A Modest Proposal for Saving Rancho Los Amigos and Helping the Homeless of Los Angeles County

Posted on June 19, 2020 by Kim Cooper in The Esotouric Blog and tagged 19th century, adaptive reuse, demolition by neglect, downey, historic preservation, homelessness, los angeles county, public policy, rancho los amigos, redevelopment.

A SOLUTION FOR HOMELESSNESS:

A NEW LOS ANGELES COUNTY “POOR” FARM

By Colleen Adair Fliedner

Author of the Rancho Los Amigos Centennial History Book

The words “poor farm” generally conjure up images of Oliver Twist and filthy almshouses, where half-starved men, women and children live and work in deplorable conditions. When it came to the Los Angeles County Poor Farm, however, nothing was further from the truth. When it opened in 1888 about two miles from the fledgling community of Downey, the L. A. County Poor Farm consisted of 124.4 acres of agriculturally rich farmland; two wards; a smaller, more rustic building housing a kitchen, dining room, and employees’ quarters; and several dozen residents.

While there were other county poor farms in the United States, none seems to have had the same success as L. A. County’s. The idea of combining housing for the homeless and hopeless of the County with a productive farm was nothing less than brilliant. Within 10 years of its founding, an article written about the County Farm described it as “the most beautiful, well-managed and cheerful home for those that are unfortunate, of any country on earth.” As the years passed, the word “poor” was seldom used, in spite of the fact that it was still the official name of the institution. This was done, in part, to eliminate the negative connotation associated with a County Farm. But the other reason was that Los Angeles’ Poor Farm was actually a pleasant place in its day…and it certainly beat the alternative of living on the streets of downtown Los Angeles.

The County Poor Farm housed a variety of individuals with a wide range of problems. Like every other aspect of this fascinating institution, the type of patients cared for was constantly changing. By the turn of the century, the most notable difference was in the increase of elderly people brought to the Farm. This had occurred as a result of the depression of 1893, when state aid was cut to indigent men and women over the age of 60. According to County records, the elderly who were admitted to the Farm were in good health, but simply had nowhere else to go. Another group of individuals whose numbers increased after 1900 were those with mental illness, and especially those suffering from alcoholism and drug addiction, which were considered a form of insanity at that time. Indeed, the County Farm became a sort of “catchall” institution, a custodial care facility that took up the overflow from the L. A. County Hospital and the state mental hospitals.

Though there were separate male and female wards, an old man in relatively good health might have had a bed next to a 15-year-old boy with epileptic seizures, or a blacksmith with tuberculosis. In spite of this undesirable situation, State inspectors reported that the County Poor Farm was one of the cleanest, most orderly institutions of its kind in California. Unlike many contemporary county-run poor farms around the country, the men and women at the Los Angeles County Farm had plenty of food to eat and spotless buildings in which to live.

By 1898 the number of acres had grown to 227. There were groves of oranges, fields of alfalfa, oats, corn, sorghum, beets, potatoes, and various fruits and vegetables. Fifteen acres were set aside for large expanses of well-manicured lawns, a variety of shade trees, and colorful flowerbeds. Hundreds of eucalyptus trees rimmed the grounds and lined the roadways. Impressed visitors often remarked that the place was kept up so well that looked like a park, rather than a poor farm.

Even more amazing was the County Farm’s dairy. Two hundred gallons of milk were produced each day by its eighty-five cows. Part of the milk was churned into butter and a portion became the Farm’s own cheese. Chickens and hogs were raised for meat. Physically capable residents did most of the work in exchange for food, a place to stay, and a stipend for extra purchases, such as tobacco. The County Poor Farm was so successful in these endeavors that it not only supported its own expenses, there was plenty of extra food and dairy products to feed the patients at Los Angeles County Hospital.

Many residents were either too old or frail to work. These men and women were cared for at the County Farm for the rest of their lives. Unless a family member claimed their remains, they were buried in the cemetery situated at one end of the property.

In the case of the ambulatory residents, they were often taught skills to help them find jobs “on the outside.” Actually, the County’s goal was to heal the residents who could be cured, and then prepare them to become self-sufficient. Besides learning about agricultural and dairy work, professional craftsmen were employed to teach the residents a variety of skills. For instance, a cobbler instructed male residents in the art of repairing and making shoes and manufacturing artificial legs. With so many people living at the Farm, the shoe shop provided a much needed and cost-effective service. In another shop, residents were taught to weave wicker furniture, which was used throughout the buildings and gardens, as well as being sold to the general public.

After a few years, the staff began to notice that the residents who suffered with arthritis and hand injuries who performed these and similar tasks had actually improved. Thus, what initially began as a way to help these individuals earn extra money for themselves and the County Farm became the beginning of what is today known as “Occupational Therapy.” This and dozens of remarkable developments and discoveries actually began at the L. A. County Farm.

This institution, which had begun with some 40 residents in 1888, had over 200 residents by 1898. The number of buildings grew in accordance with the availability of County funds. Sometimes there weren’t enough beds, and people were turned away. That’s why it became increasingly important to rotate needy patients in, while releasing the trained and fully recuperated men back into society as soon as possible.

Among the most surprising facts was that a separate “insane” ward was built in 1907 for the burgeoning number of mentally ill patients who continued to pour in from the County Hospital’s overcrowded “insane” wards. The records noted why each patient was deemed insane and required confinement to the mental wards. By today’s standards, many of the reasons are shocking. They included: syphilis, anemia, cerebro-spinal meningitis, brain tumor, epilepsy, pneumonia, sexual derangements, typhoid fever, alcoholism, over-study, jealousy, sexual excesses, fasting during Lent, abortion, childbirth and lactation, menopause, love affair, domestic infelicity, uterine trouble, and, last but not least, masturbation.

By the 1930s, another period of building was underway. The new Spanish-style buildings were attractive, reflecting the Farm’s Superintendent, William Harriman’s, love for Old California’s mission architecture. In 1932 he took his theme a step further, changing the County Poor Farm’s name to Rancho Los Amigos, which he translated as “Home of the Friends.” Under Mr. Harriman’s leadership, Rancho Los Amigos continued its evolution, adding a hospital building and infirmaries. Apparently, most of the patients thrived, fondly describing Rancho as their “Home Away From Home.” They expressed their sentiments through letters and poems, such as this poem written by a woman patient in 1932:

OUR HOME

You call this the poor house? Nay friend, not so.

This house was built to God’s own plan,

Noble thought and loving hand.

This is not poverty’s abode, but wealth and love.

Here God moulds, makes, creates characters; and takes the ones He wants

For fitted works in His great house above.

You’ll find within these open doors welcome and protection from cares,

Worldly strife, wickedness, and human woes.

The best of all we need for happiness.

Behind these stately walls do roam

Kindly hearts and culture, too.

Souls filled with music, from whose faces shone

Thoughts as a draught of Heaven’s own blue.

We have the best which can be given,

Heat, food, best of matrons, nurses kind.

Superintendent’s mind.

Doctors so wonderful.

Nay, this is not a poorhouse, friend, but earthly heaven.

The fact that so many patients felt this way is not surprising, when one considers the excellent care they received and the way they were welcomed to their “new home.” A small booklet given to each patient began:

“Our new friend, we welcome you to our little city. We hope you will find here a pleasant and comfortable home, with health and happiness. To this end, we need your help, not only in compliance with instructions of the medical staff who are working for your good, but in your thoughtful consideration and assistance of those who are weaker and less fortunate. You will not be burdened with oppressive rules. The one called the Golden Rule covers them all.”

Since its humble beginnings in 1888, what began as a home for the County’s needy has evolved into the world-renowned Rancho National Rehabilitation Center. Most of the County Farm era’s buildings on the south side of Imperial Highway have been demolished, leaving a large tract of land empty, with the exception of a few structures which have been repurposed. Could this County-owned property provide the space to allow the homeless of Los Angeles to erect their tents? Restrooms with showers like one would find in a campground could be erected. Perhaps converting empty shipping containers could be used for housing, as is being done in other cities around the country. Like the old County Farm, community gardens could be planted to provide fresh produce for the residents. Food banks could deliver meat and other necessities to prepare meals. Volunteers could teach some of the formerly homeless modern-day skills and, perhaps, help them find jobs.

The concept of bringing the homeless to a place where they would be safe, clean, fed, given rehab, and taught ways to re-enter society worked beautifully in the past. Why can’t it work now?

Video of Esotouric’s Richard Schave giving public comment to the Historical Landmarks and Records Commission of L.A. County in support of saving Rancho Los Amigos and using it for the public good.

The National Emergency Library is here for Los Angeles

Posted on March 27, 2020 by Kim Cooper in The Esotouric Blog and tagged 19th century, 20th century, archive, books, covid-19, digitization, internet archive, library.

Libraries, how we love them—especially when they’ve got plenty of room and don’t cull the weird stuff that nobody has checked out since 1923!

Back in the good old days, earlier this month, we were still spending our Tuesdays at the Huntington Library, where we’d split the day between peering through a magnifying lens at unpublished negatives of Grand Central Market, reading snarky editorials on the foibles of the Golden Age Hollywood set in Rob Wagner’s Script magazine, and wandering the holy gardens.

These visits have kept us sane while battling to preserve Los Angeles landmarks from the relentless forces of what we’ve long suspected, and what is finally being proven, to be rampant public corruption.

But the Huntington, like so many wonderful places in Los Angeles, is now closed for the duration, and it’s right that it’s closed. We’ve all got to hunker down like bears in our dens and wait out the viral peril⁠—but there’s no rule that says we have to be bored or zoned out while we wait.

The good folks at the Internet Archive have taken the nation’s temperature and written a marvelous and healing prescription: their enormous collection of scanned books, which in normal times is available for free check out, but with use limits, is now 100% free and always available. You can browse a selection of 1,428,426 volumes, and we bet at least 3,745 of them would be exactly what you’re looking for right now!

To get you started, we’ve curated a short list of L.A.-centric titles that will enhance your understanding of this improbable and baffling city, and get you familiar with this terrific digital resource.

But we must remind you that these books, however fascinating, are all written about a place very different from the Los Angeles of 2020. When we get through this public health crisis—and we will get though it—our shared history will be one of a metropolis that faced the greatest threat imaginable at the same time that the DOJ was taking down a big chunk of its corrupt city government.

If you put a twist this screwy into a script, they’d throw you out of the writer’s room. Yet it’s happening, right now, to us. And when the risk of disease has passed and the cancerous rot of corruption has been cut out of the halls of power, we’re going to need a new story to tell about what it means to be an Angeleno in 2020 and beyond.

Luckily, we’ve got nothing but time on our hands to study the past and imagine L.A.’s bright future and what each one of us can bring to the table.

So be well, have faith, be careful out there, and enjoy! And do share your recommendations for great reads that you find in the National Emergency Library in the comments below.

ESOTOURIC’S SELECTED TREASURES FROM THE NATIONAL EMERGENCY LIBRARY

Update 3/28/20: as this information has circulated, writers have complained that the Internet Archive’s loan policy change violates their copyright. Please use the links below responsibly, enjoy older, weirder, out of print offerings, and buy books by working writers.

