Gentle reader,
When we’re inspired to take on an historic preservation or cultural stewardship campaign, we never know where it’s going to take us, or for how long a ride.
All we do know is that our hearts are stirred to action, we understand how to make a difference, and we must!
Each campaign builds upon the last, with new tools and tactics, and new preservation pals to brainstorm with.
If we hadn’t written a tour about middle aged postal worker Charles Bukowski finding the voice within that was great in 2007, we would never have seen the Craigslist ad listing his East Hollywood bungalow as a teardown.
But we did see that ad and spread the word. Bukowski Court became a landmark and is rent stabilized, multi-family housing once more—with occasional bumps in the road, like when an illegal Airbnb took a unit offline.
Then, because we were getting a reputation as nimble civic advocates and book lovers, some Los Angeles librarians asked us to help fight the destructive austerity budget Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa sought to impose, and a proposed $1 book fee for interlibrary loans. (Library branches are designed not to have a lot of books, so this would have had a major impact on Angelenos.)
The SaveLAPL campaign was a success, and people far more politically crafty than we were capitalized on the buzz to pass Measure L, protecting L.A.’s library budget forever.
So when Monastery of the Angels in Hollywood was in peril, with an aging population and too few nuns in residence to maintain the perpetual adoration in the Wallace Neff designed chapel, the future of the peaceful, four-acre site seemed uncertain.
We decided a friends group was needed to illuminate the mysteries of religious ownership and to advocate for a preservation solution.
Once we started talking about saving the Monastery, we found wonderful friends who brought their own expertise to the table, including attorney Brody Hale with his experience finding new stewards for spiritual sites back east and Rev. Dylan Littlefield, a canon law advocate with deep personal ties to the Monastery.
You can learn about our campaign through press clips, blog posts and videos spanning 2021-2026, and culminating in the recent announcement that Homeboy Industries is creating a recovery care program on the historic campus, which it has renamed Home of the Angels.
Homeboy Industries sent out a press release to the media, and has just put a website online, but has yet to meet with community members to answer questions about their plans.
So Rev. Dylan obtained a copy of the deed, which conveys ownership from the Dominicans to a new public-private partnership, and we met at Monastery of the Angels to read over the details together. There are some very welcome clauses and restrictions in the deed!
The video at the top of this post is us unpacking years of advocacy, including with high ranking officials in Rome and City Hall, explains what is protected by covenant and hints at how this historic place of prayer, architectural distinction and natural, open space is to be preserved and fostered for generations to come.
Sometimes, people ask why we fight so hard for places that don’t belong to us. The answer seems very clear: by being the voice of Monastery of the Angels, and amplifying the hopes and fears of so many concerned citizens who let us know how much it meant to them, we were able to reach those who would decide its future. We’re so pleased they listened and did the right thing.
Monastery of the Angels no longer exists, and Home of the Angels is a year or more from opening its doors, but the landmark isn’t going anywhere, and up in the old trees, wise owls wait, watch and wonder why it took so long for the humans to work it out.
But, there’s still more work to be done! The bogus monument sign on the corner needs to come down and be replaced by a real City of Los Angeles sign, with accurate information about the historic site that the whole community can celebrate, on a pole that does not obstruct a street sign. And that will happen very soon, we hope. Stay tuned!
Saturday’s tour is Raymond Chandler’s Noir Downtown Los Angeles, a ramble around the Art Deco towers and Beaux Arts hotel lobbies that feature in the master detective novelist’s life as an oil company executive and in his fiction, to sleuth out the real life crimes and characters who inspired his work. 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
• Raymond Chandler’s Noir Downtown L.A. (2/21) • Weird West Adams & Elmer McCurdy Museum Visit (2/28) • Film Noir / Real Noir (3/7) • Franklin Village Old Hollywood (3/14) • Bunker Hill, Dead and Alive (3/21) • Know Your Downtown L.A.: Bradbury Building, Basements of Yore & the Dutch Chocolate Shop (3/28) • Christine Sterling & Leo Politi: Angels of Los Angeles (4/4) • John Fante’s Downtown L.A. (4/11) • Early Hollywood’s Silent Comedy Legends (4/18) • Downtown Los Angeles is for Book Lovers (4/25) • Highland Park Arroyo (5/2) • Charles Bukowski’s Westlake (5/7) • The Run: Gay Downtown History (5/23) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 (5/30) • The Real Black Dahlia (6/6) • Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue (6/13) • Miracle Mile Marvels & Madness (Sunday, 6/21) • Westlake Park (6/27)
