by Kim Cooper | Mar 14, 2023 | The Esotouric Blog
Some weeks, it seems like every time we check our email or DMs, there’s a new preservation crisis brewing, and some desperate, caring, exasperated Angeleno who feels compelled to tell us what’s threatened in their corner of the city, and ask if there’s any hope at...
by Kim Cooper | Mar 9, 2023 | The Esotouric Blog
This investigation is published on the 29th anniversary of Charles Bukowski’s death. In 2007, while writing our tour of Bukowski’s Los Angeles, we spotted a Craigslist ad that listed the writer’s longtime home in the 1920s bungalow court at 5124 De Longpre...
by Kim Cooper | Feb 10, 2023 | The Esotouric Blog
On Tuesday, while we were trying to get away from L.A.’s problems by spending my birthday exploring inland empire landmarks, the Los Angeles Times broke the story of the collapse of Skid Row Housing Trust, among the largest providers of permanent supportive...
by Kim Cooper | Jan 24, 2023 | The Esotouric Blog
A sad update, 2/4/2023: according to angelenoheart, the roadhouse was demolished today. We confirmed this with a visit on 2/11/2023. If you’ve ever crossed the Los Angeles River into Boyle Heights, chances are you’ve admired the National Register Sears...
by Kim Cooper | Jan 17, 2023 | The Esotouric Blog
January 17, 2022 To the Honorable John F. Walter United States Courthouse 350 W. 1st Street Los Angeles, CA 90012 Courtroom 7A c/o Courtroom Deputy Clerk Shannon Reilly shannon_reilly@cacd.uscourts.gov [update: by email reply, Deputy Clerk Shannon Reilly informs us...
by Kim Cooper | Jan 12, 2023 | The Esotouric Blog
A worrying photo appeared in a Facebook development group Tuesday afternoon, showing the backlit plastic readerboard on Broadway’s Orpheum Theatre marquee partially dismantled. The post was immediately shared among concerned preservationists. We too were worried...
by Kim Cooper | Dec 7, 2022 | The Esotouric Blog
Welcome to auspicious #13 in a series of 3-D explorable tours of off-the-beaten-path Southern California spaces, created by Craig Sauer using cutting-edge Matterport technology. Jergins Tunnel If you’ve been paying attention, you know that we love tunnels,...
by Kim Cooper | Nov 15, 2022 | The Esotouric Blog
In October 2022, we made a video expressing our concerns about the old Potter’s Field Cemetery at 11269 Garfield Avenue in Downey, and the unanswered question of what happened to many thousands of cremated remains of Rancho Los Amigos residents that were buried...
by Kim Cooper | Aug 30, 2022 | The Esotouric Blog
About a month ago, the new owners of the Clairville Plumbing & Heating compound, which sold for $2.1 Million on 5/25/2022, applied for a demolition permit for the rare all-metal Standard service station on the west side of the lot. Because 1659 W. Colorado is on...
by Kim Cooper | Aug 16, 2022 | The Esotouric Blog
On the occasion of the 102nd anniversary of the author’s birth, here’s something nutty we found in the Charles Bukowski’s archives at the Huntington Library, while researching the making of the film Barfly for our special audio track recording...
by Kim Cooper | Jul 25, 2022 | The Esotouric Blog
Things are a little weird at the Hotel Cecil in Downtown Los Angeles these days. No, not serial killer tenants and unexplained death weird, though we’ve covered those narratives for years through our true crime tours, appearance as Skid Row crime historians on...
by Kim Cooper | Jul 21, 2022 | The Esotouric Blog
Have you noticed that Los Angeles is falling apart? It is. And for those of us who have been here for a while, there’s a certain morbid fascination in watching it crumble—sometimes literally. You can see it happen in fast forward on the much-hyped Sixth Street...
