the next Raymond Chandler walking tour on September 6 (or any regularly scheduled Esotouric tour), plus a pass to view our deep dive noir webinar featuring the author’s dear friend Sybil Davis, as well as a digital copy of Kim’s fact based mystery novel The Kept Girl, starring the 1920s oil executive Chandler and real life Philip Marlowe on the trail of a cult of murderous angel worshippers. Retail price for all these noir goodies is $58.99, but you pay just $48, and this birthday sale is good through July 30. We can send these digital items to a friend, or you can enjoy them yourself.
This Saturday, we’re launching a brand new tour in the footsteps of Early Hollywood’s Silent Comedy Legends, visiting beautiful time capsule filming locations and even a vintage Vaudeville house in the historic Westlake District. With film clips you can view on site and a lively mix of offbeat lore, you won’t want to miss this all new Esotouric outing. Join us, do!
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, Nextdoor and Reddit sharing preservation news as it happens. New: some of these newsletters are on Medium, 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
• Early Hollywood’s Silent Comedy Legends (7/26) • Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice (8/9) • Weird West Adams / Elmer McCurdy Museum (8/16) • Christine Sterling & Leo Politi: Angels of Los Angeles (8/23) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 (8/30) • Raymond Chandler’s Noir Downtown Los Angeles (9/6) • 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) • 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)
CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS
When the magical Museum of Jurassic Technology caught fire, curator David Wilson fought the flames. The initial LAFD report says the mail slot was the source, suggesting arson. Learn more about the fire and how the MJT was saved, and how you can help restore this amazing place here, or go to their website and donate what you can. We really need full investigations of suspicious fires, and if there are arsonists at work, to identify them and get them off the streets. There was a huge fire with an explosion at a Porsche mechanic's shop just a couple blocks away at the start of June, and there's been no reporting on the cause of that one.
Down in Koreatown at 2900 Francis, a 1920s garden court apartment building is partially boarded up, with plans to demolish roomy RSO units for pricier "affordable" housing. Karen Bass' dangerous ED1 scheme displaces Angelenos, hurts small businesses and sends good buildings to the dump. We hate it!
The very old blade sign on the Rampart side is gone now and the clock is ticking for closure and demolition of one of the oldest queer bars in the US, Westlake's own Silver Platter. The City Planning Department rubber stamped a project that gave false information about the building's age.
Empty Los Angeles asks why the International Marine Warehouse at 7th and San Julian is allowed to sit vacant, surrounded by people living in tents, for years. The city says it's derelict, yet nothing ever changes. Don't demo RSO housing: build here!
The spectacular Mission Revival Carolyn (sic, her name was Caroline!) Bumiller-Hickey House (Morgan and Walls, 1905) HCM #794 at 1049 Elden is on the market for $1.8 Million, with the listing touting the developer friendly R4 zoning. Somebody save her!
On Monday on KPCC's AirTalk with Larry Mantle, our Kim Cooper nerded out on Mayan Theater’s intriguing XXX era when it was owned by Carlos Tobalina (the Ed Wood of porn), plus shout outs to Lucha VaVoom and EXOTIKON. The segment can be streamed near the bottom of this page.
Secret garden alert! Look what we found while exploring a pocket of Victorian houses above Glendale Boulevard: the once Creepy Stairs reinvented as the Hi Fi Hillside wildlife and wildflower oasis! They're on Instagram with volunteer opportunities and planting tips.
Sunshine the Queen Palm, the last living thing on old Bunker Hill, is now on Google maps! Won’t you give this scrappy survivor a 5-star review? (Note: the map marks where she grew; she is now due east, in a pot, on the edge of the Colburn's development project). And learn how you can help her find a new home where she can be DTLA's storytelling tree.
Cool gig alert! Artists, Conservators, Archivists and Preservationists invited to participate in restoration of Benjamin Dominguez' menagerie of sea creatures and monsters at Legg Lake in South El Monte. More info at:
Headline: LA Times owner stuns staff with plans to go public. We think this is shameful. After overpaying for the troubled newspaper and running it into the ground, he has no plan and no exit strategy, and too big an ego to sell at the loss he created (possibly as a tax avoidance strategy). It should be in a public trust, free from him! (Preservationists often spot bad civic eggs before anyone else does. We raised the alarm about Patrick Soon-Shiong's ethics and contempt for the newspaper's history in 2018, when he ignored a letter from Mayor Eric Garcetti alerting him to the restrictions under the historic preservation ordinance and removed all artifacts from the Globe Lobby at the 1935 Los Angeles building before the landmarking hearing. The iconic eagle sculpture has not been seen since!)
Los Angeles has some peculiar museums, but the new one dedicated to mummified Old West outlaw Elmer McCurdy is in the running as the strangest curated space in town. Intrigued? Come get a sneak peek on our new Weird West Adams tour on Saturday, 8/16!
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