• Piccolo’s Prank (1965) by Leo Politi: a rambunctious monkey runs amok on old Bunker Hill, and if you love this one, there are many Politi treats in the library

• Exploring California Byways in and Around Los Angeles; trips for a day or a weekend (1967) by Russ Leadabrand: a slow-paced guidebook to out-of-the-way places still worth seeking out, once the quarantine is lifted

• Historic California in Bookplates (1936, reprint edition) by Clare Ryan Talbot: reproducing the miniature works of art that identified treasured volumes as the property of notable Californian individuals and institutions

• La Reina : Los Angeles in three centuries (1929) published by Security Trust & Savings Bank: a collection of historic photographs used by the pioneer bank as part of its branding efforts

• The Los Angeles Guide Book (1972) by Annette Welles: because sometimes it’s fun to imagine we’re time traveling tourists, it’s a great reference if you happen to be writing a period mystery in quarantine, and who doesn’t want to know that Norms diners used to suck?

• L.A. Bizarro! The Insider’s Guide to the Obscure, the Absurd and the Perverse in Los Angeles by Anthony R. Lovett and Matt Maranian (1997): an over-designed pre-internet marvel celebrating the weirdos, visionaries and benign hustlers who have been largely displaced under our pro-development City Council, but who we sincerely hope can bloom again in the new L.A. to come

• Los Angeles A to Z: An Encyclopedia of the City and County by Leonard and Dale Pitt (1997): an essential companion for any dedicated Angeleno, packed with fun facts you never knew about familiar places

• Los Angeles, City of Dreams by Harry Carr (1935): the first great insider’s take on modern L.A., by a crack reporter who spent four decades chronicling her transformation from sleepy backwater to modern metropolis

• Bread & Hyacinths: The Rise and Fall of Utopian Los Angeles by Paul Greenstein, Nigey Lennon and Lionel Rolfe (1992): the astonishing story of how the bombing of the L.A. Times building inspired the creation of a new kind of city in the desert, a site we will be visiting with Paul Greenstein on our likely rescheduled Desert Visionaries tour

• The Dream Come True: Great Houses of Los Angeles by Brendan Gill and Derry Moore (1980): a loving survey of domestic architecture historic, contemporary and celebrity, richly illustrated with original photographs, and including some rare lost gems

• A Slight Epidemic: The Government Cover-up of Black Plague in Los Angeles: What Happened and Why it Matters by Frank Feldinger (2008): recommended for obvious reasons, in the hope that we not repeat the mistakes of 1924

Elegy for 1326 South Mariposa

Posted on July 26, 2019 by Kim Cooper in The Esotouric Blog and tagged 19th century, 20th century, berkshire hathaway, historic preservation, historic-cultural monument, New Markets Tax Credit, nmtc, pico-union, redevelopment, signage, toc, Transit Oriented Communities.

We were driving the side streets of the Pico-Union District after locking down a special location to be added to the next Curse of the She-Devil true crime history tour. The late afternoon light was beautiful, with that sort of buttery, gilded quality that sends all the architectural details into high relief.

It doesn’t matter how many times we explore Pico-Union, the sprawling neighborhood always rewards us with something new. The buildings are old, solid and lived in, displaying layers of demographic change in their signs. The past and present are entwined, organically and unpretentiously.

Some signs of the past are more precious than others: the Mission Revival rooftop arch of the Doria Apartments (1600 West Pico, built 1905), illuminated with incandescent bulbs, was being covered up with an illegal billboard in 2011, when we drove by on our Weird West Adams tour and snapped a crime scene photo. An urgent call to the city’s Office of Historic Resources happily resulted in a stop work order before any permanent damage was done to Historic-Cultural Monument #432. Every time we pass the Doria now and see that jaunty sign, we feel like she’s kind of “ours.”

Doria Apartments facade seen from the Weird West Adams tour February 2016

Doria Apartments 2019

Doria Apartments illegal billboard seen from the Weird West Adams tour May 2011

On our recent ramble, following the commercial spine of Pico, we dipped down into the residential corridors, where we were especially delighted to make the acquaintance of Byrdshire Manor (1405 South Berendo Street, built 1928), an English vernacular apartment block with layers of hand-painted signage, graceful arches and a smattering of deformed clinker bricks breaking up its rhythms.

Byrdshire Manor plaque

Byrdshire Manor facade

Byrdshire Manor sign

But just five blocks to the west, we found a landmark just as arresting, though not for its charm.

1326 Mariposa and billboard

1326 Mariposa facade

1326 Mariposa billboard detail

The handsome folk Victorian house at 1326 South Mariposa Avenue was built in 1895; the back house in 1951. Two years ago, when the property was listed at $687,500, a marketing video captured a messy home with at least one child in it. It sold for slightly above asking and was soon back on the market, an unaltered flip.

This June, the house sold for $1,300,000. It is presently boarded up, with lurid No Trespassing signs and weeds in the lawn. At the front of the parcel, a huge billboard erected by Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway advertises the large, charmless apartment building that is “Coming Soon.”

On a real estate listing website, agent Dan Risch gushes: “Brand new Building Planned and permits in process. 15 – 1 bedroom units planned. Projected income is $2160/unit/ month. Projected gross income estimated a $373,694 annually. 2 affordable units will be built per developer/owner. Ground level parking. Renderings based on plans. Demolition permits in process. Plans are submitted for review. Located in NMTC zone for tax advantages. Buildings in place at present. Demolition permits expected soon.”

NMTC stands for New Markets Tax Credit. Along with the more common, and also applicable TOC or Transit Oriented Communities, it’s the little extra juice that makes it even more appealing for the biggest companies in the world to swoop into poor neighborhoods like Pico-Union in Los Angeles, buy up the existing historic housing stock at a premium price, sit on it for a couple of years and flip it as a tax advantaged development opportunity.

Preservationists in Los Angeles are playing whack-a-mole with developers who seek to destroy the beautiful buildings that make up the very warp and weft of our shared history, simply because old buildings are usually cheaper to purchase than vacant lots, and because a deeply corrupted City Hall enables it. Many notable landmarks have been saved thanks to the efforts of caring individuals and preservation organizations, but many more terrific contributing structures have vanished from the landscape forever.

With companies like Berkshire Hathaway targeting properties like 1326 South Mariposa and erecting billboards touting the fortunes to be made by demolishing them, the potential loss of beautiful and useful buildings is staggering.

But, some argue, Los Angeles is in the grips of a “housing crisis” and we “need” larger structures like the one on the Berkshire Hathaway billboard. Do we really?

We believe that we actually have a housing use crisis, not a housing crisis.

Artificial scarcity, generated by apartment buildings and SRO hotels kept perpetually vacant by corporate investors, large-scale illegal home share listings, “condos” that are nothing of the kind, Ellis Act evictions that empty buildings that then remain empty for years, newly constructed apartments used as filming locations, these and other greedy misuses of housing stock all conspire to create rental costs that far exceed reasonable rates for many Angelenos, even as the city’s population declines.

Until the many disruptive forces that have radically altered the Los Angeles housing market are reigned in, it’s absurd to reward the real estate industry with a stack of blank demolition forms, so they can take yet more essential housing stock off the market, this time with even greater tax benefits.

But the clock is ticking on the street named for the butterfly. Demolition permits have been requested for 1326 South Mariposa. Some day soon, the wreckers will come and pull down two good buildings, replacing them with something out of scale and style with the block. Nobody will ever stop to photograph this generic apartment house in the gilded afternoon light.

A few blocks away, at 1430 Arapahoe Street, we found an official-looking demolition permit on this grand 1885 Victorian, with no corresponding information on file with the city. A man in the next yard noticing us taking photos, asked first if we wanted to buy the house, then when we said we were just worried about it, insisted “It’s just a little remodel, nothing’s getting torn down.”

1430 Arapahoe

1430 Arapahoe notice of demolition

1430 Arapahoe sidewalk stone work

And the fight for the soul of Los Angeles goes on. We save what we can, and we keep a list of everything teetering on the brink. Won’t you be the city’s eyes, and tell us when a place you love appears to be at risk?

Esotouric’s Los Angeles Historic Preservation 2018 year-end list

Posted on January 1, 2019 by Kim Cooper in The Esotouric Blog and tagged 19th century, 20th century, alhambra, art deco, arts district, boyle heights, crime scene, demolition by neglect, downtown los angeles, googie, gordon kaufmann, historic preservation, historic-cultural monument, hollywood, joseph young, landscape, los angeles conservancy, malibu, miracle mile, mission revival, pasadena, programmatic, public corruption, public policy, redevelopment, santa monica mountains, signage, streamline moderne, tiki, Welton Becket, west hollywood, william l. pereira.

Gentle reader…

As we slam the door on 2018, it’s time for that annual Esotouric tradition: our very opinionated list of the past year’s Top Los Angeles Historic Preservation Stories.

Because preservation is never as simple as buildings being lost forever or rescued from the brink, the list is split into three sections: the Gains, the Losses, and those Bittersweet moments that hover somewhere in the middle, and keep us up nights. We hope you find the list by turns thought-provoking, infuriating and inspiring, and that 2019 will see some of the Bittersweets tip over onto the Gains side of the fence.

Los Angeles Historic Preservation Gains of 2018:

G1. A Modernist Master Recognized: It began with an impassioned plea from Zev Yaroslavsky to preserve William Pereira’s endangered CBS Television City, an architectural and cultural treasure that supports high paying professional jobs. Then the Los Angeles Conservancy brought in architect and historian Alan Hess, our partner in the Pereira in Peril campaign, to write the successful landmarking nomination. Also involved, property owner CBS, who came to the table to craft a preservation solution for the future of its historic broadcast production campus. The campus just sold, and will be subject to preservation guidelines in any future alterations.

G2. Rock On: If you love music history, Hollywood history, civil rights history and great architecture, then Musicians’ Union Local 47 matters to you. Founded in 1897, its members have shaped motion picture soundtracks since the dawn of the talkies, and uncountable hit records. The handsome Vine Street union hall, master architect Gordon Kaufmann’s last commission, became one of the first integrated performance guilds in America in 1953. The union recently sold the building and moved to Burbank, but the future of the old union hall is secured now that it’s been declared an Historic Cultural Monument. Cheers to John Girodo of Hollywood Heritage for writing a terrific nomination.

G3. Won’t Be Doggone: When Tail o’ the Pup, one of the last programmatic oddball architectural dining attractions standing, became a museum piece, we felt blue. But somehow, the iconic storefront is coming back as a commercial enterprise in the hands of the historically-minded 1933 Group, who are presently restoring the Formosa Café. And that’s a shaggy dog story we don’t mind waiting out.

G4. Bank On It: Downtown’s gorgeous Bank of Italy (Morgan, Walls & Clements, 1923) was shuttered for decades, so when Kim set part of her mystery novel The Kept Girl inside, she had to imagine everything. But this year, the NoMad Hotel completed an elegant adaptive reuse project, transforming a sober commercial building into a sweet social space.

G5. Spinning Wheel (redux): In 2016, on a hot day in sleepy Arcadia, where the last Googie-style Van De Kamp‘s Holland Dutch Bakery restaurant (Harold Bissner, 1967) stands proudly on Huntington Boulevard, Denny’s executives were on hand to throw the switch on the restored, spinning windmill sign, a beloved local landmark brought back to life through the Quixotic efforts of former mayor George Fasching. But months later, the blades snapped and fell through the restaurant’s roof. The future of the landmark sign again seemed uncertain, but happily, the sails are now spinning anew.

