A Scary Clown and His Biggest Fan Step Onto A Cloud... and a disgraced politician offers a masterclass in arrogance
Gentle reader,
What a time to be an Angeleno! With the mysterious leak of the racist redistricting meeting audio, the corrupt, entrenched political machine with its land use policies that have made it so hard for working people, artists, seniors and the unhoused to survive took a torpedo to the guts. Now the ugly truth about Los Angeles continues to ooze out of the wound. It hurts, but it’s a pure pain that hints at the healing to come.
Our own CD14 councilman, Kevin de Leon, is in hiding—allegedly bunking at a home owned by reality TV house flipper Rudy Martinez. This is curious, as Martinez is a former chum of our previous, indicted councilman Jose Huizar, and the first person to go public with having talked with the FBI about Huizar’s corruption, which earned him a death threat from a surrogate.
On Monday, we visited de Leon’s house in Eagle Rock, and the nearby 24/7 Black Lives Matter L.A. protest demanding his resignation, and noted one public policy improvement that you can see in the short video above.
A week and a half after the offending, offensive, illuminating leaked recording transformed Los Angeles politics forever, it looks as if two of the miscreants on that tape are going to try to lay low and continue cashing their enormous public paychecks, while skipping out on attending public meetings.
CD1 councilman Gil Cedillo lost his re-election campaign to community advocate Eunisses Hernandez, and his constituents and aggrieved preservationists will soon see the back of him. But Kevin de Leon has two years left in a term representing neighborhoods that already suffered fifteen years of neglect and disenfranchisement under Jose Huizar, culminating in FBI raids and a pending RICO trial.
With so much anger and the near universal demands for his resignation, there doesn’t seem any way this strategy can fly. And so long as Kevin de Leon refuses to go away, as he stated in an interview given this afternoon, the wounds caused by his words and policies cannot not heal.
Nobody who truly loved Los Angeles would put its people through this.
This Saturday, by some marvelous quirk of fate, the route of our previously scheduled walking tour of Alvarado Terrace & South Bonnie Brae Tract will take us right by the scene of the crime: the modest mid-century union HQ where three of the most powerful people in Los Angeles politics let down their hair for the benefit of a hidden microphone. We’re pretty pleased to be the first organized tour group to visit a site that will feature in the history books, to share a noirish narrative that’s still unfolding by the hour. Join us to see “The Fed” for yourself, and to explore some of the loveliest National Register neighborhoods in Los Angeles, packed with curious characters and intriguing lore.
Then on our Saturday, October 29 Halloween tour we’ll explore Evergreen Cemetery in Boyle Heights, followed by a ramble through Angelino Heights and Carroll Avenue on Saturday, November 12. Yes, all these tours are in Cedillo’s and De Leon’s districts, but as Richard always says, “there are no coincidences.”
Now on to somebody whose love for Los Angeles has never been questioned. We’re heartbroken to share the news that Nicholas Matonak, one of the most devoted members of the Los Angeles history and live performance community, died in July from a heart attack at home.
Nick discovered our tours soon after we started Esotouric, and immediately became a regular, always near the front of the group paying close attention. He was the first person who showed us how much he dug what we were doing by booking tickets for tours he’d already taken. He said he always learned something new even on a familiar excursion, and this inspired us to mix it up, do more research, change up the route and keep our favorite passenger Nick entertained. Every performer should have a fan like Nick, and we were privileged to call him a friend, too.
It was on an early Pasadena Confidential true crime tour that Nick met our friend Michael Perrick, portraying the character Crimebo the Clown. Nick adored Michael and Crimebo, and became as devoted a regular attendee / helper on Crimebo’s walking tours as he was on our bus tours.
Michael has been fighting cancer, and he ascended to the big circus tent in the sky on July 24. We didn’t know at the time that Nick had predeceased Michael by less than two weeks. It’s a small solace to know that Nick didn’t have to mourn the loss of a performer who he always called his hero and his friend.
