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Los Angeles Air Raid Siren No 184 Falls

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...

Raymond & Cissy Chandler in the 1950 census

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...

Save Cornelius Johnson’s Olympic Oak

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...

The Leland Hotel, Empty No More

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...

Monastery of the Angels Advocacy Campaign

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...

The Hotel Barclay, Empty No More

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...
Big John Maljevic, 1927-2021

Big John Maljevic, 1927-2021

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...
The Eagle Tree: Dead or Alive?

The Eagle Tree: Dead or Alive?

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...