G6. Give Me Liberty or Give Me… WHAT?!: Neighbors rallied when Liberty Park (Peter Walker, 1967), a beloved privately-owned modernist landscape in the heart of park-poor Koreatown, was threatened with high-rise development. Tempers flared, culminating when property owner Dr. David Lee of Jamison Services terrorized attendees of a City Hall meeting by threatening to turn his assault rifle on citizens. That creepy stunt backfired, and Liberty Park became a protected Los Angeles landmark soon after.

G7. Landmarking Makes All the Difference: After official designation was granted to the derelict clothing-store-turned-trade-paper-HQ, the Crossroads of the World mega-project now plans to incorporate the Hollywood Reporter building. The adjacent 1930s garden court apartment block, encompassing 80 charming rent stabilized homes, won’t be so lucky (see B18 below).

G8. Exile on San Remo Drive: Thanks to the advocacy of thousands of writers and curators, the German government raised funds to purchase Thomas Mann’s Pacific Palisades home in exile, a modernist gem (J.R. Davidson, 1941) which had been listed for sale at a tear-down price. Slated to become a center for exploring ideas of cultural openness and international values, the first step is the recreation of the writer’s lost library.

G9. Developer, Please: In 1936, William Kesling designed a perfect streamline moderne residence for actor Wallace Beery in the flats of Hollywood, and for eight decades, lucky Angelenos kept the landlocked ocean liner ship-shape. Late last year, property developer Ilan Gorodezki announced his intent to knock the lovely thing down to build condos. But preservation people were paying attention, and drafted a successful landmark nomination. Thanks to the efforts of Charles J. Fisher and Steven Luftman, one of the coolest houses ever built in L.A. might survive to see its centennial.

G10. Heirloom Roses: For a decade, the landmark city-owned Casa de Rosas campus (Sumner Hunt, 1893) sat shuttered and decaying, a target for vandals or squatters, and a sad sight from the window of our Weird West Adams crime bus tours. We’re encouraged to see L.A. finally investing resources to reactivate this fascinating place as much needed low-income housing.

Los Angeles Historic Preservation Losses of 2018:

L1. A Long Goodbye: The Mission-style Heather Apartments (Charles C. Rittenhouse, 1910) was one of Westlake’s loveliest old apartment hotels. But after the owner was cited for unpermitted renovations a decade ago, she was boarded up. Despite L.A.’s housing crisis, no law compelled Louis C. Gonzalez to make the 26 rent stabilized apartments available. It’s called demolition by neglect: no need to file for a demo permit, just let time and squatters do their worst. Two fires later, the old gal was doomed and soon demolished.

L2. Last O’Call: Although neglected by the city, a lousy steward of its historic resources, Ports O’ Call Village (1963) remained a beloved South Bay landmark, a place to socialize, promenade and feast on fishy treats. But with a development-focused administration in City Hall, a plan was hatched to erase the village and its small business tenants, leaving a clean slate for a generic corporate complex. Broken promises led to tragedy that the San Pedro community won’t soon forget. Have we learned nothing from the mistakes of Bunker Hill?

L3. Lights Out: Serial landmark wrecker Jason Illoulian hasn’t even got permits for his Sunset Boulevard mega project, and neighbors are organizing to save the block, but the uncertainty has had a killing effect on the row of small businesses. The saddest loss came when Parisian Florist moved away, and gave their signs to the Museum of Neon Art. The destruction of Hollywood’s finest mid-century storefront breaks our heart.

L4. Last Man Standing: Once upon a time, Los Angeles had two thriving book shop districts, one on Hollywood Boulevard, the other in Downtown’s warren of streets south of Central Library. In Hollywood, only the Larry Edmunds Bookshop remains, a favorite stop on our Raymond Chandler tours. Caravan Book Store, the last survivor on Downtown’s Book Row, closed this year, not due to landlord greed or redevelopment fears for once, but because second generation proprietor Leonard Bernstein was ready. Stifling sobs, we rushed down with our photographer pal Craig Sauer to capture the time capsule for posterity in explorable 3-D.

L5. Hollywood’s Silent Movie Theater was gutted as the owners attempt to rebrand the venue, which became toxic after Cinefamily staff spoke out about abuse. It’s not a protected landmark, so there’s no requirement to preserve historic resources, but it would have been cool if they tried.

L6. Clean Slate: RIP Alhambra’s Valley Cleaners, an obsolete bit of roadside signage that made us happy every time we waited to make a left turn up Fremont and now has disappeared.

L7. R is For Rats: Shame on the Los Angeles School Board for voting to demolish the historic “R Building” at Roosevelt High, at a time when community pride and cultural history is more important than ever for Boyle Heights. Don’t be fooled: the so-called “preservation settlement” is a demolition, which is why no legit preservation group seeking to save Roosevelt’s history signed off on it.

L8. Scorched Earth: The fast-moving Woolsey Fire took the Western Town at Paramount Ranch and the nearly-restored Sepulveda Adobe, but reports of the destruction of the M*A*S*H set were premature.

L9. Sad Trombone: By the time a silent film fan raised the alarm after noticing the demolition permit on the 1904 Tabor House, which had a memorable cameo in the 1927 Our Gang film Dog Heaven, Councilman Paul Koretz had already put through a motion seeking to designate the early westside landmark for preservation. But after the property owner illegally demolished the facade, Koretz’ office says there is no recourse. If you think this gross behavior merits a revised city ordinance that punishes people for knocking down historic-but-unlandmarked buildings, tell your councilperson.

L10. Very Sour: Preservationists fretted, but for a brief moment (see Chapter 2.0.), it looked like Metro would save the Arts District’s beloved Pickle Works warehouse, after all. And then the gorgeous old thing burned down, amidst reports that the city-owned building contained a well-known homeless encampment. Demolition by neglect is always ugly, but especially so when it’s a public asset lost.

L11. Joe Friday Wept: Before the FBI showed up to empty his City Hall office and home of unspecified documents, Councilman Jose Huizar was the one-man wrecking ball sacrificing Los Angeles landmarks to his political ambitions. His (hopefully) last act was the rushed demolition of Parker Center (Welton Becket & Associates and J. E. Stanton, 1955), the world’s first modern police administration building and the finest International Style structure in L.A.’s portfolio, which for all its controversial history, remained an architecturally distinguished and potentially useful structure. But Huizar, who never met a lobbyist he didn’t lick, was determined to clear the east side of the Civic Center in order to privatize and turn it into “a 24-hour destination,” no matter the cost. While that sketchy idea and Huizar’s future might be toast so, regrettably, is Parker Center.

Los Angeles Historic Preservation Bittersweet Moments of 2018:

B1. Infrastructure’s Victims: Caltrans has long been a crummy steward of the historic houses where the 710 won’t go, among them Julia Child’s girlhood home. Now that the freeway project is officially kaput, we hope these gems aren’t too far gone for longtime tenants to purchase and restore.

B2. To All My Friends: Tom Bergin’s, a Miracle Mile gem that’s fallen on hard times, has many pals seeking to make its landmark status official lest it be knocked down for redevelopment.

B3. Imitation Is Better Than Nothing: Renderings have been released for proposed redevelopment of William Pereira’s Metropolitan Water District HQ: much demolition, but also partial recreation of the low-rise building at the heart of the 1963 complex.

B4. Summer Coming: It’s been a wild multi-year ride as preservationists and members of the Japanese-American community seek an option to purchase the time capsule buildings and farm at Historic Wintersburg, a nationally significant Japanese-American landmark in Huntington Beach. Will it become a garbage dump, self-storage facility or an interpretive center telling the rich story of an immigrant community? No news is good news, we hope.

B5. Cop Caper: A recent 3-D photoshoot with Craig Sauer revealed the disappearance of Skid Row’s own American Gothic, the painted fire door that we discovered in the King Eddy speakeasy basement more than a decade ago. A reward is offered for its safe return.

B6. C’est la Morte: C.C. de Vere, historian of French Los Angeles, just wanted to know where her beloved statue of Joan of Arc had gone. She ended up uncovering some troubling data about the disappearance of one of the city’s oldest charities, and many millions of dollars. At least she found Saint Joan! Forget it, Jake: it’s Chinatown.

B7. Poor Pedigree: After a fatal arson fire at Dr. Jones Dog & Cat Hospital (Wurdeman and Becket, 1938), developer Arman Gabaee pursued plans to built a glass and steel mediocrity on the site, despite the dogged efforts of citizen preservationists Kate Eggert and Krisy Gosney which were picked up by the Los Angeles Conservancy. But then Gabaee was arrested on Federal bribery and public corruption charges. Tough luck for him, but a lucky break for the legacy of Dr. Jones.

B8. The Landmark Cudgel: Things get weird when politicians make preservation policy. Although Pico Boulevard’s wee Googie-style Orange Julius-turned-L.A.-Burger stand (Armet and Davis, 1963) wasn’t ultimately landmarked, the folded plate roof will be saved, and inspired the retro re-styling of the planned redevelopment project. Bonus: the neighborhood is spared another faux Tuscan slab, and gets its burgers back. That’s better than the Algemac’s project in Glendale, where a beloved Googie diner’s bones were saved, but not its kitchen.

B9. Pu Pu Platter: Tiki-lovers gasped at news that the sprawling Don the Beachcomber (originally Sam’s Sea Food and Hawaiian Village) was closing, its large PCH lot slated for unspecified redevelopment. The interior fixtures might be salvaged for use in a new venue, but there’s no way to replicate the sense of space and creativity of an original mid-century exotica environment on the coast highway. For now, the historic complex still stands, with Art Snyder’s restless spirit gnashing invisible teeth within.

B10. Museum Grow: The clock is ticking on the ambitious proposal to demolish William Pereira’s 1965 LACMA campus and its unfortunate additions for an amoeba-shaped new museum spanning Wilshire Boulevard. Chinese steel tariffs might break the bank.

B11. Machine Rage: A “preservation” hustle unfolds in West Hollywood, as serial landmark wrecker Jason Illoulian gets city approval to move and carve National Register landmark The Factory into a meaningless morsel. But it gets sleazier: Illoulian co-opted the name used by the community activists who fought to save this icon of early Hollywood camera manufacturing and gay culture for his own PR blitz. Cheers to Councilwoman Lauren Meister for taking a lone stand against this dishonest and destructive project.

B12. Spoiled Span: After approving the construction of affordable housing and a children’s park below a bridge that’s long been synoymous with suicides, Pasadena erected unsightly chain link panels blocking access to seating alcoves on the National Register Colorado Street Bridge, then extended the fence the length of the bridge. Historically sensitive design recommendations are promised. They can’t come soon enough.

B13. String ’em Up: Designation as an official city landmark is supposed to offer some protection, but don’t bother telling that to “developer” (this appears to be his only project) Eli Melech, who has been threatening for years to demolish the Bob Baker Marionette Theater and replace it with a puppet-themed apartment building. With a too tiny performance space on offer, the troupe made the tough decision to move on. You can find the road show in historic places like the Pasadena Playhouse and Santa Monica Pier, and chip in to help them plant new roots.

B14. Cooler Than Its Critics: This summer, after decades of neglect and derision, thousands came, like moths to the flame, to the derelict Los Angeles Mall to see Joseph Young’s Triforium come to life with flashing lights synced to live music. It’s a civic artwork, but this wasn’t a city production. Kudos to the grassroots team who pulled it off. Yet despite the great success of the Triforium Fridays series, the fight to save the Triforium is just beginning. The city has a plan to demolish the very plaza it sits on. At least now Angelenos are paying attention.

