Thank You For Not Sucking (when so many things do)
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.
This weirdest American Thanksgiving season, we are so thankful for YOU—that you lend us your ear as we amplify historic preservation crises and advocate for the landmarks, archives and writers that we love.
One of the saddest feelings is to feel alone, but because of Esotouric’s passionate and opinionated community of Los Angeles history lovers, even in this long COVID lock down, we never feel that way.
Thank you for your thoughtful emails, your social media comments, for snapping photos of threatened landmarks and cool discoveries, for sharing us with friends and family. Thanks for giving a damn and not sucking. It makes more difference than you know, and people notice.
If you’d like to be a little more hands on in sharing us with your circle, we now offer gift certificates redeemable towards any On-Demand or upcoming webinar. When you buy, we’ll email you with a printable certificate, or mail one out tucked in a book or map from our souvenir shop.
We hope this holiday message finds you warm, well and well-fed, and in the mood to take a socially distanced adventure with us.
Tomorrow’s The United States of Preservation: Esotouric’s Ohio River Valley Virtual Vacation Road Trip webinar is the digital analog to Richard’s annual birthday bus excursion, when we share the secrets of Southern California, and birthday cake, with 50 brave explorers.
Since we don’t have to allow for travel time, our journey begins 2500 miles east, along the route of part of our 2018 vacation through the Ohio River Valley. When we travel, as on our Los Angeles tours, the goal is to immerse ourselves in the places and stories that most locals don’t know about. The quickest way to do that is by befriending a native guide, someone who is as passionate about their hometown as we are about ours. Tomorrow, those native guides will become your friends, too.
So join us, from Johnstown to Steubenville, New Vrindaban to Saint Clairsville, as the weird old America reveals itself. First stop: Dean Martin’s favorite spaghetti joint!
Next Saturday, December 5, it’s A Cultural History of Grand Central Market, 1917-2020. How sobering to think that soon after the market opened, the spring flu broke out among soldiers in Fort Riley, Kansas, then spread to become a global pandemic. But the public market survived that public health crisis, and so will we this one, to learn from the past and the fascinating tales of vendors, patrons and visionary owners who keep this Downtown treasure humming as the multicultural heart and soul of Los Angeles. To learn more or sign up, click here.
Get a little clue about what to expect from the Bunker Hill, Ohio River Valley and Grand Central Market webinars from our Facebook Live preview.
Then on December 12, we’re looking across Hill Street from Grand Central Market for A Cultural History of Angels Flight Railway, 1901-2020. The wee funicular is among the last and loveliest survivors of old Bunker Hill, and it has seen some things. We’ll share wild tales of Edwardian innovation, misguided redevelopment, film noir cameos, deadly amateur engineering and fevered preservation advocacy, all in a celebration of the recently restored treasure.
Stay tuned as we roll out a new webinar program each Saturday. And remember if you can’t watch live or need to leave mid-stream, you can watch the recording for one full week. There’s still time to see A Visit to Lost Bunker Hill with author Nathan Marsak through Saturday night. Charles Bukowski, Raymond Chandler, Black Dahlia, Dutch Chocolate Shop, Bradbury Building, Tunnels, L.A. Times Bombing and 13 Uncanny Crimes & Mysteries are now available On-Demand. And we’d love to see you tomorrow at noon for The United States of Preservation: Esotouric’s Ohio River Valley Virtual Vacation Road Trip.
yours for Los Angeles,
Kim & Richard
Esotouric
Subscribe! In the latest subscriber's edition of this newsletter—$10/month, cheap!—Exploring the Hidden Spaces in Skid Row's Baltimore Hotel—massive Pennsylvania iron infrastructure, a claw foot bathtub graveyard, and a penthouse pad that needs a lot of love. Not a subscriber? Sneak a peek here.
WANT TO SUPPORT OUR WORK?
If you enjoy all we do to celebrate and preserve Los Angeles history, please consider signing up for the subscriber’s edition of this newsletter, or putting a little something into our digital tip jar. Gift certificates are available for any webinar in our library or upcoming calendar, starting at $10. Printed matter? We’ve got a swell selection of books and maps, some written by us, others sourced from dusty warehouses. For a wider selection, Bookshop uses the power of distributor Ingram to help independent bookstores stick around. We've curated a selection of uniquely Los Angeles titles, and when you order from these links, it supports participating local shops, and us, too. You can also click here before shopping on Amazon... & if you love what we do, please tell your friends.
AND WHAT'S THE NEXT TOUR? WHO KNOWS?!
We're dark until public health officials determine that groups can gather safely. But in addition to weekly webinar programs, we've got 138 episodes of the podcast You Can't Eat The Sunshine free to download for armchair explorers, and videos of the Downtown L.A. LAVA walking tours, plus Cranky Preservationist videos.
AND FINALLY, LINKS
Road Trip! Although public bus tours are on hiatus, we still get around on our social distancing road trips around our beloved Los Angeles. Be a virtual backseat companion when you click the #esotouricroadtrip hashtag, on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook.
New on the Esotouric blog: Firestone Tire and Rubber Company Tile Murals — Destroyed? Troubling rumors surround the Los Angeles Community College District's plans to demolish the last historic factory building for a parking lot. Angelenos demand answers! Please call/email, and pass it on.
Crime writer Duane Swierczynski has joined us in the transition from bus tours to webinars, and gave us a nice shout out in the Cool Tools podcast. We’re blushing to have taught him something about Raymond Chandler!
A sweet relic indeed: In the 1930s and '40s, Miss Betty Buggs saved all her candy wrappers in a scrapbook, and they're a fascinating window back to a time of independent manufacturers, weird slogans and creative packaging design. Chicken Dinner?!
Bakersfield is no friend to historic preservation, and now the 1909 orphanage might be threatened. Can the city join the 21st Century with Mills Act tax benefits and a functioning landmarks board, before it's too late?
Like so many independent businesses, our friends at 1933 Group are struggling with pandemic bar and restaurant closures. Support these L.A. history keepers with a visit to the new souvenir shop, featuring adorable Tail O' the Pup and Formosa merch.
Help bring lost Bunker Hill back into focus with a virtual transcription party, making 1930s handwritten census data more useful for 21st century researchers.
In this difficult shopping season, Kip’s Toyland turns 75, a treasured legacy business at the Original Farmer's Market. Let's help keep them around.
Congratulations to Los Angeles' newest protected Historic-Cultural Monument, John Parkinson's 1906 King Edward Hotel. Stay tuned for reinstallation of the stained glass awning which Judson Studios is restoring, and explore it in 3D while you wait.
Astonishing new Los Angeles architectural photo collection, saved by CLUI from the dumpster behind their building. Coast to Coast: Venice Boulevard Through the Lens of the Coast Realty Archive is thrilling to see, but makes us fret over what else is getting tossed.
The puppeteers of Bob Baker's Marionette Theater have a new home in Eagle Rock, but they returned to their former home—a city landmark that a developer has allowed to become blighted—to clean up the mess with some paint and elbow grease. Our dream is that somebody wonderful buys and reactivates the historic theater, and it doesn't get demolished.
LACMA’s demolition is off schedule and the museum needs renewed permission to bridge Wilshire. We’ll be emailing City Council to ask that lame duck CD4 Councilmember David Ryu let this important matter be decided by incoming CM Nithya Raman, and hope you will, too. Sign the LACMA Lovers League petition for more direction before the 12/1 hearing.