Announcing two new walking tours: Franklin Village Old Hollywood & Westlake Park Time Travel Trip
Gentle reader,
Whew, it’s hot out there, and we’re grateful to be laying low with the cats instead of leading a walking tour in such extreme conditions.
Saturday’s previously scheduled true crime and real estate tour Human Sacrifice: The Black Dahlia, Elisa Lam, Heidi Planck & Skid Row Slasher Cases will return to our calendar at a future date, which just gives us extra time to root out unknown strands of these rich, dark narratives… like new research showing how although he never knew it, one of the vulnerable, alcoholic victims of the 1970s Skid Row Slasher spree was poised to become fabulously wealthy had he only lived.
Looking ahead to the cooling season, we’ve announced a pair of new neighborhood history walks that share one peculiar geographic feature: these early Los Angeles communities were each transformed to accommodate the needs of the automobile, with a mass transit arrow running through their hearts.
On Saturday, September 17 it’s Westlake Park Time Travel Trip.
When Los Angeles was young, Westlake was a favorite pleasure park, with boating, a mini-zoo and exotic trees for lovers to spoon under, surrounded by grand mansions and elegant hotels. Then in 1934, busy Wilshire Boulevard punched through the lake. Westlake would never be the same.
Join us on an immersive trip back in time exploring the layers of history hiding in plain sight in and around Westlake (MacArthur) Park.
Starting from the tropical garden courtyard of the elegant William Penn Hotel—now called The Sinclair LA—we’ll set out to discover the rich and compelling cultural, architectural and true crime history of this fascinating L.A. neighborhood.
On this walk, you’ll learn about the legendary booksellers and influential art academies that thrived here, see where cult leader Jim Jones lost his cool, visit a little known monument to detective novelist Raymond Chandler, learn where a bomb was set for the publisher of the Los Angeles Times, thrill to the offbeat goings on at the Elks’ Lodge, plus enjoy early pleasure park lore, silent film locations, mysteriously mummified infants, and a stop to admire the only art nouveau castle home in Los Angeles, a rare domestic commission by master architect John Parkinson.
Then on Saturday, October 1, we’re kicking off the ghostly season with Franklin Village Old Hollywood Time Travel Trip.
There is one Los Angeles neighborhood that seems to vibrate on a special frequency, where the layers of offbeat spiritual, cultural, music industry, motion picture, architectural and true crime history knit together to tell an only-in-Hollywood story: Franklin Village.
Join us for an immersive walk back through time to get to know the colorful characters, faith, folly, fantasies and heartbreak that left their eternal mark on this beautiful and historic corner of the city.
Starting from the hillside Hindu ashram Vedanta, where the English writers Christopher Isherwood and Aldous Huxley expanded their minds as the Hollywood freeway cut the neighborhood in two, we’ll descend down into the flats then up again on a tour that spans the highest consciousness and the depths of depravity, lovely architecture and landscapes, real life and fictional noir narratives that will have even locals exclaiming “I never knew that!”
Stops include the Parva Sed Apartments from Nathanael West’s dark Hollywood fantasy The Day of the Locust, the Chateau Alta Nido from Sunset Boulevard, Old Hollywood’s favorite pied-à-terre Château Élysée that’s now the Scientology Celebrity Centre, plus the site of the high profile police raid that inspired Jack Webb to create Dragnet, a nightmarish tale of a Capitol Record co-worker run amok, City Hall gadflies, torched landmarks, lost restaurants, a serial killer who hunted in his own backyard, and a visit to Monastery of the Angels, the nearly century old community of Dominican nuns that is beginning a new chapter with its recent suppression by the Vatican.
On our return to Vedanta as the tour concludes, you will have an opportunity to shop in the temple bookstore, and (volunteer staff permitting) have a chance to purchase pumpkin bread when we stop at Monastery of the Angels.
We hope you can join us on one or both of these strolls through offbeat Los Angeles history, to admire architectural gems and discover the strange juxtapositions that make this magical city our obsession.
Available on tours, or by mail if you prefer, are a selection of themed souvenirs, including these newly restocked favorites: the Raymond Chandler Map of Los Angeles and the Literary Map of Los Angeles (Aaron Blake, 1987).
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, in-person walking tours, gift certificates and a souvenir shop you can browse in. Or just share this link with other people who care.
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