by Kim Cooper | Jul 11, 2022 | The Esotouric Blog
In his 1946 will, the silent film actor William S. Hart left his 254-acre Horseshoe Ranch in Newhall, personal possessions and a trust account “for the benefit of the American public of every race and creed,” to be maintained and administered as a free...
by Kim Cooper | Jun 27, 2022 | The Esotouric Blog
The following is a guest post by Beverly Hills city councilmember John Mirisch, which originally appeared on the Vintage Los Angeles Facebook page. We believe his observations on the June 21, 2022 Beverly Hills city council hearing, during which the way was cleared...
by Kim Cooper | Jun 18, 2022 | The Esotouric Blog
In April, on the occasion of publication of the Los Angeles City Planning Department’s Draft EIR (Environmental Impact Report) for a proposed redevelopment of the Morrison Hotel (Morgan, Walls and Morgan, 1914) and surrounding parcels in Downtown Los Angeles, we...
by Kim Cooper | Jun 18, 2022 | The Esotouric Blog
We were curious about membership numbers for the Los Angeles Conservancy through the pandemic, so looked up their their 990 tax filings on the California Charities Registry. Although we have viewed their page in the past, the Los Angeles Conservancy didn’t come...
by Kim Cooper | May 16, 2022 | The Esotouric Blog
It’s election season in Los Angeles, and with Eric Garcetti termed out, the fight for the chief executive slot—a race which was Jose Huizar’s to lose and did he ever—has attracted a predictable mix of deep pockets, political lifers and idealistic long...
by Kim Cooper | May 13, 2022 | The Esotouric Blog
Update September 21, 2022: The Bunya pine, which appears to have died, was chopped down today. Click here for a brief video memorial. RIP to a great sentinel tree which stood proudly for 134 years. May its memory be a blessing. Update July 31, 2022: Here’s a...
by Kim Cooper | May 4, 2022 | The Esotouric Blog
Q: If a 1950s air raid siren falls in South Los Angeles, will anybody come and get it? Obsolete infrastructure can be beautiful in its decay, but not when it fails, spilling potentially deadly hunks of steel onto private property. When Siren No. 184 came down, we got...
by Kim Cooper | Apr 24, 2022 | The Esotouric Blog
Partial demolition for the landmark Morrison Hotel (Morgan, Walls and Morgan, 1914)? That’s the plan of Relevant Group, the developer that’s currently facing a Congressional investigation over alleged EB-5 Chinese investor visa fraud for its Hollywood hotels. But it...
by Kim Cooper | Apr 1, 2022 | The Esotouric Blog
Happy 1950 U.S. Census release day! It’s 72 years since enumerators with cute little clipboards and mechanical pencils fanned out across post-war America and asked every soul they could buttonhole for their stats. A decade ago, I blogged about the 1940 Census...
by Kim Cooper | Mar 16, 2022 | The Esotouric Blog
Click play, then follow along with our live commentary on this hearing here. Taix French Restaurant is a beloved Echo Park landmark that has become the poster child for how billionaire developers continue to corrupt Los Angeles City Hall–even while multiple...
by Kim Cooper | Mar 15, 2022 | The Esotouric Blog
February 18, 2023: Contrary to the story reported by CBS Saturday Morning, Cornelius Johnson’s Olympic Oak and family residence is not a protected Los Angeles landmark! Please scroll down to learn how you can help save this historic site by sending an email to...
by Kim Cooper | Feb 21, 2022 | The Esotouric Blog
Welcome to our historic preservation advocacy page for Old Trapper’s Lodge, which was first published on February 21, 2022, two months before Pierce College allowed a crew associated with Valley Relics Museum to remove the Boot Hill Cemetery sculptures. If...
by Kim Cooper | Jan 22, 2022 | The Esotouric Blog
The following is a guest post from Maryam Hosseinzadeh, a concerned local who asked us to share this timely alert and hopes that you’ll share it widely before the Monday noon deadline: ALERT! PASADENA – For more than 100 years, a sleepy corner of Pasadena...