And we like to think that after being Crimebo’s and our guest on so many tours over the years, that Nick was standing ready to lead Michael Perrick on a tour of the afterlife, and show him all the cool stuff he’d already discovered. Farewell to two wonderful characters, arm in arm in our memories forever, with all our love.
yours for Los Angeles,
Kim & Richard
Esotouric
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CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS
The Cultural Heritage Commission unanimously voted to take the Jay Risk Standard Oil Co. Service Station on Eagle Rock’s Route 66 under consideration as a protected landmark. You can see our live tweets from the hearing here.
In Old Trapper’s Lodge advocacy news, we’re dismayed by this one-sided story about the removal of CA State Landmark Old Trapper's Lodge by Pierce College. We spoke to the student reporter, who allowed others to make allegations about our advocacy, but gave us no opportunity to respond. To get a more honest account of the crisis, you can tune in to our free webinar, which included Damian Sullivan’s short film following the artist’s family on their first visit to the site since amateurs associated with Valley Relics Museum dug up the graves.
Via an angry neighbor, dig the disgusting conditions of Richard Neutra's Jardinette Apartments at 5128 W. Marathon. Its 43 rent controlled units are rotting while owner Cameron Hassid, having failed to rebrand as a hipster haven, seeks to flip them to homeless housing provider PATH.
Take a spin down Broadway, before the speculators wrecked the boulevard. There are many sweet, familiar faces and vistas we still dream about in David Blumenkrantz' photographs.
We stopped short at this pretty cottage draped in morning glories—only to spy that much uglier shade of blue hidden behind the blooms. A demo permit has been pulled for this HiFi gem. Will somebody save her?
Is Gower Gulch on the demolition list? Customers of the Old West Rite Aid drugstore are hearing whispers that redevelopment is planned for that side of the thematic shopping center. There's so much charm and respect for old Hollywood in this 1970s complex—it needs to stay cool!
Save Hollywood's Theater Row! The Complex owner wants to sell this historic hive of independent live performance. Tenants including Oh My Ribs! are fighting for the chance to buy it—not to demolish, but to keep the creativity flowing.
What happened when Boyle Heights Neighborhood Council asked Kevin De Leon for a sign honoring Jewish labor organizer and coalition builder Julius Levitt? Nothing.
On 10/7, Kevin De Leon moved to take money allocated by Jose Huizar for Pecan Park to demolish this charming CalTrans surplus home in El Sereno. In 2020 housing activists Ktown for All called out the empty, useful property among many. Now the motion has been sent on to the mayor’s desk. Instead of being destroyed, 4303 Maycrest Avenue should be a home once again.
Where do developers get this sense of entitlement? They want to "save" Dinah's Googie building (Jacob Tracht, 1957), but not ensure the legacy business returns to the new project. Hell no to that. Save Dinah's! (And read the historic report PDF here.)
There's joy on Wilshire as Onni Group, pushing to demolish much of the historic Los Angeles Times, backs off the Miracle Mile with their Cloverdale project, leaving the sweet programmatic / art deco streetscape and The Darkroom unsullied.
CORRUPTION CORNER: We've only heard three councilmembers corruptly carve Los Angeles up on the leaked tape, but Studio City preservationists trying to save Weddington Golf & Tennis sounded the alarm in 2021. How did new City Council President Paul Krekorian know?… Two weeks before the next trial begins, Jose Huizar's brother has flipped. Next they will go after his mother and wife. Who is he protecting? Why won't he make a deal?… Hollywood renter's rights defender Casey Maddren riffs on Damien Goodmon's great public comment: “This entire city government is in need of an exorcism.” And calls out Mike Bonin, no hero but complicit in mass displacement for development (and the pointless destruction of a roadside treasure)… The Pershing Square Restoration Society has an update on Angels Landing, the sketchy mega project approved following big donations to Jose Huizar's sketchy park nonprofit. The Real Deal reports Angels Landing's developers are blaming anti-Black racism for their failure to gain project support from Kevin de Leon or disgraced City Council president Nury Martinez. Also, we learn that newly elected State Senator Sen. Sydney Kamlager quietly passed a new law (SB 1373) to bail out the shrinking, underfunded, Jose Huizar linked Angels Landing project for two extra years, controversially at the expense of making this and other surplus public land available for affordable housing development.