B15. Gehry the Vandal: Shame on Frank Gehry, who has gone to the courts to secure permission to demolish rather than integrate Kurt Meyer’s lyrical, landmarked Lytton Savings Bank. Meyer put his architecture career on hold to save Central Library; this fine architect and Angeleno deserves better than this.

B16. No Beano: Hideous blob proposed to obliterate Barney’s Beanery, a rare example of a Route 66 roadhouse in the heart of Los Angeles. The scraps of Barney’s facade propped under this mess add insult to injury.

B17: Location Location Location: Another landmarking designation promoted by an L.A. politician is Silver Lake’s streamline moderne steel Texaco station, a proposal that generated a great deal of anti-preservation sentiment before Mitch O’Farrell announced his real plans: to dismantle and ship the station out of the neighborhood. Frogtown has its own architectural landmarks; it’s silly and ahistorical to move one of Silver Lake’s character defining buildings down to the river.

B18. Abuse of Power: A few months before scandal-plagued Councilman Jose Huizar was removed as head of the PLUM Committee, he helmed a shocking meeting during which his crew struck down four newly-declared Hollywood landmarks, all of which conveniently stand in the path of the proposed Crossroads of the World mega project, and made snide remarks about the quality of the Cultural Heritage Commission’s work. We’ll take the CHC’s thoughtful dedication to preserving buildings of merit over PLUM’s development cheerleading any day. With the FBI now investigating Huizar, perhaps all his land use decisions deserve a fresh look?

B19. DOA: Landmark buildings are never more vulnerable than when tenants are evicted ahead of a redevelopment project. In October, Pierce Brothers Mortuary (1924), the crown jewel of West Adams’ Mortuary Row and until recently occupied by a church, was badly damaged by fire. But because the complex is a designated city landmark, the property owners can’t demolish everything, but must work with preservation experts to determine how to best to retain surviving elements and rebuild.

B20. The Best of Times: Because nobody else was doing it, we stepped up and landmarked The Los Angeles Times buildings, then watched as City Council’s PLUM Committee deferred to the wishes of disgraced ex-chair Jose Huizar and Canadian developers Onni Group and carved out the portion of the landmark that would be most profitable to demolish. But although this was an upsetting setback, Times Mirror Square isn’t done for at all. We will continue to shepherd the landmark through any proposed redevelopment, and with each step forward our preservation forces grow, and see clearly the kind of people who run Los Angeles and for whom. With the whole world watching, let’s see what they can get away with now.

* * *

And that’s our report on the state of Los Angeles preservation for 2018. To see past years’ lists, click here: 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012. And to stay informed all year round, see our Los Angeles History Happenings group on Facebook, subscribe to our newsletter and visit the Los Angeles Historic Preservation Hotspots map, where you can find nearby trouble spots.

Our guided bus tours return with The Real Black Dahlia on January 5, on the crest of the 72nd anniversary of Beth Short’s disappearance and an especially haunting date to walk in the footsteps of this fascinating and mysterious lady. This tour is nearly full, so reserve soon if you’d like to ride, then stay tuned as we kick off our 12th Anniversary Year of loving, preserving and telling the stories of Los Angeles. See you on (or off) the bus!

yrs,
Kim and Richard
Esotouric

Pickle Works Locked Up and Condemned to Die by Carlton Davis

Posted on October 17, 2018 by Kim Cooper in The Esotouric Blog and tagged 19th century, art dock, arts district, carlton davis, demolition by neglect, downtown los angeles, historic preservation, los angeles river, metro, mta, pickle works, transit.

This is a guest post by Carlton Davis, who was the proprietor of The Art Dock drive-in gallery in the historic Pickle Works building in Downtown Los Angeles’ Arts District in the 1980s. We interviewed Carlton about this extraordinary, endangered landmark in 2013 for Episode #18 of our podcast You Can’t Eat The Sunshine: Peeling Back The Layers of The Arts District. (Update: two weeks later, in November 2018, the Pickle Works burned in an arson fire. Carlton calls out the City and Metro for failing to secure the structure from trespassers whose presence was well known. At the end of January 2019, the facade of the scorched landmark was demolished.)

On the Lowdown on Downtown tour, Carlton Davis, who curated the legendary Art Dock gallery, gazes with dismay at the site of the landmark Pickle Works building that was burned, then demolished, on the city’s watch (February 2019).

Affordable artists’ housing advocate Jonathan Jerald holds an oil painting of the 19th century landmark Pickle Works on the site of its demolition. (February 2019).

* * *

What a tragedy that the City of Los Angeles is actively erasing the history and culture of the Arts District, a neighborhood that no longer supports working artists, while capitalizing on their reputation. God save the Pickle Works! The final decision on its fate will be made at the Regular Metro Board of Directors Meeting on Thursday, October 25, 2018.

* * *

Art Dock and Doorways, Citizens Warehouse aka Pickle Works, Los Angeles, CA, August, 2018

Steel bars, angles, and heavy mesh imprison the Art Dock, all the ground floor openings, and doorways of the Citizens Warehouse. No trespassing signs declare violators will be prosecuted for parking on the street. The once vibrant artist residences and studios are vacant and have been since the city of Los Angeles purchased the building in 2000 for construction of the Gold Line light rail extension into East LA. A 60-foot section of the old warehouse next to the First Street Bridge was demolished for construction staging. The destruction was needless. In October 2018, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) eagerly awaits planning permission to demolish what remains of this 1880s brick warehouse with its hand-hewn redwood columns and beams, oak plank floors, and pickle vats in the basement. The Division 20 Environmental Impact Study (DEIR) declared it necessary. This is after MTA’s promises to preserve the building; after passionate historic preservationists’ and art community leaders’ requests that the Citizens Warehouse be saved.

The MTA lied for almost 18 years about its intentions. It made promises to save the building. Community pressure caused LA City’s engineering department to “restore” the south end of the building, which they had left as a plywood-covered eyesore, as a supposedly good faith effort to save the historic structure, which is one of the few, if not the only remaining, brick warehouses dating from the 19th Century, and a significant remnant of the flourishing art community in downtown Los Angeles from the late 1970s to 2000. The Potemkin Village reality that hid the true intentions of the city’s transportation planners is obvious from what was ultimately created on the south end of the structure. The wall was given a plaster veneer, and bolted to the wall were sheet metal images of windows with shutters flanking and flower boxes below included part of the imagery. The phony windows became curled and bent from the sun because of the shoddy method of their installation. The few bolts attaching the painted sheet metal resulted in a strange tableau of twisted metal like crushed pieces of chewing gum slapped to the façade. It is comical, but revealing.

The proclivity of Los Angeles development is to disregard the past as impeding process to the future. While mass transit is desperately needed in a city choked with traffic, it too often comes with the price of bulldozing the city’s existing context. This is nothing new. The fate of the Citizens Warehouse follows the honored stance of development over everything else. Now locked up inside steel bars the empty building seems haunted by the ghosts of wild spirits it once held. The warehouse/pickle works is condemned to death for being too full of creative energy. Once an important element of a burgeoning art community, the lost lofts become a metaphor for the lose of the art community in the Los Angeles Arts District. A neighborhood of rambunctious energy turns into a tame zone of cell phone-preoccupied and latte-sipping crowds of wannabes.

Designated the Arts District by the city, the area east of Alameda celebrated and declared Los Angeles’ rise to be a world class center of multi-faceted culture. More than just a cinema capital, LA matures into an art Mecca rivaling New York, London, and Paris. The Arts District, however, is no longer a realization of art’s importance in LA; it is a very profitable real estate venture. The district has become a developer’s dream. Cheaper land close to the government and business centers of the metropolis invited capital investment in new apartment buildings replacing the low density lofts. A few lofts remain, but the square foot cost rose from 12 cents paid in 1980 to an estimated 2 dollars or more currently. Artists can no longer afford to live in the Arts District. Many of the loft warehouses have morphed into restaurants and chic shops. Others warehouses have been demolished or soon will be. This is the fate of the Citizens Warehouse. The change is inevitable.

In New York City, what was once a viable loft scene, affordable live/work spaces have become the habitats of the rich. Soho has galleries and fancy restaurants, but not many working artists. Galleries pander to the acquisitive desires of the well-off who can afford the rents. Artists have dispersed into other boroughs and cities. In Los Angeles, artists scattered to other neighborhoods. The Arts District became attractive. Where there once few restaurants, the area has some pretty expensive eateries. Internationally renowned gallery Hauser & Wirth established itself on Third Street in the heart of the Arts District. It is the punctuation mark on the change that is and will become the icon of another reality about art zones. It’s all about money and who gets it. Except for a few, most artists don’t get the money, but many artists attract the money to where they were. Culture evolves from creativity to financial gain.

The Art Dock installations in the 1980s. Karen Kristin’s Wolf at the Door (above) and Drew Lesso’s and Neal Taylor’s Pile of Leaves in the dock and coal in the street (below)

For our 12th (linen) wedding anniversary, we delivered the Bradbury Building basement hoard to the Huntington Library

Posted on June 29, 2018 by Kim Cooper in The Esotouric Blog and tagged 19th century, 20th century, architectural renderings, archives, blueprints, bradbury building, downtown los angeles, erin chase, george wyman, historic-cultural monument, huntington library, j. lee burton, paul mckelvey, sumner hunt, theo eisen.

Twelve years ago this week, Alicia Bay Laurel married us in the garden of the Velaslavasay Panorama with psychic cats, a cool jazz trio, eats by Papa Cristo’s, Ernst Haeckel sheet cakes, Scholium Project wine (thanks, Abe), and all our friends. It’s been a wild, sweet ride so far!

Being married to someone who shares your passions is a lot of fun, and our greatest shared passion is uncovering and preserving the history, culture and built environment of Los Angeles.

Anniversary gifts aren’t compulsory in our home, but over the years we’ve given each other a neat collection of L.A.-centric books, photos and artifacts. This 12th year (traditional: linen), the gift was more conceptual, and maybe the best one yet, because we get to share it with future generations, and with you.

A few years ago, we got to know the McKelvey family, the owners of the Bradbury Building from the 1940s through 1989. Their loving stewardship helped preserve this 19th century landmark against serious threats to its survival. It’s hard to imagine, but there was a time not very long ago that the Bradbury Building was considered too vulnerable to fire or earthquake to keep its occupancy permit. Through faith and hard work, minds were changed and the building saved. Every L.A. architecture lover should breathe a sigh of gratitude to the McKelveys.

While working in the Bradbury basement one day in 1986, Paul McKelvey stumbled across a collection of very old architectural renderings and blueprints. They were delicate and interesting, so he tucked them in a rainbow colored ski bag for safe-keeping, and ended up carting that bag from place to place for the past three decades. Could we see them, we asked? Sure!

And from a high shelf, covered in the dust of decades and tumbling out all over Paul’s work table, came a stunning collection of early Los Angeles landmarks: Doheny Mansion, Good Samaritan Hospital, the Old Soldier’s Home in Westwood, Bullocks Wilshire. And such storied names: John Parkinson, John C. Austin, A.C. Martin, Theo Eisen, Sumner Hunt.

We carefully unrolled a few of these time capsule documents of landmarks lost and still standing, marveling at the tiny, precise penmanship, the backstage details, the penciled additions suggesting a quick conference with the client.