by Kim Cooper | Jan 9, 2022 | The Esotouric Blog
There’s something wonderful happening on “The Nickel,” the portion of Fifth Street that connects the gritty Skid Row neighborhood of Downtown Los Angeles with the business district to the West: the early 20th century residency hotels whose owner Izek...
by Kim Cooper | Jan 9, 2022 | The Esotouric Blog
75 years ago today, a 22-year-old homeless woman named Beth Short went missing in Downtown Los Angeles. She would become famous in death as the Black Dahlia, a nickname she’d briefly worn in life. In 2005, we launched a true crime blog called the 1947project,...
by Kim Cooper | Dec 28, 2021 | The Esotouric Blog
May 13, 2022: Announcing the creation of Friends of the Angels. When we learned that the Dominican Order might no longer be able to maintain the Monastery of the Angeles in Hollywood, and that the land might be sold for private use or redevelopment, we came together...
by Kim Cooper | Dec 10, 2021 | The Esotouric Blog
In October, we shared the thrilling news that the almost completely empty Barclay Hotel had been sold to the Healthy Housing Foundation and would be immediately returned to use as affordable housing, instead of being converted into a boutique hotel at some unspecified...
by Kim Cooper | Nov 3, 2021 | The Esotouric Blog
On October 23, photos first circulated on social media showing workers on top of the awning of the historic Pig ‘n Whistle cafe at 6714 Hollywood Boulevard, covering the beautiful 1920s facade with cheap plastic signage for a Mr. Tempo Cantina and dropping the...
by Kim Cooper | Oct 20, 2021 | The Esotouric Blog
When people ask why we get so involved in historic preservation advocacy, despite the frustrations of fighting a pro-development City Hall that’s under multiple indictments for land use corruption, we answer that we feel called to do the work, want to be of...
by Kim Cooper | Oct 15, 2021 | The Esotouric Blog
In 2018, we celebrated the return of two treasures of Downtown Los Angeles to useful service as residential buildings, when the Healthy Housing Foundation purchased the largely vacant King Edward and Baltimore hotels from developer Izek Shomof. Although a binding...
by Kim Cooper | Sep 20, 2021 | The Esotouric Blog
We got the tip late Saturday night: a screenshot from a Nextdoor post, shared by a worried Angeleno who knew we’d take the case. Esotouric is nominally a Los Angeles tour company, but like Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe (the star of one of our more...
by Kim Cooper | Sep 15, 2021 | The Esotouric Blog
On Tuesday, September 14, 2021, the powerful PLUM Committee of the Los Angeles City Council convened a Special Meeting to quickly rule on the fates of a number of potential Historic-Cultural Monument designations recently approved by the Cultural Heritage Commission....
by Kim Cooper | Jun 15, 2021 | The Esotouric Blog
IT LOOKS BAD, BUT IT’S STILL NOT TOO LATE: Click here to sign the petition & here for the Cranky Preservationist’s Chili Bowl video & here for our May 2022 visit to the demolition site. SAD NEWS: DEMOLITION PERMIT ISSUED – FEBRUARY 3, 2022....
by Kim Cooper | Mar 25, 2021 | The Esotouric Blog
Our newest special newsletter edition for subscribers is out now. (We also have a free newsletter packed with local historic preservation news and musings.) This month, we take a deep dive into a remarkable artifact held in the research collection of the Pasadena...
by Kim Cooper | Feb 1, 2021 | The Esotouric Blog
Yesterday we lost Big John, our dear friend who was the most extraordinary portal to the weird, creative, anything-goes Los Angeles that used to be. John was a master craftsman, a builder of car washes, a teetotaler nightclub owner, designer of crooked gambling...
by Kim Cooper | Jan 20, 2021 | The Esotouric Blog
(photo by architectural historian Michael R. Corbett, from SAFER’s appeal) Update after the hearing: read all about it here. In November 2018, the FBI raided the City Hall offices of Councilmember Jose Huizar. He has been charged with 34 counts of racketeering,...
