Gentle reader,
Today, something terrible happened on Sunset Boulevard.
The Stires Staircase Bungalow Court—which in an ethical city not run by crooked bureaucrats and politicians who give every concession to real estate developers, and only occasionally are arrested for taking bribes, would have been declared a protected landmark—was demolished.
Its ten rent stabilized units, which for 102 years straddled a hillside on the edge of the bustling city center, home to generations of Angelenos who appreciated their modest comforts: the convenient access to transit, the community of friends just outside their door, the old trees and shared gardens, the rose bushes, the dragonflies, the cool breezes and downtown views, the steep stairs which kept residents fit into their senior years, all were demolished today.
We watched some of it. The two guys who did the deed—one driving the excavator, the other half-heartedly spritzing his hose—didn’t seem to appreciate having an audience and stalled as long as they could. But time is money, and they were there to rip ten sweet little cottages down to the earth.
It was hot on the sidewalk, and dust was swirling down the hill and through the broken wall that showed the path of the demolition machine, but we stuck it out, sick inside. It’s our job to bear witness to the policy failures of the city we love, and sometimes doing our job really sucks. It did today.
But because we’d gone live on Instagram when we first arrived, we weren’t alone.
A young man who had lived in a top unit before being displaced for the redevelopment scheme years ago arrived on his bicycle, saddened to see a home he’d loved being destroyed, but eager to tell us about how wonderful it had been to be a part of this community. You’ll hear him in this video stream, talking about how young people in different bungalow units had fallen in love and had kids, the sisters who lived opposite each other. He could always borrow an onion, and there was a lot of carne asada cooked up for everyone in the complex.
That easy fellowship won’t happen in the new building planned for this site, a soulless file cabinet with only six “affordable” units where there were ten truly affordable units before. Contemporary apartment houses are designed for maximum privacy, and sometimes the market rate tenants even have amenities that the poor relations aren’t allowed to access.
But maybe nothing will actually be built here at all, and like the pie-in-the-sky three tower Palisades Capital Partners project down the block at 1111 West Sunset (site of a remarkable dirty trick by former mayor Eric Garcetti) or the vacant lot that held the mid-century modern Lytton Savings Bank or the mosquito pond that was the streamline moderne Dr. Jones Dog and Cat Hospital or the uninhabitable, obscenely huge Oceanwide corruption towers, the property will just return to the market as a flip with “entitlements”—development perks that make the land more valuable than it was before the current owners did their City Hall voodoo.
While demolition permits are active, there’s nothing recent suggesting any plan to start construction at the Stires Staircase Bungalow Court demolition site.
But that didn’t stop the two workers from crawling up the hill and working their way through the bungalow units, ripping off roofs and yanking down walls. No salvage of old growth wood, red clay roof tiles, diamond pane windows, crystal knob pulls or the original 1920s periwinkle blue ceramic bathroom sets as would happen if we were a truly progressive a city like San Antonio.
When we arrived before noon, the two lower units were already kindling. We stayed long enough to see the next one on the east side fall, and that was enough.
In Paris, the mayor who has made no changes in Eric Garcetti’s rogue Planning Department was tweeting meaningless piffle about an Inside Safe program rife with graft. In Los Angeles, a truly great residential complex was falling.
Places like Stires Staircase Bungalow Court define us an Angelenos. They were built quickly as income properties by pioneers who came west to enjoy the climate and the culture, and wanted to share the bounty with their tenants.
The architecture is charming, but what really mattered was the people. Angelenos gravitate to bungalow courts because they are a place where one could live like a homeowner, while paying a comparatively modest rent. Communal space begat community. And now, because City Hall plays dirty and gives everything to developers, ten households knit together by time and affinity are violently scattered to the wind. Victor Heights is diminished by their loss, and Los Angeles is shamed by this senseless destruction.
We shouldn’t have been standing on a hot dusty sidewalk all morning. We’ve got two sold out Know Your Downtown LA tours this weekend (space is still available on August 17), and much prepping to be done. But there is only one day in history when this particular bungalow court is reduced to piles of shattered lumber and smashed plaster, this day. And because we don’t want to see another precious RSO bungalow court demolished ever, we stood there and filmed it so you could see and feel and be moved to action.
This is not the Los Angeles we need or want. This is a city adrift. Let’s work together to bring her back to anchor, and stop manufacturing homelessness, blight and corruption, and make more carne asada instead.
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
• Know Your Downtown L.A.: Tunnels To Towers To The Dutch Chocolate Shop (Sat. 7/27 - sorry, sold out) • Know Your Downtown L.A.: Tunnels To Towers To The Dutch Chocolate Shop (Sun. 7/28 - sorry, sold out) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 (Sun. 8/4) • Know Your Downtown L.A.: Tunnels To Towers To The Dutch Chocolate Shop (Sat. 8/17) • Broadway: Downtown Los Angeles’ Beautiful, Magical Mess (Sun. 8/25) • Raymond Chandler’s Noir Downtown Los Angeles (Sat. 8/31)• Alvarado Terrace & South Bonnie Brae Tract (Sat. 9/7) • Highland Park Arroyo (Sat. 9/21) • The Real Black Dahlia (Sat. 9/29) • The Run: Gay Downtown L.A. History (Sun. 10/13) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 (Sun. 10/27) • Westlake Park Time Travel Trip (Sun. 11/3)
Watching the demolition of the Stires Staircase Bungalow Court (1922-2024)