Gentle reader,
On Christmas Eve, we were invited to attend Rev. Dylan Littlefield’s noontime Christmas mass at the Hotel Cecil, held on the mezzanine where A.A. took root in the west.
Because we’re a little screwy, before the service we took a detour to visit the last Skid Row bar, the recent shuttered King Eddy Saloon in the historic King Edward Hotel, and the remnants of the real speakeasy in the basement beneath.
Joining us was our friend Joseph Tucker, who a few years back shared a lovely poem written by his surgeon father Bernard, about making a bar room house call on one of his barfly patients at Christmastime.
Joseph, not yet a teenager, was with his dad that day, and we thought it would be a nice thing to bring him back into the King Eddy to read that poem for all the spirits, living and otherwise, who still rattle around inside what was the greatest bar we’ve ever known.
Joseph is pretty tall, and so spotted something magical hiding away in the bowels of the basement that we had never noticed, a relic of Christmastimes long ago in the sweet bar we miss so much.
And this is our gift to all of you on this Christmas night, along with a wish that this holiday season is joyous and peaceful.
Bernard Tucker’s poem is still there on the bar, waiting for the next steward to dust off the bottles and unlock the door, to once again offer a place of welcome and solace and laughs and hope for the people of Skid Row, and the friendly folks from elsewhere who come down to drink where John Fante and Charles Bukowski and the b-girls and bad boys and dreamers and losers and holy fools once held court.
Maybe that steward is you? If your dream is to open a bar on Skid Row—a real and unpretentious bar where all are welcome—we’ll put you in touch with the owners, and provide high resolution photos of the stolen oil painted fire door, so you can hire an artist to replicate the masterpiece that was taken away by some dirty lowdown fink.
We’re leading one last tour in 2024, tomorrow, Thursday December 26: a true crime, real estate and public corruption story we call Human Sacrifice: The Black Dahlia, Elisa Lam, Heidi Planck & Skid Row Slasher. Subscribe to either of our newsletter channels and tickets are half off. Join us, do!
Yours for Los Angeles,
Kim & Richard
Esotouric
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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
• Human Sacrifice: The Black Dahlia, Elisa Lam, Heidi Planck & Skid Row Slasher (Thurs. 12/26) • 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)
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