by Kim Cooper | Dec 30, 2020 | The Esotouric Blog
A disturbing rumor is circulating on social media that El Pino Famoso—the towering Bunya Pine (Araucaria bidwillii) at Folsom and Indiana on the East Los Angeles / Los Angeles border that was prominently featured in the film Blood In Blood Out—has been deliberately...
by Kim Cooper | Dec 17, 2020 | The Esotouric Blog
It’s the last night of Hannukah 2020. Having been frozen out of the plum D.C. gig that is his birthright, the mayor of Los Angeles is contemplating suicide. He sneaks away from his LAPD guard and goes to the remains of the iconic Sixth Street Bridge, now a...
by Kim Cooper | Nov 23, 2020 | The Esotouric Blog
In the late 1920s, as Los Angeles was becoming one of the world centers for tire manufacturing, architects Aleck Curlett and Claud Beelman were hired to design a sprawling Renaissance Revival factory complex for Firestone Tire and Rubber Company in South Gate. The...
by Kim Cooper | Nov 6, 2020 | The Esotouric Blog
Our newest special newsletter edition for subscribers is out now, featuring a virtual visit to the non-public spaces of the Baltimore Hotel in old Skid Row. (We also have a free newsletter packed with local historic preservation news and musings.) The hotel has been...
by Kim Cooper | Oct 29, 2020 | The Esotouric Blog
Hi there, we are Kim Cooper and Richard Schave, the owner-operators of Esotouric (established 2007), and since late September 2020 the hosts of Saturday afternoon webinars exploring the cultural history of Los Angeles. This is the story of how we got here, with...
by Kim Cooper | Sep 5, 2020 | The Esotouric Blog
As history loving Angelenos enter our sixth trying month of shuttered archives and libraries, the Getty Research Institute just dropped a thrilling bombshell with the release of the Research Collections Viewer, an online access tool to high resolution scans of...
by Kim Cooper | Sep 4, 2020 | The Esotouric Blog
Our newest special newsletter edition for subscribers is out today, featuring a fascinating artifact that’s tucked away in a non-public area of the Morgan, Walls and Clements’ 1927 Mayan Theatre on Hill Street downtown. (We also have a free newsletter...
by Kim Cooper | Aug 29, 2020 | The Esotouric Blog
Above: Nathan Marsak confirms that reports of the disappearance of the Adohr Milk Farms neon are premature [Update, October 2, 2021: Today, the Adohr Milk Farms sign was put back up on the building, following its restoration by Paul Greenstein. You can sneak a peek at...
by Kim Cooper | Aug 27, 2020 | The Esotouric Blog
Like so many of you, the pandemic has shrunk the size of our world. We haven’t gone out much at all since March, only to witness once-in-a-lifetime sign removals, keep the car engine humming on our socially distanced local road trips, and attend to unavoidable...
by Kim Cooper | Aug 22, 2020 | The Esotouric Blog
If you’ve spent any time cruising the surface streets of Alhambra, you’ve encountered the gorgeous Art Deco neon pole signs that mark the city boundaries.You see ALHAMBRA when entering town and COME AGAIN SOON on your way out. One of these 1930s-era signs...
by Kim Cooper | Aug 10, 2020 | The Esotouric Blog
Success: On June 2, 2021, Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to declare Sister Corita’s Studio a protected landmark. Sign up for the Corita Art Center email list for future updates. Press clips: LAist reports on the remarkable Cultural Heritage...
by Kim Cooper | Jul 15, 2020 | The Esotouric Blog
Richard Schave looks on The Eagle Tree, November 2019 It’s always unpleasant to break the news that a significant cultural landmark is in trouble. During a pandemic, it feels cruel. But we can’t sit on this information any longer: Compton’s landmark...