Among the rolls was a single sheet we gasped to see: the Third Street facade of the Bradbury Building itself, a blueprint bearing the early construction date of 12/25/1891 and the name of that remarkable architectural neophyte whose design for the demanding silver magnate Bradbury continues to astonish. George Wyman built me, says the blueprint. (The newspapers of the time said the same, but a stubborn conspiracy theory claims the real architect was Sumner Hunt, and that Wyman was elevated in a mid-century prank by the science fiction crowd on architectural historian Esther McCoy. It’s nice to have more evidence to put that claim to rest the next time our pal Nathan Marsak, The Cranky Preservationist, taunts us with it.)

Naturally, we wondered what Paul planned to do with the collection. He didn’t really know. He’d removed the documents from the basement to protect them, had looked after them for 32 years, and felt the weight of the responsibility. He was open to handing these artifacts off, if the right home could be found. So we introduced him to Erin Chase, assistant curator of architecture and photography at the Huntington Library, and after expressing great interest in the collection—and observing that the Bradbury blueprint is the only known 19th century rendering of this beloved landmark—she explained how the Huntington would preserve the delicate plans, digitize them, contextualize them in a massive collection of related material and make them available for researchers, should he chose to make a gift.

After discussing the proposal with his family, Paul decided the Huntington was the right home for the Bradbury Building basement hoard. And that is how we found ourselves celebrating our anniversary by driving down to Laguna Beach to pick up the famous rainbow colored ski bag and its contents, and delivering the lot to Erin Chase at the Huntington the next morning.

We’re so pleased that we could play a part in ensuring these fascinating documents are preserved, and concluding their journey in the climate controlled aisles of the Huntington archive. If you’re a researcher who would like to consult them, keep an eye out for the finding aid once the collection has been fully accessioned.

But maybe there will be a chance to see part of the collection as soon as this fall, when the Huntington will host Erin Chase’s timely exhibition, Architects of a Golden Age: Highlights from The Huntington’s Southern California Architecture Collection. Will something from the ski bag make the cut? After the sheets are stabilized and given a deep cleaning, we sure hope so. You’ll just have to see the show to find out.

For now, we hope you enjoy this small selection of images from Paul McKelvey’s generous gift, a glimpse into a thrilling time in Los Angeles, when the town was small but filled with ambitious architects and businessmen yearning to make a mark, and some terrific buildings got made.

Bradbury Building Third Street facade by George Wyman, with the early pre-construction date of 1891. The only known 19th century rendering of the landmark!

Bradbury Building facade door detail by George Wyman. The only known 19th century rendering of the landmark!

Old Soldiers Home Chapel by J. Lee Burton.

Boston Store facade by Theo Eisen

Lion head detail on The Boston Store facade by Theo Eisen

Potomac Building facade by Curlett-Eisen-Cuthbertson, 200 block of Fort Street (later Broadway)

Detail of windows on Potomac Building by Curlett-Eisen-Cuthbertson (200 block of Fort Street, later Broadway)

Detail of the Potomac Building by Curlett-Eisen-Cuthbertson (200 block of Fort Street, later Broadway)

Curlett-Eisen-Cuthbertson signature panel

Doheny Mansion experts are excited to learn of these plans for the bowling alley pavillion at Chester Place by Eisen and Wyman

Details for bowling alley pavillion at Doheny Mansion Chester Place by Eisen and Wyman

Eisen and Son signature panel

Theo Eisen’s modernization plan for Good Samaritan Hospital operating room, circa 1913

Theo Eisen’s signature on the Good Samaritan Hospital update plans

Vintage Mercury Blue Print Company tape

Whither the Peabody-Werden House?

Posted on May 29, 2018 by Kim Cooper in The Esotouric Blog and tagged 19th century, adaptive reuse, boyle heights, elacc, historic preservation, metro, redevelopment.

Earlier this month, concerned by social media chatter about trespassers and trash around the Peabody-Werden House in Boyle Heights, we renewed our attempts to get someone at ELACC, the low-income housing developer that moved the house two years ago, to update us on their plans for the property.

It turns out there’s been a lot of turnover on ELACC’s staff, and our past inquiries slipped through the cracks. A meeting with ELACC was arranged outside the house on a misty, warm morning, also attended by local historian-activists Shmuel Gonzalez and Dapper Dyke Vivian Escalante.

Across 1st Street, a victim of the flames

Across the street, a cute little bungalow that had been the big house’s neighbor for a century was open to the sky, having recently caught fire. But over on the Metro lot, the Peabody-Werden house was sealed up tight, with concentric rings of chain link fencing, plywood over the windows and a motion detector sniffing for trouble. On the porch above, a mummified cat stood silent guard.

What’s the plan, we asked? It’s slowly coming together, they told us. Restoration and activation of the historic house is tied to a new housing development on the west side of Soto Street, and that project is several years from completion. The general plan is for the old house to remain on the Metro lot, where it can serve as a community arts center, though it could also be non-profit offices or serve some other public use.

We’re encouraged by the increased security around the house and by ELACC’s interest in preserving it. Now that communication lines are open again, we’ll keep the conversation going, and post updates as we have them. Until then, please keep a watchful eye on the big blue Victorian at the corner of 1st and Soto Streets. She’s got a lot of life left in her, and it’s up to all of us who care to help keep her standing strong until the plywood come off and she becomes a part of Boyle Heights’ living history once more.

In the alley, a gentleman rests with his possessions

Angles and columns

A later addition at the back, partly removed

It was this unusual half-timbered prediment that inspired us to try to save the house

The spirit of this mummified cat watches over the old house

The basement is secured

A large space under the house nearly doubles its square footage

Looks like a Coop fan lived here

Looking west, towards the new project that will rise with this one

Preservation and ELACC people, imaging the possibilities

Esotouric’s Los Angeles Historic Preservation 2017 year-end list

Posted on January 2, 2018 by Kim Cooper in The Esotouric Blog and tagged 19th century, 20th century, adaptive reuse, angels flight, arcadia, art deco, art deco society, bell gardens, bungalow court, bunker hill, california state register, cbs television city, community redevelopment agency, courtland jindra, covina, cra, crossroads of the world, demolition by neglect, downey, downtown los angeles, echo park, elysian park, facade illumination, frank gehry, heather apartments, Higgins-Verbeck-Hirsch Mansion, historic preservation, historic-cultural monument, hollywood, hollywood reporter, hotel californian, hotel cecil, john c. austin, john parkinson, jose huizar, joseph young, kurt meyer, lacma, laurie olin, lawrence halprin, led lights, Lena Kouyoumdjian, los angeles conservancy, metropolitan water district, mission revival, Musicians’ Union Local 47, national register, neon, parker center, pershing square, post-modernism, programmatic, rancho los amigos, redevelopment, remuddling, ricardo legorreta, sheila klein, signage, small lot development, streamline moderne, street art, sugar hill, sunset strip, tony rosenthal, vermonica, victor heights, victory memorial grove, vine street, Welton Becket, west adams, west hollywood heritage project, westlake, william l. pereira, wilshire boulevard, wurfl court, xorin balbes.

Gentle reader…

As we slam the door on 2017, it’s time for that annual Esotouric tradition: our very opinionated list of the past year’s Top Los Angeles Historic Preservation Stories.

Because preservation is never as simple as buildings being lost forever or rescued from the brink, the list is split into three sections: the Gains, the Losses, and those Bittersweet moments that hover somewhere in the middle, and keep us up nights. We hope you find the list by turns thought-provoking, infuriating and inspiring, and that 2018 will see some of the Bittersweets tip over onto the Gains side of the fence.

Los Angeles Historic Preservation Gains of 2017:

G1. Angels Sing: After several years of non-operation, during which time the lovely little landmark suffered grave humiliation, Angels Flight Railway returned to daily service, thanks to a private partnership cemented by the Mayor’s Office, in direct response to the pleas of civic petitioners like you.

G2. Such A Lovely Place: After Westlake’s Hotel Californian burned in 1995, only the most optimistic preservationist—is there such an animal?—dared dream its massive, rusting twin neon roof signs would ever glow again. But dreams can come true when people care enough to do the work. And while a recent transformer issue has temporarily shut off the lights, soon you’ll again be able to marvel at that sweet script in the sky.

G3. In Sacred Memory: Angelenos who fell in the Great War have no better friend than Courtland Jindra, the modest preservation powerhouse who sleuths out the locations and histories of local war memorials, and has recently added restoration to his resume. Victory Memorial Grove was a forgotten ruin on the edge of Elysian Park, but thanks to Courtland and his crew, it is once again a beautiful place of remembrance, with new tree plantings to come.

G4. Dream Factory: Against the backdrop of Hollywood’s hyper-development excess, one project stands out for its audacious attempt to redesign Sunset Boulevard itself. Named for the exquisite National Register landmark at its eastern edge, Crossroads of the World seeks to demolish dozens of 1930s apartment units and the historic art deco HQ of The Hollywood Reporter. But not so fast, bulldozers: thanks to the passionate advocacy of local preservationists and historians, our company town landmark now has some civic protection. Special thanks to the Art Deco Society, with its new focus on writing landmark nominations.

G5. Final Exit: The Hotel Cecil was just another of Downtown L.A.’s 1920s-era low-income residency hotels, and occasional stop on our true crime tours, when a pitch-perfect internet-era mystery captured the world’s attention. While Vancouver tourist Elisa Lam’s sad death inside the rooftop water tower was ruled accidental, public fascination with the Cecil’s supposed curse has only intensified. But despite the lobby’s unfortunate recent faux finishes, the old girl has great bones, and new management that’s sought and received historic landmark designation. Restoration coming soon.

G6. Rock On: If you love music history, Hollywood history, civil rights history and great architecture, then Musicians’ Union Local 47 matters to you. Founded in 1897, its members have shaped motion picture soundtracks since the dawn of the talkies, and uncountable hit records. The handsome Vine Street union hall, master architect Gordon Kaufmann’s last commission, became one of the first integrated performance guilds in America in 1953. The union recently sold the building and moved to Burbank, but the future of the old union hall is a little less uncertain now that it’s passed the first hurdle on the road to becoming an Historic Cultural Monument. Cheers to John Girodo of Hollywood Heritage for writing a terrific nomination.

G7. Home Is Worth Fighting For: Hurrah for Lena Kouyoumdjian, who successfully nominated her lovely rental, in one of Echo Park’s rare surviving bungalow courts, as a landmark. These distinctly Southern California compounds are rich with history, and provide a rare sense of community in the heart of the city. But Wurfl Court faced that growing threat: demolition of historic rent-stabilized housing stock for a newly-permitted “small lot development” of high-priced tiny houses. Of note: landmarking is contagious, and successful nominations inspire future fights.

G8. Sugar Pill: The Cranky Preservationist went down to Sugar Hill, West Adams to gripe about the hipster murals that had defaced a fine old house (inside and out), but it turns out 2200 Harvard has been sold, and is finally getting some respect.

Los Angeles Historic Preservation Losses of 2017:

L1. Joe Friday Wept: The Cultural Heritage Commission tried, but couldn’t overcome City Council’s plan to clear a large plot by City Hall for development. In the cross hairs: Welton Becket’s masterful mid-century Parker Center (“not one of [his] best works” – Councilman Jose Huizar, justifying a travesty), the world’s first modern police administration building and the finest International Style structure in L.A.’s portfolio. Demolition appears inevitable, but first the city must document the building, and ensure the removal and re-installation of integrated art pieces by Joseph Young and Tony Rosenthal. Preservationists and even one of the architects lament the city’s short-sightedness.

