by Kim Cooper | Oct 20, 2021 | The Esotouric Blog
When people ask why we get so involved in historic preservation advocacy, despite the frustrations of fighting a pro-development City Hall that’s under multiple indictments for land use corruption, we answer that we feel called to do the work, want to be of...
by Kim Cooper | Oct 15, 2021 | The Esotouric Blog
In 2018, we celebrated the return of two treasures of Downtown Los Angeles to useful service as residential buildings, when the Healthy Housing Foundation purchased the largely vacant King Edward and Baltimore hotels from developer Izek Shomof. Although a binding...
by Kim Cooper | Sep 20, 2021 | The Esotouric Blog
We got the tip late Saturday night: a screenshot from a Nextdoor post, shared by a worried Angeleno who knew we’d take the case. Esotouric is nominally a Los Angeles tour company, but like Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe (the star of one of our more...
by Kim Cooper | Dec 30, 2020 | The Esotouric Blog
A disturbing rumor is circulating on social media that El Pino Famoso—the towering Bunya Pine (Araucaria bidwillii) at Folsom and Indiana on the East Los Angeles / Los Angeles border that was prominently featured in the film Blood In Blood Out—has been deliberately...
by Kim Cooper | Nov 23, 2020 | The Esotouric Blog
In the late 1920s, as Los Angeles was becoming one of the world centers for tire manufacturing, architects Aleck Curlett and Claud Beelman were hired to design a sprawling Renaissance Revival factory complex for Firestone Tire and Rubber Company in South Gate. The...
