Gentle reader,
It’s not too often that we can send out a message of pure joy, but that’s what we’re doing today. Hurray!
Because the Griffith Park Merry-Go-Round (built 1926, in the park since 1937) is coming back—and not as the late-life hobby project on a zillionaire’s palatial gated estate, but as the City’s very own investment in its own priceless cultural history!
But this an Esotouric newsletter, so if you scroll down to the Closely Watched Trains section, you’ll find a crabbier video we shot on the same blazing-hot day at the park’s derelict and abandoned Pony Rides attraction.
We gripe because we care, and because our most fervent hope is that public and private stewardship of the unique and delightful places that define Los Angeles will become ordinary once again, and Angelenos can enjoy their public spaces, support quirky attractions and small businesses, make their own dreams come true and be a part of the golden thread that binds us to every lucky soul who ever called this crazy town their home.
We believe it was the 2022 closure of that beloved landmark, done in a rush while city staffers were being terrorized by protesters outside their homes, that inspired the civic effort to resolve complicated probate issues, purchase the merry-go-round and restore it so generations of Angelenos and visitors can feel the same timeless magic that so inspired Walt Disney as he watched his daughters whirl about.
We’re reminded of the 2016 Angels Flight Railway crisis, when the wee funicular was shut down by its state regulator after some unfortunate code issues, and then it got tagged. We circulated a petition, thousands begged City Hall to step in, and it did, finding a new operator and making nice with the regulator.
And today, it’s like Angels Flight has always been here. There’s usually a line to board, and if you time it right, you’ll find Bunker Hill historian Nathan Marsak or Saturday Station Agent Will Campbell at the top to take your payment and share some funicular lore.
Ten years later, word is that the City’s doing right by its heritage again. We had to see it to believe it, so we made a date to visit the beautiful carousel, stilled in recent years after the untimely death of operator Julio Gosdinski.
We found it neat as a pin, though not presently spinning pending a full historical assessment and restoration. So we shot video moving through the herd backwards on foot—though nowhere near as fast as these painted ponies travel under their own steam!
The soundtrack comes from the custom-built 165 Military Band Stinson Organ, a thrilling and extremely loud instrument with a massive repertoire of old-time airs punched into rolls of paper.
You’ll notice the ponies are missing their real horse tails: the Griffith Park squirrels have been raiding the shuttered carousel for nest-making materials.
If you share our excitement about the return of this iconic Los Angeles landmark and want to see it for yourself before they start taking individual ponies down to be beautified, follow griffithmerrygoroundproject on Instagram for announcements of regular Saturday mid-day open houses.
You’ll be able to get close to the ponies and learn about the history of the attraction and plans for its revival from the carousel’s best pal Tracy James—including the pending opportunities for generous donors to adopt a pony and fund its restoration.
We’re so glad to share the good news for a change, and hope we won’t have to wait ten years again for the City to do the right thing.
Soon enough, you’ll be able to take a ride on Angels Flight, and a spin around on the Griffith Park Merry-Go-Round in one wonderful day. What derelict Los Angeles treasure would you like to add to this menu? Comment below, or come on a tour and tell us in person!
Tomorrow, we’re leading the Know Your Downtown Los Angeles tour through basement tunnels and the tiled Dutch Chocolate Shop. The tour was sold out, but we’ve just had a few cancellations, and can probably squeeze you in if you email us to ask. This is our most fast-paced tour, with some incredible time-capsule locations not usually open to the public. We’d love it if you could join us, do!
Now scroll down for tour dates through the new year and news you can use.
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
• Know Your Downtown Los Angeles (9/19) • Westlake Park Time Travel Trip (9/26) • Bunker Noir! True Crime on Los Angeles’ Bunker Hill with Nathan Marsak (10/3) • Charles Bukowski’s Westlake (10/10) • Highland Park Arroyo Time Travel Trip (10/17) • Film Noir / Real Noir (10/24) • Hallowe’en at Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 (10/31) • The Real Black Dahlia (11/7) • Richard’s Birthday Weird West Adams Tour & Elmer McCurdy Museum Visit (11/14) • Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue (11/21) • Hollywood Noir (11/28) • Know Your Downtown Los Angeles (12/19) • Miracle Mile Marvels & Madness (Sun. 12/20) • Human Sacrifice: The Black Dahlia, Elisa Lam, Heidi Planck & Skid Row Slasher Cases (12/26) • The Real Black Dahlia (1/16) • Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue (1/23) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 (1/30)
CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS
Who Killed the Griffith Park Pony Rides? 74 years of sweet family fun and Angeleno memories, wiped out after Nithya Raman swallowed fake abuse allegations whole. If the Feds had been called to investigate threats, they might have been saved—but City Hall hates and fears the FBI.
If you’ve ever stopped outside of Chris & Pitt’s Bar-B-Q in Bellflower and taken in the giddy blinking lights, the cartoony log cabin facade, the smoked-meat smell, laughter from happy patrons pouring out into the parking lot, you touched the soul of Southern California. It’s closing after 70+ years. The Downey branch remains open, but not as adorable outside.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s deteriorating Sturges House is a perfect test case for receivership of a designated landmark suffering demolition by neglect by an irresponsible property owner. Apply California Health and Safety Code §§ 17980.6 and 17980.7—before it’s too late!
Not so fast, grave diggers: Burrito King is coming back! Yanina leased the space planning to do her own thing, but soon learned this Echo Park landmark wanted to stay. We helped with her message: the lotus blossoms honor Sister Aimee and how past and present dance into the future. Get on the mailing list for the opening date here.