L2. Hot Stuff: Since 1910, the magnificent Mission Revival-style Heather Apartments have occupied the slightly sinister address of 666 South Bonnie Brae, but it’s years since anyone has lived inside. In April, the Santa Ana winds picked up an arsonist’s spark and tuned this derelict gem into kindling wood. The fire department’s photos are astonishing, and the Cranky Preservationist aghast.

L3. His Horrid Hobby: Imagine, if you will, spending years painstakingly restoring a magnificent 1902 mansion by Griffith Observatory architect John C. Austin, seeing it declared a landmark, then selling for a pretty penny. A happy ending, yes? Not when the buyer is serial home wrecker Xorin Balbes (not his real name), who felt that all that gorgeous dark wood had to go. Just a few months later, the “protected” Higgins-Verbeck-Hirsch Mansion is languishing on the market, the best illustration we know for how desperately Los Angeles needs an interior landmarking ordinance.

L4. His Excellency Regrets: Sometimes we only learn of a landmark when informed of its pending loss. Such was the case with a fine Koreatown mansion which, we discovered when researching the address, had been the home-in-exile of Mexican Revolutionary General Maytorena. Illegal demolition stymied any attempt at saving the home or its stunning stained glass.

L5. Park It: It’s no secret that we’re in love with John Parkinson’s 1910 design for Pershing Square, and yearn to see it return. But that doesn’t mean we’re enjoying the city’s slow destruction of the extant Ricardo Legorreta + Laurie Olin Brutalist park plan and its integrated artwork. Meanwhile, an unfunded redesign scheme now proposes to block the classic Biltmore view with LED lights. Is it so hard to just do the sensible thing and restore?

L6. No Room To Grow: It’s ironic, as LACMA scrounges around for a billion dollars to finance demolition of its iconic 1965 William Pereira campus for a slightly smaller Wilshire-spanning mausoleum, that it leased A.C. Martin’s & S.A. Marx’ streamline moderne May Company department store to the Academy for a museum of the movies. That project has hit some potholes, but none deep enough to stop the removal of the back half of the building.

L7. Storm The Bastille: When hillside Silver Lake bar-restaurant El Cid demolished half of its sidewalk-facing wall, it broke our hearts. Although altered somewhat since 1925, that windowless facade, with a wide door at the center, was built as a daffy roadside attraction, the Jail Cafe, featuring waiters in prisoner stripes serving swells chicken dinners, with no silverware, inside mock jail cells. The world is a little less weird for loss of that wall.

L8. Lights Out: A concerned fan sounded the alarm that Vermonica, artist Sheila Klein’s beloved 1993 installation of historic L.A. streetlights had mysteriously vanished from its East Hollywood parking lot home. Turns out, street lighting staff had reclaimed the poles, but failed inform the artist. Something that is Not Vermonica currently shines on a nearby city building, but Klein and the Mayor’s office are now in talks to bring the real deal back to the city that loves it.

L9. Brookfield Broke It: When the Community Redevelopment Agency demolished every building on Bunker Hill, Los Angeles was promised something new and useful in return for the lost Victorian neighborhood. High-rise developers received huge subsidies to provide public art and amenities, in return for agreeing to maintain these civic handouts. Flash forward to last week, when Brookfield Properties, recent buyer of Wells Fargo Tower, illegally demolished landscape architect Lawrence Halprin’s Crocker Court (1983), an oasis of running water, mature plants and world-class sculpture. The timing couldn’t have been more shocking: a touring Halprin exhibition was at the A+D Museum, and the Los Angeles Conservancy had just toured the site. The Cranky Preservationist explains where the buck stops, here.

Los Angeles Historic Preservation Bittersweet Moments of 2017:

B1. Bad News: It’s been a long, slow slide for the Los Angeles Times since the Chandler family sold the paper. The Chicago owners continue to bleed its assets, recently selling the landmark (but not actually landmarked) newspaper buildings to Canadian developer Onni Group. Onni is marketing the compound as a hip work space, with Times staff likely evicted by summer. If the newspaper leaves, what of the magnificent Globe Lobby? It would be a civic and aesthetic crime to take it apart, even assuming the newspaper still owns its artifacts, which is uncertain. As for William Pereira’s masterful, if misunderstood, 1973 addition: Onni wants to demolish it for twin glass towers. There’s a reason no local developer bought the Times compound: if respect for a Los Angeles institution was included in the equation, the financials just didn’t pencil out. That’s not an issue for foreign investors. So if any local billionaires are reading this, it’s your last chance to buy paper and preserve its historic home.

B2. Covina on The Nile: Covina Bowl (Powers, Daly, and DeRosa, 1956) closed last March, leaving fans and preservationists concerned about the fate of the wildest Egyptian-Googie bowling center in the world. Eligible for the National Register, the exotic white elephant patiently waits for a visionary to save it, or a villain to knock it down.

B3. Frank Slept Here: Doug Quill is a filmmaker with an office on the old United Artist’s / Goldwyn Studios lot. When he learned that Frank Sinatra’s personal bungalow was threatened by demolition to make room for a DWP infrastructure project, he petitioned to save it. It seemed the least he could do, since his grandfather had played in Sinatra’s band! After Doug asked for help from the DWP Commissioners, the bungalow got a stay of execution while possible solutions are explored. It’s not saved, but still standing, so there’s hope.

B4. Rhymes With Kitten: We’re big fans of architect Kurt Meyer, who was the firm hand at the CRA that ensured that Central Library was preserved and restored. Now one of his own finest buildings, the marvelous mid-century Lytton Savings, is threatened. Although recently designated as a landmark, starchitect Frank Gehry refuses to adapt his project to spare Meyer’s work. It will be up to the courts, City Council and the continued dedication of Lytton lovers Steven Luftman and Keith Nakata, to keep this art-drenched Sunset Strip gem intact.

B5. Attractive Nuisance: Victorian Los Angeles provided a safe place for its indigent and ill, a vast farm and industrial complex called Rancho Los Amigos, aka The Downey Poor Farm. Today, its decaying buildings are fenced and shuttered, which only sometimes keeps out the urban explorers who have defaced the buildings with graffiti and set a series of major fires. But after decades of indecision, the County is taking a serious look at how best to redevelop the site, and we’re encouraged to hear that preservation of existing structures is on the table. Hopefully, affordable housing will be on the table, too.

B6. Elegant Decay: Also in Downey, are things finally looking up for the columned Rives Mansion, a National Register landmark badly neglected by its “owners” (owners in quotes, because they stopped paying their mortgage years ago)? Finally, after a fence collapsed from the weight of accumulated garbage, the bank and city took notice. The mansion sold in December, hopefully to a preservation-minded buyer.

B7. Adobe Don’t: One of the oldest houses in Los Angeles County, home to a California Governor, molders away in the middle of a Bell Gardens trailer park, desperately in need of roof and electrical work and informed interpretation. A recent L.A. Magazine feature looks at the Gage Mansion preservation problem, but fails to cover all the drama of our years-long public access battle. For that story, join us on the South L.A. Road Trip!

B8. A Dog-Gone Shame: In 1938, veterinarian to the stars Eugene C. Jones commissioned architects Walter Wurdeman and Welton Becket, in a rare collaboration, to design a Streamline Moderne animal hospital. Decades later, the neglected structure was hidden behind overgrown trees, and its provenance deliberately obscured by development-happy politicos. West Hollywood Heritage Project discovered the subterfuge, and have tirelessly campaigned to save this endangered landmark. We were encouraged when the Los Angeles Conservancy joined the cause and sued West Hollywood to compel preservation, then horrified when the back side of the “vacant” building caught fire, with a homeless man, known to the owners to be living inside, killed by smoke inhalation. Arson and murder investigations are ongoing. But a judge has ruled against preservation, which leaves us hoping developer inertia leaves the door open for the still gorgeous building to be moved. If it falls, it won’t be without notice.

B9. Too Cool Too Lose: After initial discussions about demolishing not just the buildings, but perhaps even the prominent hill on which they sit, serious architectural and landscape guns were brought in to redevelop William Pereira’s neglected Metropolitan Water District HQ, a prime focus of our Pereira in Peril campaign. We’re watching this project with cautious optimism.

B10. Star Power: Another day, another Pereira in Peril (there’s LACMA, too, see L6 above). CBS Television City, the world’s first and most glamorous purpose-built TV production studio, is on the market. Concerned that inflated land values make demolition likely, the Los Angeles Conservancy has stepped in with a landmarking nomination, their first such attempt to preserve an endangered Pereira compound. In a Times Op-Ed, ironic since their own Pereira building is endangered, Zev Yaroslavsky highlights the need to preserve an architectural and cultural treasure that supports high paying professional jobs.

B11. Pulling Strings: The landmark Bob Baker Marionette Theater will be be demolished, but Baker’s magical puppet shows going to return to a new theater inside the development project slated for the site.

B12. Men Behaving Badly: For film fans, the sudden shuttering of the Cinefamily non-profit was a cultural loss. For emotionally abused employees and volunteers, it was a validation and relief. But preservationists and Hollywood historians lament the closure of the Silent Movie Theatre in its 75th year of operation, and hope this isn’t its final curtain.

B13. Tails We Lose: For all the owners’ big talk about bringing the beloved Tail O’ The Pup stand out of storage and restoring it for a new generation of photo ops and quick meals, nobody did the actual work required to launch a restaurant. The end of the line for the promised roadside revival is a static museum display. And the original wasn’t even in the valley! Meanwhile, to the east, the world’s biggest tamale is also in mothballs.

B14. Daffy Deco Gone Dark: Among our most-missed tour stops is Monrovia’s incredible Aztec Hotel (1924), actually Mayan-inspired and designed by eccentric English architect Robert Stacy-Judd, who held court there in ancient Central American ritual garb. The National Register landmark has had hard times since the start, with repeated foreclosures and some downright peculiar “restoration” work. The hotel reverted to the bank in 2011, and was purchased by a Chinese investor. Although the storefronts remain active, and the restaurant recently reopened, the hotel remains inaccessible, undergoing agonizingly slow renovations. We’re hoping for a grand reopening in 2018.

B15. Band-Aid Solution: New chain-link fencing ruins the beauty of Pasadena’s National Register Colorado Street Bridge. It’s not that we’re insensitive to how important it is to help people thinking of self-harm, but the bridge already has integrated suicide prevention fencing that was installed when it was restored in 1992, which blended in with the design of the span. This new fencing is very ugly, and blocks off the alcove benches that give pedestrians a place to rest and look at the view. The bridge deserves better, and we’re glad to hear the city will be exploring alternative designs.

B16. Stone Drag: Charles Fletcher Lummis saved the California Missions, and did much to preserve the history of Native Americans and Mexican California. If only that great Western booster was around to advocate for the preservation and reactivation of his own historic home El Alisal, city owned, minimally managed by Rec and Parks, and brimming with potential. Every year that goes by without regular cultural programming at Lummis House is a heartbreaking civic failure.

B17. Just Because You Can: Everyone loves the Bradbury Building, California’s greatest surviving Victorian commercial space. Well, everyone except the uninspired folks behind the insensitive LED lighting scheme which makes the exterior remarkably ugly after dark.

