Gentle reader,
Caring about beautiful buildings, about Los Angeles history, about craftsmanship and culture, often affords us the profound experience of standing on a bridge between the past and the present and feeling that both times exist simultaneously.
While guiding a tour group away from the home of the artist, author, historian and preservationist Leo Politi in Angelino Heights last year, some of us even heard and saw fragments of the people who used to be here.
But preservation is pain.
For months, we have been watching the slow demolition preparation at the B’nai B’rith Lodge in Pico-Union, where Catholic Charities claims to be tearing down an exquisite Jewish cultural center turned union hall with no plans for a replacement project.
We’ve advocated with the owners’ legal team, asking that they take special care with the Ernest Batchelder decorative features, and to be aware that there may be more of them underneath additions that the Teamsters made in the 1940s.
Intellectually, we understood how the facade designed by master architect S. Tilden Norton appeared, when the B’nai B’rith Lodge members threw open the doors to celebrate its completion in October 1924.
But we weren’t prepared for what a gut punch it was to arrive at the demo site, peer up through the protective mesh, and see the original running frieze of Stars of David and Hanukkah menorahs catching the afternoon sun.
Nobody has seen them for about eighty years! It’s a really big deal that they exist! And yet they were exposed at some unknown time, with no fanfare—as if there was no significance at all to their existence or to the influential community organization that erected this landmark—and only because its owners are eager to reduce the whole building to rubble.
It’s just sickening and shameful.
There’s something desperately wrong in Los Angeles, if our nonprofits think this kind of pointless destruction—demolition for nothing!—is how they should spend their tax exempt holdings ($18,500,185 in this case), and our City Attorney, City Council and Mayor have no problem with it.
What is wrong with them? Why can’t they see that old buildings are hungry for new uses, and that it is cheaper, greener and more satisfying to restore, repurpose and reimagine than just to demolish, destroy and squander everything familiar?
Just two miles away, B’nai B’rith’s sister building, old Mount Sinai Temple (also designed by S. Tilden Norton and opened a year after this one), is beautifully maintained and continues to serve its community, now a Korean Presbyterian congregation.
A lot of people could live in the B’nai B’rith Lodge and on its enormous surface parking lot. A lot of good could be done in its storefronts and meeting rooms. It’s still not too late for Catholic Charities to stop and do something better with this treasure they control. We hope that they will stop and change direction, before it’s too late.
For now, should you find yourself in the Pico-Union district in the near future, please go to the corner of James M. Wood and Union Avenue. Gaze upon the work of our ancestors, Angelenos who believed that building community should go hand in hand with building something beautiful for the future.
Squint, ignore the scaffolding and the netting, and imagine all the possibilities that shine there. The effect is best when the sun is setting.
Thoughts have wings. Tell us what you see!
Yours for Los Angeles,
Kim & Richard
Esotouric
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 and a subscriber edition of this newsletter, 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. You can share this post to win subscriber perks. And did you know we offer private versions of our walking and bus tours for groups big or small? Or just share this link with other people who care.
UPCOMING BUS & WALKING TOURS
• Film Noir / Real Noir (Sat. 6/29) • The Real Black Dahlia (Sat. 7/6) • Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue (Sat. 7/13) • Miracle Mile Marvels and Madness (Sun. 7/21) • Know Your Downtown L.A.: Tunnels To Towers To The Dutch Chocolate Shop (Sat. 7/27 - sorry, sold out) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 (Sun. 8/4) • West Adams Sugar Hill and Angelus Rosedale Cemetery (Sat. 8/10) • Broadway: Downtown Los Angeles’ Beautiful, Magical Mess (Sun. 8/25) • Raymond Chandler’s Noir Downtown Los Angeles (Sat. 8/31)
B'nai B'rith Demolition Surprise: Century-Old Jewish Symbols on View for the First Time in Decades!