In 2023, Empty Los Angeles wrote about the house at 570 North Normandie left open to burn. A Redditor recently told her about men with dogs running homeless squatters out before fires were set. So how’s that arson investigation going? This broken city.
The odds of spotting a familiar face from the L.A. music scene are high in the psychedelic UCLA short “Kinky” (1966) shot after the clubs close at Canter’s Deli. But look at the lady at 1:15—could it be the great Judee Sill in her armed-robbery era?!
Preservation alert: as American Academy of Dramatic Arts shuts down its Los Angeles campus in A&M’s groovy late moderne spacecraft offices amid accusations of mismanagement, demo rumors swirl. Can the two Charlie Chaplin Studios cottages be saved? How could this happen to a 140-year-old institution? Unchecked accumulation of real estate debt, natch.
A Studio City dingbat icon, the Pink Flamingo on Aqua Vista, didn’t have this delightful name when built in 1957. We suspect it’s a sweet nod to the John Waters Dreamland crew, possibly installed during Northridge retrofitting. Those fins!
Beware the rapacious self-storage warehouse expansion! 6839-6845 Woodley Ave got a zone change and poof, there went 14 households (1925-1956). Maybe they’ll each get a unit and go see America. Bye, friends!
We do not need a “temporary” fence around MacArthur Park, squandering millions of dollars, cutting into the spreading roots of priceless heritage trees and making a protected landmark landscape look so unwelcoming. Don’t let Karen Bass spoil your park!
Chinatown’s last mall Dynasty Center is owned by Red Car and eviction threatened. Activists CCED seem to have tapped APIAHP to seek LA landmarking protection. It’s very unusual for a nomination to come from out-of-state preparers.
Hollywood Unwrapped, Michael Sullivan and the LA Conservancy have nominated the Canyon Country Store as a city landmark. That won’t bring 40+ year operator Tommy Bina back, but would enshrine his big-hearted role in Laurel Canyon cultural history.
We’re digging the intricate new porch addition with open arcades and fluted domes proposed for ISKCON LA’s Hare Krishna New Dvaraka temple, two blocks from the Museum of Jurassic Technology.
End of the line for Bohnhoff Lumber Co. (1910-2026), a fifth-generation Vernon business beloved by fine woodworkers. You’ve still got a little time to stop in and stock up.
Who told LA it was safe to paint the Bates Motel palm trees white for “Projection,” Vincent Lamouroux’s 2015 art installation? Dr. Don Hodel, of course! Eleven years later, the parcel is a vacant lot, historic cottages and tourist rooms demolished for nothing. But the palms abide.
After ten years, the Sethi family is ready to hand ownership of Saddle Peak Lodge on to its next steward. If your dream is to operate an elevated 19th-century roadhouse serving wild game, wake up and give ‘em a call!
Sunset Boulevard fans: you can live like Joe Gillis in a rarely available top-floor studio at the Chateau Alto Nido, the best place to land in Hollywood.
The long-vacant Christian Anderson-Balthazar Madrid Residence, HCM #145, is for sale for the first time in nearly a century. It’s a fixer, but in the right hands, the home built by a master carpenter for his family could be one of LA’s finest Victorians. The home and its colorful history feature on our Highland Park Arroyo walking tour, next date October 17.
Curren Price is still on City Council, Nithya Raman co-signing his LAHSA real estate motions, as his tenant Michael Young is arrested for using homeless funds to open an R&B bar.
But something’s missing in the $12M LAHSA fraud case brought this week against homeless service provider Michael Young of Home at Last: his criminal complaint is still not on any public docket. The documents for other alleged homeless service fraudsters in the same DOJ announcement, Lakiya Malone and Alexander Soofer, were public within hours. Young’s charging document is just absent. And that’s not normal.
This is what a sealed case looks like. And a sealed case for a man whose entire business model turned on Los Angeles City Council setting him up to rake in LAHSA millions should be front-page news.
We’ve heard a little courthouse chatter, unconfirmed: Young made bail and is due back for arraignment October 22. That could mean he’s talking about who helped him get so rich, so fast. They call that “queen for a day” or a proffer deal.
Young’s Home At Last is in Curren Price’s public corruption charges: it was a wee Inglewood nonprofit, a sub-tenant of Price’s Urban Healthcare Project. City Council set Young up to run L.A. shelters.
One lease traces to council file 19-0106, advanced by confessed racketeer Jose Huizar, for a bridge housing facility at 1426 Paloma St. Its inflated terms and years of failing to shelter anyone were investigated by Jerry Sullivan, and ignored by L.A. media and law enforcement.
First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli tells CalMatters: “Nobody was minding the shop. There’s no vetting. There’s no auditing. There’s no accounting.” He called this “the beginning of these prosecutions.”
So the question for everyone who had the power to move LAHSA money around should be: where is Michael Young right now and who is he talking about? Queen for a Day is a powerful role, with a strict expiration date. Play it right, you don’t serve any hard time and you bring down a giant racket. Jose Huizar hinted he’d do it, but clammed up and is doing 13 years. Will Michael Young help save LA? Stay tuned!
If Young is talking, City Hall watchers might want to notice who’s working from home a lot in the next few weeks. Buckle up, Los Angeles. There’s at least one October surprise on the menu, and it can’t be any grosser than what we’re eating now.