B18. Doesn’t Mean You Should: When William Kesling’s streamline moderne Wallace Beery House (1936) was recently on the market, the listing highlighted its remarkable condition and unique machine-age charms. The realized price reflected the home’s condition and rarity. What an unpleasant year-end surprise, then, to learn it had been purchased by a developer eager to demolish the house for a dense cluster of condos. Preservationists have kicked into high gear, hoping to protect this gem.

B19. Vegas on Vine: Remember Onni Group, the Canadians eager to evict the newspaper from the Los Angeles Times building? They’re busy in Hollywood, too, with an outrageous proposal to erect a landlocked cruise ship looming over the lovely Afton Square District, which is designed on the California State Register. The project seeks a 35% density bonus, and proposes to move a collection of historic bungalows around like pawns on a chessboard and demolish a fine 1930 Art Deco market. Although presented as 429-unit apartment complex (hey, L.A. needs housing!), we suspect it will be another unpermitted hotel, a destructive model Onni got in trouble over at home in Vancouver before importing to L.A.

B20. Spinning Wheel: On a hot summer’s day in sleepy Arcadia, where the last Googie-style Van De Kamp’s Holland Dutch Bakery restaurant (1967) stands proudly on Huntington Boulevard, Denny’s executives were on hand to throw the switch on the restored, spinning windmill sign, a beloved local landmark brought back to life through the Quixotic efforts of former mayor George Fasching. Last week, after just 18 months of service, the restored Van De Kamp’s windmill blade fell off the tower. A few days earlier, we saw no sign of trouble. Locals are shocked and eager for assurance that Denny’s will re-restore, but as yet there’s been no official word on what went wrong or on plans for the sign’s future.

* * *

And that’s our report on the state of Los Angeles preservation for 2017. To see past years’ lists, click here: 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012. And to stay informed all year round, see our Los Angeles History Happenings group on Facebook, subscribe to our newsletter and visit the Los Angeles Historic Preservation Hotspots map, where you can find nearby trouble spots.

Our guided bus tours return with The Real Black Dahlia on January 6, on the crest of the 71st anniversary of Beth Short’s disappearance and an especially haunting date to walk in the footsteps of this fascinating and mysterious lady. This tour is nearly full, so reserve soon if you’d like to ride, then stay tuned as we kick off our 11th Anniversary Year of loving, preserving and telling the stories of Los Angeles. See you on (or off) the bus!

yrs,
Kim and Richard
Esotouric

An Esotouric Kentucky Road Trip to experience the 2017 American Eclipse Totality

Posted on September 7, 2017 by Kim Cooper in The Esotouric Blog and tagged 19th century, 20th century, caves, eclipse, historic preservation, kentucky, national register, road trip, roadside attractions, signs.

The total solar eclipse that slashed across the continental US on August 21 provided a great excuse to take our favorite kind of road trip: a few semi-scheduled days roaming the blue highways, seeking out historic Main Streets, graveyards, roadside attractions, diners, storefronts and nice folks who are willing to stop what they’re doing and show us around old buildings.

Since a big part of the pleasure is bringing back photos to share. won’t you join us for a virtual excursion, from Nashville to Bowling Green, Mammoth Cave to Cave City, #EclipsevilleUSA to the shadow of the Kentucky State Penitentiary to the cosmos and beyond?

We touched down Friday afternoon in humid Nashville, picked a Ford from the rental fleet and bee-lined to Mount Olivet Cemetery (1856), home to the tallest of the many Confederate memorials we’d see on this trip. Try as we might, we couldn’t escape the politicization of these times: lurking in the shade nearby, a couple of tough looking fellows sat in a camouflage SUV, just kind of… watching. Not wishing to rile them, and meaning the monument no harm, we ambled off to admire mossy crypts in the Egyptian, Moorish and Southern Gothic styles. The possible presence of these lurking “Monument Guards” is something history lovers should be aware of when visiting southern graveyards, or other places where the Confederacy has left its mark.

Confederate memorial (lurking protectors not shown)

Avenue of sphinx, a wife’s memorial to her husband

soulful watchers

white paws

Richard is a cat person

A glass doored crypt reveals…

casket visible in carson crypt 2 mount olivet

Daniel F. Carter mausoleum, which shines like spun sugar

Moorish details on the Carter mausoleum

Egyptian arch and basin

Gothic memorial

Hillman memorial

Memorial trees for a husband and wife

After a congenial supper at Monell’s Germantown’s communal table of all-we-could-eat catfish, greens, slaw and ‘nilla wafer specked banana pudding, we took our table mates’ advice and strolled through the Italian Lights festival on Bicentennial Mall. Diet tip: chasing fireflies across the lawn is a swell way to work off a heavy meal.

Next stop: Bowling Green, KY. It was Saturday and BGSU’s special collections library was shut, so we couldn’t call up select novelties from their famed pop culture holdings. But the sleepy town proved plenty novel.

In a tiny and apparently nameless Civil War cemetery opposite Lisa’s 5th Street Diner (great twice-fried potato discs!), we felt the weight of time and marveled at the alien beauty of a newborn cicada, its pale wings still expanding for first flight, perched on its own shed skin at the base of a grave. These weird creatures spend long years in the ground, then ascend to the trees to suck sap and make riotous noise with the bass drum in their tummies, and their cacophonous rhythm was the soundtrack for our trip.

Short order kitchen

recent signage adds the nameless cemetery to the Jefferson Davis Highway

an unusual finial

rows of moments in the grass

exotic plants thrive among the graves

mossy monument

Welcoming the baby cicada into the light

Bowling Green is a park-rich town, and Circus Square Park features a cool architectural feature: Standard Filling Station No. 1, restored in 2008 to its original 1920s exterior appearance. The interior has been cleverly altered to serve as a public restroom.

No eclipse road trip would be complete without a flying saucer sighting, and Bowling Green delivered, in the form of Western Kentucky University’s exuberant Hardin Planetarium (1967).

Just down the hill stood a faded classical temple with a vivid blue dome, weeds growing between its ramshackle steps.

An open door lured us to call out, and inside we found Vilson Qehaja, who purchased the former Westminster Presbyterian Church (1912) two years ago at auction and is converting the National Register landmark into a restaurant (Anna’s) and wedding venue (Century Palace).

He graciously took some time away from his work to give us a tour of the project, which has been rich in the surprises (both happy and heart-stopping) to be expected from a century-old building. We were thrilled to have a chance to preview this lovely space as it steers towards its second century, and glad we could thank Vilson personally for making the considerable effort to restore and open it up to the public. Blessed are the entrepreneurial preservationists! And dig that fabulous glass!

Westminster Presbyterian Church steps with weeds

Westminster Presbyterian Church from balcony

Westminster Presbyterian Church scale of work

Westminster Presbyterian Church fireplace

Westminster Presbyterian Church waterlily glass

Westminster Presbyterian Church art glass lozenges

Westminster Presbyterian Church uninscribed glass

Westminster Presbyterian Church hosanna glass

Westminster Presbyterian Church alpha and omega glass

Although we saw nothing that would be called a crowd in Los Angeles, eclipse tourists had reserved all of the ticketed Mammoth Cave tours weeks before. But there was no ticket required to hike down into the primordial forest at Cedar Sink, a beautifully engineered staircase path from the highway that wound down and around and finally into a wet cave system whose ceiling collapsed long ago. Along the way, we saw iridescent blue butterflies, strange wildflowers, tree limbs draped in the filmy sacks of wiggling bagworms and two very weird caterpillars.

On the outskirts of the National Park is Cave City, a highway-facing tourist trap of a town that’s been miraculously spared recent development. Of course, the architectural historian’s miracle is the business owner’s lament, and it didn’t take long for a storekeeper to let us know that Cave City was no longer booze-free (!!), and investment would soon follow. This made us gladder still to have stopped by to see the sights while they were still a mid-century time capsule.

Come October, thrill seekers will presumably be able to scream themselves hoarse inside Raven’s Cross Haunted Village, but on this hot August afternoon, the parking lot was deserted. We couldn’t resist peering into the spooky attraction’s open doors, which seemed unsettling even in bright sunlight. Was that electric sawing sound coming around the bend a technician constructing a scary display, or a serial killer chopping up the previous nosy tourists? We didn’t hang around to find out!

Enticing from the highway.

We entered through the spooky barn,,,

…and found it full of body parts!

A witch’s house with coffin.

Interior design by Ed Gein.

Walking down the hall of horrors…

Last thing we saw before hearing electric tools around the bend!

One of the reasons we travel is to interact with people who are very different from us.

At Mammoth Cave Knife Works, we found ourselves in a spacious shop that seemed to function like the extended living room of the colorful family proprietors. Gleefully politically incorrect, they were also gracious and funny, and ran an admirably tight ship. Richard picked up a nice little bone-handled fruit knife and some insights into life on the Cave City main line.

Across the highway, Redneck Golf was closed for the season or maybe forever, its dusty Astroturf greens guarded by a sun-faded concrete hippo.

Our next stop was Onyx Cave, one of the smaller, privately-run subterranean attractions that surprisingly had space available on the next tour—although we’d soon learn this was because the operator was taking advantage of increased demand to oversell. But our tour group was friendly and didn’t mind pressing close together as Gabrielle, our enthusiastic guide who had only been on the job for a couple of months, did a great job of telling the story of the beautiful cave’s accidental discovery, unique characteristics, conservation concerns and weird bugs. About halfway through the narrow cave, we outed ourselves as professional tour guides and offered to help with crowd control, and Gabby outed herself as a former Southern Californian, and together we brought the group safely through sheets of dripping wet “cave bacon” and back to the gift shop entrance.

We couldn’t leave Cave City without stopping to admire the celebrated Wig Wam Village #2, America’s oldest surviving ring-of-teepees motel complex. There, inside the towering teepee office, we phoned Kumar Patel, who runs Wig Wam Village #7 in Rialto and let him say howdy to his cross-country innkeeping compatriot, Mir.

Years ago, the basement of the big teepee held a circular souvenir shop. It’s just used for storage now, but we got a big kick out of exploring this unique space and seeing all the cool artifacts down there. Maybe one day it will be a shop again.

As dusk fell, we found ourselves in Russellville, KY, the self-styled “oldest town in Southern Kentucky,” admiring its National Register town square, first with pleasure, then with mounting horror, as we realized that two of the most prominent historic corner buildings are slated for demolition, to be replaced with “boutique hotels.”

It was painfully obvious that the historic downtown is dead, with no stores open and the only restaurant owned by Deborah Hirsch, the person who seeks to knock the landmarks down. Russellville needs help. But destroying history isn’t going to magically bring people to spend money. We don’t understand how the demolition of major contributors to a National Register commercial district can be permitted except in the case of building collapse, and very much hope the town’s leaders will think twice about taking the word of the property developer’s architects that these historic buildings are too far gone to be adaptively reused. They looked solid and beautiful as the sun set, and we hope one day we will see them again.

town fountain

The main drag

russellville bank and drugstore slated for demolition

Doomed bank in the golden hour

Doomed drugstore

Doomed drugstore and its beautiful neighbor.

Doomed bank in context of a great block.

inside one of the doomed buildings

Note the facadectomy at right–someone made an effort to preserve the town center in the past.

Crazy Ray’s looked good, but it wasn’t open. Nothing was open.

