Looking Back on a Mighty Weird Year
Gentle reader,
Greetings from your friendly historic Los Angeles sightseeing tour company, now offering digital programming until we can again organize groups to gather and explore the city we love.
As the last hours of 2021 tick down to the witching hour, we’re celebrating by getting the cats screwy on their favorite green leafy intoxicant, and baking a couple of loaves of bread. A low-key night, but we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Also, we’re taking adavntage of the slow pace to look back over the preservation, advocacy and storytelling of the past year. Despite all the challenges and restrictions, we’re proud of what we’ve managed to learn and to share on the subject of Los Angeles, and of the collaborations we’ve built with folks who are trying to make our city better. Los Angeles has been in better shape, but there’s still so much hope and beauty here, and so much good work to do.
Although it’s been another year with no in-person tours or talks, we researched and hosted no less than 28 live webinars—now available as recordings on-demand—that attracted an audience of Los Angeles lovers here at home and around the globe.
In 2021, we presented webinars about the history of Pershing Square, George Mann’s 3-D L.A. photographs, author John Bengtson’s silent cinema then-and-now location sleuthing, San Gabriel Valley’s legendary Crawford’s market chain, Southern California’s progressive cemetery architecture, L.A. preservationists from the 1900s-1980s, the Hotel Cecil and Skid Row crime lore, the dark side of the West Side…
…offbeat tales of quaint storybook buildings, James M. Cain & Raymond Chandler & the Birth of Noir, how the treasures of South Los Angeles were saved, the Hollywood Regency architecture of Paul R. Williams, a 1970s movement to save Art Deco white elephants, author John Fante’s lost Bunker Hill, a true crime tour down Sunset Boulevard and a odd jaunt along Wilshire Boulevard, a treasure hunt through Downtown, the Llano del Rio utopian colony, stories from 4th & Main Streets, a celebration of the artists who portrayed Downtown, a virtual visit to Victorian L.A., the sweet and sinister history of Elysian Park…
…miniaturists who shrink cool landmarks down to tabletop size, L.A. streetlight history and the restoration of Vermonica, neon sign lore, all about our freeways with author Paul Haddad, preserving Boyle Heights history… and we wrapped the year up with a deep dive into the Los Angeles County Poor Farm!
We’ve also been busy blogging and engaging in preservation advocacy, seeking to give the public a voice despite the enormous sway developers hold at City Hall, and the ongoing public corruption investigations. You’d be amazed the shocking stuff we learn when reading agendas for obscure public meetings and tuning in to see how the sausage gets made at Commissions and City Council committees.
When City Hall decided to screw the Los Angeles Conservancy and shut off all public comment on the Chili Bowl landmark hearing (they sued!), we helped fans of the offbeat 1930s diner petition Mike Bonin to help history and not just rich developers.
After a band of brazen thieves stole priceless bronze streetlamps from the Glendale Hyperion Bridge, we got the skinny from witnesses while managing not to get electrocuted.
When the Hollywood treasure Pig 'n Whistle was illegally gutted by Mr. Tempo's evil elves, we spent hours explaining to reporters why preservation law protects contributing structures as well as designated landmarks, and published the city's inspection photos.
We documented how McMansion developers Thomas James Homes are targeting Los Feliz' prettiest blocks, demolishing Japanese-American landmarks and diverting natural water sources in their relentless quest to "disrupt" the U.S. housing market.
We've been helping friends of the elderly Dominican nuns at Monastery of the Angels to advocate for their historic home, designed by Wallace Neff, and preservation of this old Hollywood cultural community. Canon law is fascinating and weird.
Weddington Golf & Tennis should have been purchased by Rec and Parks decades ago, but instead councilman Paul Krekorian colluded with elite private school Harvard Westlake on a redevelopment scheme. It’s a perfect example of our sick City Hall at "work."
The 1896 Barclay has 158 low-income Downtown L.A. rooms, yet it was held empty pending boutique hotel conversion—until AIDS Healthcare Foundation bought it to again be a home for those in need. It has many fascinating secrets to tell, some involving shoes and souls.
When magician Ricky Jay's books and ephemera went to auction instead of being accessioned to a research library, we got a case of the rotten dice blues.
Another empty Skid Row hotel purchased by AIDS Healthcare Foundation to again be low-income housing is John Parkinson's 1906 King Edward. They also invested in restoration of the unique stained glass awning sign.
It's really too bad about Felix the Cat, one of the greatest neon signs in Los Angeles, sneakily switched to LED by the politically connected property owner—no doubt so he could later demo with impunity.
Old Los Angeles true crime photos often circulate online as "art" or noirish wallpaper, but we can't look at these images without seeing human beings whose names and stories deserve to be known. We did our best for poor Mr. Kirkpatrick here.
A lot of Los Angeles legacy businesses have been lost during this damn pandemic, but none hit us as hard as Greenblatt's Deli. Here are twelve reasons why...
Maybe it's the pain of losing Greenblatt's that makes us fight so hard for Taix, sold in an off-market deal to an out-of-state Trump donor, then faux "landmarked" by developer's pal Mitch O'Farrell in a ruinous precedent for L.A.'s preservation laws.
The last thing we did before the world shut down in 2020 was appear as true crime historians in Netflix' Elisa Lam / Hotel Cecil doc, Crime Scene. We agreed in order to advocate for empty Skid Row hotels becoming low-income housing again. And they are!
Jose Huizar's scam Pershing Square "design competition" is the grift that keeps on giving—even though he's been indicted and there's no money to build the unbuildable "winning" version. Somebody's got to say it: Restore!
In addition to this free newsletter, we have a subscriber edition that includes rare research and road trips. Our weirdest 2021 subscription post was about getting groped by a ghost, and the next weirdest was about body fluids in the archives.
And we’ve been active on social media, tracking preservation and local cultural news and sharing passenger window views from our #esotouricroadtrips around the Southland. Follow us for a fresh perspective on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.
Finally, our pal Big John left us this year, and the week doesn't go by that we wish we could call and pick that great big beautiful brain of his. Big John Maljevic, 1927-2021.
We’re wishing each one of you a safe and peaceful turning of the year, and a 2022 packed with good health, good spirits, good company and happy surprises. And if we’re lucky, before too much longer we’ll be able to share some of those sweet things with you, at in-person events to explore and celebrate this wonderful city!
yours for Los Angeles,
Kim & Richard
Esotouric
We lovers of Los Angeles owe a great debt to you two for your preservation activities, your awareness of trouble brewing, and attacking it, your online continuation of what you do so well in person, and the wonderful newsletters filled with gems that you have discovered. Thank you for helping us get through two tough years. Let's hope the next year isn't twenty twenty too!