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.
We recently trekked out to the Bureau of Street Lighting yard in East Hollywood to hang out with some of our favorite historic metal objects, which have just recently become neighbors.
Running along the sidewalk where you can visit any time is Vermonica, Sheila Klein’s urban candelabra of vintage streetlights created to light L.A.’s way after the 1992 uprising. Removed with no notice to the artist or public in 2017, Vermonica (named for her location at Vermont and Santa Monica) was reinstalled half a block east in 2020 and is now a protected part of the civic art collection. This happened in large part because we just kept pestering the city to do the right thing. We love her!
Behind the fence that acts as Vermonica’s skirt are hundreds of vintage poles and fixtures, safely stored so that they can be tapped to replace lost or failing infrastructure across the city. If you dig this kind of thing, we did a webinar all about L.A.’s wonderful variety of streetlights.
And because Bureau of Street Lighting is a nimble city agency with a love of history, it currently houses Air Raid Siren No. 184, a listed cultural resource that toppled over onto private property in South Los Angeles last month. When BSL heard that we were trying to help the community non-profit Project 43 Team Post Centers get the giant thing out of their parking lot, they sent a crew to pick it up.
We were in East Hollywood to meet Lambert Geissenger, preservation architect for the City of Los Angeles, to brief him about the drama of the fallen siren, and our discussions with Council District 8 staff members and cold war historians about options for how the slightly battered relic might be returned to the community that it so long protected.
We also talked about the need for the city to take some responsibility for the decommissioned sirens, beyond just listing them on Survey L.A. Because even though Air Raid Siren No. 184 was packed with birds’ nests and could no longer send out a piercing warning tone, in failing it let us know there’s a threat we all need to take seriously.
And an unexpected treat was a chance to see the surviving bronze poles from the Glendale-Hyperion Bridge, removed to protect them from a ring of metal thieves that methodically stripped the bridge last fall. These lovely standards will stay in the yard until the bridge undergoes a major renovation, to include replicas of the stolen lamps and, we trust, a new type of bolt housing to make them much harder to steal.
Here’s a map showing the location of all our heavy metal friends that live in the streetlight yard. And we hope you’ll get a chance to visit yourself one day. Because as we mention in the video, the pandemic kept Sheila Klein from hosting a proper celebration for Vermonica’s reinstallation, and that’s a preservation party we know you won’t want to miss.
Until then, we hope you enjoy this virtual visit to the Bureau of Street Lighting, where some of the coolest relics of Los Angeles infrastructure are tucked up tight awaiting their return to the streetscape where they belong.
yours for Los Angeles,
Kim & Richard
Esotouric
Psst… If you’d like to support our efforts to be the voice of places worth preserving, we have a tip jar and a subscriber edition of this newsletter, vintage Los Angeles webinars available on demand, and a souvenir shop you can browse in. Or just share this link with other people who care.
CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS
Artist Paul Landacre's landmarked Echo Park cottage, long derelict and listed last month as "uninhabitable" has sold. We wondered if it would get the loving, careful restoration it deserves, or a quick fix? So we asked L.A.’s Office of Historic Resources, and learned the preservation minded buyer has engaged Oller & Pejic to restore.
A cautionary tale of what happens when a couple from Los Angeles moves to rural Vermont, buys the shuttered 19th century general store and tries to apply L.A.-style development tactics to their small town planning commission.
Confirmation that new owner Onni Group intends to demolish the landmarked giant camera Darkroom storefront: “This was a fantastic opportunity for the experienced high-rise developer. The property will continue to provide some income while the buyer works through the entitlement process.”
Why do we fret about the Darkroom? Wannabe L.A. Times demolishers Onni Group have announced their plans for Howard Hughes HQ. They claim to be keeping the historic structures and building on the parking lot. They can't be allowed to remodel!
In 2010, the Natural History Museum briefly opened its top secret Gardena automotive storage facility. Since then, crickets. Until this Jack Oakie Cadillac donation!
Remember the threatened Los Feliz Tudor Nathan Marsak blogged about in January? The neighbors are appealing, because the Observatory DASH route used to justify TOC (“transit oriented commuities”) upzoning barely operates.
Happy (almost) Pride: with the development threatened West 4th Street landmark home stalled in City Council committee... gay rights hero Morris Kight's McCadden Place home has also been nominated!
The Los Angeles City Clerk is to report on how to make the City Archives more accessible and user friendly to historians and the general public. Hey Clerkie, are you gonna ask them?!
Park La Brea residents call foul on deceptive 3rd & Fairfax Environmental Impact Report: the developer and city hid Whole Foods' plans to move into a huge new store on site! Could the preservationists’ fave Italian cafeteria Andre's—a legacy business established in 1963 that’s not even mentioned in the EIR’s historic resources section— still be saved under CEQA?
Instead of telling Angelenos "we screwed up and are so sorry" and restoring the landmarked Hotel Cecil room rate sign, scofflaw NYC leaseholder Matthew Baron repainted his illegal Postmates ad with a big blue heart and the hashtag “DTLA.” Millions in Mills Act tax penalties can be imposed. Restore!
After destroying National Register contributor Pig 'N Whistle without permits, and producing an amateurish historic preservation report full of glaring errors and omissions, Mr. Tempo got permits to open in time for Memorial Day and paid for a bunch of fake Yelp reviews. The real ones stand out: burned steak and overpriced shots. Here’s Mike Callahan’s essential critique of the lousy report.
A proposal that would completely transform the Plaza district: Homebound (formerly Imperial Western Beer Co. / Harvey House) seeks to double its capacity by taking over the Union Station patios, stay open 6am-2am with music nightly.
SFV folks: does anyone know about 15526 West Plummer, just nominated as a landmark? It's on a huge parcel, with the house built in 1914. Owner Joe Kravich got it rezoned in '06, but that's expired by now.
Gosh isn't 4329 Radford cute? American Home Magazine thought so when it featured Mrs. Wilde and her antiques in 1958. Recently sold for $880,000, of course it has a demo permit.
Now you can read the landmark nomination for Cornelius Johnson's Olympic Oak & home and call in on June 2 to support. Scroll down for links, with direction for asking the Cultural Heritage Commissioner to have an arborist check this sick tree, and more info gleaned from the New York Times feature that linked to our blog.
Lovely 2845 West Blvd. contains FOUR large rent controlled apartments, so demolishing it for a new building with THREE low income units is a net loss to West Adams. Not an Ellis Act case, so where are the tenants? (we asked, rhetorically… Still living on site, apparently—one commented on Facebook.)
New historic house listings: Pentagon architect David Witmer's family compound on Crown Hill is a Los Angeles landmark that has suffered decades of neglect. It will need a preservation minded buyer with deep pockets and great vision. Pass it on!… Still kicking yourself for missing out on the chance to buy the John Van Pelt storybook estate in the Franklin Hills? That property's sister desert hideaway can be yours!
Early Hollywood history and infrastructure buffs, our silent cinema sleuth pal John Bengtson needs your help to solve the Charlie Chaplin One A.M. location mystery! Does this ditch ring a bell?
In 2019, mid century modern fans were mortified that new owner Fayez Sarofim was doing a gut renovation of Case Study House #21, claiming foundation issues. Fayez died this week. What now, poor landmark?
Share this post