But the universe in benevolent, and wouldn’t let us leave Russellville in a preservation funk. As Richard gassed up the car, Kim heard a volley of squeaks and looked up to see dozens of bats taking flight from inside an old chimney. What a thrill! Nice creatures, the bats, congenial. Maybe they can take over some of these derelict old buildings and make something out of them.

On Sunday, we swung through Hopkinsville, KY, the small town that had cleverly branded itself as #EclipsevilleUSA due to its prime position within the totality, still more 24 hours away. The carnival atmosphere was building as we admired the historic storefronts reverberating with an amplified open-air church service, and searched in vain for somewhere to get a cup of tea and a muffin to go.

hopkinsville richard with eclipse window

hopkinsville cocktail bar package liquor sign

hopkinsville bay window and street lights

We mistook a storefront rescue mission for a cafe, and longtime mayor Wally Bryant stepped out to offer a preview of his cosmic testimony and invite us to visit his landmark home afterwards. If the moon’s shadow wasn’t racing ever nearer towards its union with the sun, we’d have taken him up on it. But the road called, and we needed to be on it.

But first, peckish Richard presented himself at the only midway food concession tent that looked like it might be open for business. “Sure—we can deep fry anything!” the cook boasted. Richard opted for an order of Oreo cookies and managed to eat three of the gloopy horrors.

Next stop: Princeton, KY, another small town with more than its share of intact 19th century storefronts. Strolling down the main drag after a hearty grade school lunch of grilled American cheese sandwiches and vegetable soup, we were immediately swept up by native daughter Debbie, who was giving visiting Oklahoma friends a town tour and wanted to know who we were, why we’d come and what we thought of Princeton.

Well, we thought Princeton was just beautiful. It’s unusual among smaller towns because it has an Art Deco WPA courthouse, a handsome jewel box distinguished by a row of three-dimensional busts, among them FDR’s. The old Masonic Hall across the street is pretty special, too.

princeton masonic hall bay window and heads

When we mentioned our plan to drive out to see the old state penitentiary, “The Castle on the Cumberland” on Lake Barklay, Debbie suggested we caravan out to Eddyville together.

But first, we had to see the limestone river cave that was at the old town’s heart (spooky and cool).

And we had to visit Debbie’s pal Nancy, the ham lady.

We somehow had no idea that Princeton, KY is a legendary foodie destination, and that people come from all over the world to taste Newsom’s Country Hams, produced in the 18th century fashion over nearly two years of tending by third-generation smoker Nancy Newsom Mahaffey.

But when we stepped inside her Old Mill Store, it was obvious that we were in the presence of a genius, a place where traditional foodways and public service are twined into a lover’s knot.

We didn’t “discover” Nancy Newsom Mahaffey—that honor belongs to James Beard, in the mid-1970s, and you should click that link and read all about it—but we did enjoy the rare pleasure of stumbling onto Newsom’s Old Mill Store completely unaware. Some of the carnivorous wonder was lost on us as pescatarians, but we still come away with some of the finest treats anyone ever ate out of a jar, including a luscious blackberry cobbler and some unbelievably delicious pickled beet salad. You can order these things, with or without a ham, by mail order from Nancy the ham lady, herself.

princeton newsom real ole time favor sign

princeton newsom pig heads and hanging ham

A little dazed and drunk on the scent of smoked pig, we followed Debbie on to the lakeside hamlet of Eddyville, site of the historic prison. Unfortunately, the state prison system had eclipse fever, too, and a humorless deputy got out of his van to let us know that the lake frontage road with its views of the 19th century prison complex would remain closed until after the solar event. With the trouble in the yard earlier this summer, the warden wasn’t taking any chances on so-called “architectural historians” casing the joint for a bust out.

Well, we’d just have to admire the state penitentiary from the water. Because here comes the main event!

Thanks to the hospitality of our pal Greg Tlapek, seen above plotting our course at his family’s cabin, we took in the eclipse on a pontoon boat off the coast of Lake Barkley, KY, at a spot that boasted about 2.5 long minutes of totality.

After a hearty country breakfast, it took us an hour to motor to the spot, over flooded towns and fields seized by the Tennessee Valley Authority in the 1960s. We stopped close to shore when a heron landed and let us know he believed this was the place.

And then the eclipse began. The long slide into darkness was preceded by waters roiling with big, confused fish jumping for fat bugs and by eagles swooping in to take the fish. It wasn’t dark, but the light wasn’t right. Time seemed off-kilter, too.

And then the shadow came and stopped up the sun, like a kid’s thumb over the lip of a bottle. It was disorienting and wonderful, and in the midst of it we somehow managed to capture a cell phone image of the hole in the sky with the light show exploding all around it.

Then the brightest light that ever was poured out of the hole’s right side and it was summertime again. It was a good 15 minutes until the birds or cicadas made another sound, and before they did, we were talking about traveling however far it took to see another total solar eclipse.

Man, what a show! Space and time contract into a single point and the brain can hardly take it in. Well worth any trouble to experience something so uncanny.

Before flying home from St. Louis, we had one final pilgrimage to make. Richard Nickel is one of our historic preservation heroes. As a young photographer in the 1960s, he documented and single-handedly salvaged some of Chicago’s greatest doomed buildings, with a special focus on the exquisite decorative forms of Frank Lloyd Wright’s teacher, Louis Sullivan.

Overwhelmed by the volume of salvaged material he was collecting ahead of the bulldozer, Nickel partnered with the new Southern Illinois State University at Edwardsville, which purchased much of his collection with the promise to display it. A few years later Nickel was under contract for the university, salvaging elements of the Chicago Stock Exchange, when the floor collapsed and he was killed.

We admire his devotion and singular vision, and mourn his lonesome death. It was very moving to see his astonishing collection, which is installed in and around the university library, in the stairwells and in a quiet double-height gallery near the stacks.

nickel green with red buds national farmers bank

nickel eames and young cornice angel straight on

nickel eames and young cornice angel looking up

Imagine a time when such exquisite, architecturally significant objects were viewed as garbage by most people! It wasn’t all that long ago. As preservation activists, who often come up against such dismissive attitudes surrounding the places we seek to save, this visit—especially in the charged aftermath of the cosmic event—filled our psychic batteries to the brim. We set off for the airport in a state of humming excitement, eager to return to the preservation work that awaited us at home in Los Angeles.

Some friends who we’ve told about our eclipse trip have expressed surprise that didn’t just go to Oregon with all the other Californians. But especially now, with the country so divided, we think it’s important for coastal dwellers to visit red states, to talk to the people and admire their folkways and landmarks. We’re all of us Americans, and not really so different when we come face to face–at least, as long as there isn’t a statue of Robert E. Lee between us. And damn, Kentucky is beautiful. Much too beautiful to write off for political reasons.

Thanks for joining us on this Esotouric road trip, and stay tuned for further adventures at home and in the field.

Going back in time on Santa Cruz Island

Posted on May 18, 2017 by Kim Cooper in The Esotouric Blog and tagged 19th century, bee, channel islands, fox, historic preservation, nature, road trip, santa cruz island.

Last week, we decided we had to get a break from the relentless 2017 news cycle. Which was convenient, because the unseasonably cool weather made it the perfect time to explore one of Southern California’s most inaccessible natural and historic attractions, Santa Cruz Island in the Channel Islands National Park.

It’s best if it’s cool when visiting Santa Cruz Island, because the sheep and pigs who grazed the hills starting in the mid-19th century destroyed the native oaks. Since the island became a protected landscape—the western 76% controlled by The Nature Conservancy, the remaining 24% by the National Parks Service, following a byzantine series of estate battles and eminent domain seizures—these invasive creatures have nearly all been eradicated, small oaks are growing in gullies and the grasses are high.

But shade is rare, and day visitors must come when the sun is high and carry all the water they’ll need on the trail.

We booked passage with the Island Packers outfit (since 1968), arriving at Ventura Marina with minutes to spare before the 9:00am departure. The two-level vessel was full of schoolkids, solo hikers and customers of a kayak tour company. But with many passengers spending the 90-minute trip at the rail, the boat didn’t feel crowded.

The sky was gray and the sea glassy as we shot between the tall oil platforms off Ventura, a reminder of the devastating 1969 Santa Barbara spill which left birds and sea mammals dying on the shore. The sea around the oil rigs is nutrient rich, attracting fish, birds and large mammals. The captain steered off course to visit with a pod of common dolphins, who surfed our wake and performed spectacular jumps to the delight of the rail hangers.

This was a hoot at the time, and on the return voyage when the show was repeated. But we would feel the negative effects of this impromptu detour for much of the day, as we struggled to complete the 8-mile hike from Scorpion Ranch to Smuggler’s Cove and back in time for our 4pm departure. And to spare you, gentle reader, any sympathetic anxiety, we’ll confess we didn’t make it as far as the beach at Smuggler’s, but we also didn’t miss the boat.

But what a magnificent day’s hiking it was! We began in the sunny natural anchorage at Scorpion Ranch, dotted with rusting relics from the ranching days, and pretty old houses set back among flowers. An interpretive center and topographic map provide context for the island, and well-kept pit toilets a last pit stop before setting off into the wild.

The wide, well-maintained dirt road wound up to the crest, red sand glittering with broken bits of abalone shell. Flowering succulents climbed down the cliff walls, each of them a little unfamiliar from those we know on the mainland, like nearly every living thing on Santa Cruz.

Oyster salsify, before…

…and after.

Very soon, we reached the top of the island and began the long, mostly flat hike across this sunny, grassy peak in the middle of the blue sea. It’s an idyllic place that scratched our escapist itch divinely.

A fascinating bonus: the trail was full of colonies of mining bees, busily popping in and out of their individual tube homes to feed their young, and occasionally scrap with each other.

We finally stopped on the ridge overlooking Smuggler’s Cove, for a picnic among the little lizards and scrub oaks. Then back across the island making double time to descend the path to Scorpion Ranch just before the boat departed, where we stole a few moments with the island’s fearless native foxes, who are worth the trip all by themselves. We returned to the 21st century replenished, and recommend this excursion to anyone feeling the weight of modernity heavy on their neck. A little fox’ll do ya!

Update, May 2018: we went back for another ramble, this time around the Nature Conservancy land at Prisoners Harbor, and discovered a towering native Humboldt Lily growing in a gully deep in the interior.

Recommended Reading: For the warts and all history of post-Chumash life, love, conservation and business battles in the Channel Islands, pick up Santa Cruz Island: A History of Conflict and Diversity by John Gherini, a member of one of the last families to own a piece of that contentious rock. If you’d like to hike in our footsteps, archeologist Don Morris’ guidebook to the park side of the island is a fine pocket companion.

19th century

A Modest Proposal for Saving Rancho Los Amigos and Helping the Homeless of Los Angeles County

The National Emergency Library is here for Los Angeles

Elegy for 1326 South Mariposa

Esotouric’s Los Angeles Historic Preservation 2018 year-end list

Pickle Works Locked Up and Condemned to Die by Carlton Davis

For our 12th (linen) wedding anniversary, we delivered the Bradbury Building basement hoard to the Huntington Library

Whither the Peabody-Werden House?

Esotouric’s Los Angeles Historic Preservation 2017 year-end list

An Esotouric Kentucky Road Trip to experience the 2017 American Eclipse Totality

Going back in time on Santa Cruz Island

Upcoming Salons & Seminars

Upcoming Tours

FB pixel