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Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles

@esotouric.bsky.social

2.1K followers 1K following 4K posts

Just a couple of lifers looking out for Los Angeles. Join us for architecture, crime, literature & history tours, preservation battles. Newsletter: http://esotouric.substack.com

esotouric.substack.com

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Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric.bsky.social · Nov 22

Los Angeles is confounding, by design, but it is not unknowable. These folks are telling real L.A. stories if you want to listen.
go.bsky.app/zi1abc

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Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric.bsky.social · 1h

Just in time for Hallowe'en, there is a terrifying (yet strangely alluring) new attraction at the Elmer McCurdy Museum: half lady / half spider hybrid of horrors SPIDORA! Meet her if you dare when you visit www.elmermuseum.com

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Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric.bsky.social · 8h

The owner that never rented the TOC apartments, D and K Con LLC, also sought to demo the School of Eye Education next door—landmark designation saved it. Now it’s fenced and hard to see. What will happen to the protected HCM if the care home is abandoned? cityclerk.lacity.org/lacityclerkc...

Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric.bsky.social · 20h

Also, note the historic houses demolished for the 1540 S St. Andrews Soul Housing facility where the evictions began. This was permitted as TOC apartments, 38 units, 4 extremely low income. So why was it operating as a care home?! www.ladbsservices2.lacity.org/OnlineServic... @emptylosangeles

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Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric.bsky.social · 21h

A decade after we chronicled the sad state of the empty El Mirador Apartments, there are now (very expensive, less lovely than they used to be) units available for lease. Thanks to Janet “Houses of Hollywood” Grey for taking the tour and breaking the news. esotouric.com/elmirador/

Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric.bsky.social · 22h

Remember the June Reddit post about Soul Housing kicking disabled residents out of their for profit facilities?
www.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles...

Insurer Health Net has now severed all ties and hundreds who cannot look after themselves are about to be homeless.
laist.com/news/health/...

From the LosAngeles community on Reddit

Explore this post and more from the LosAngeles community

www.reddit.com

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Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric.bsky.social · 1d

From Rev. Dylan Littlefield on Threads: RIP to Fr. Chris Ponnet, who many of you know from the annual memorial service for L.A.'s unclaimed dead at the County cemetery in Boyle Heights. His kind constancy will be missed this year and always.

Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric.bsky.social · 1d

A thrilling gift of Viennese Expressionist art from the family of refugee gallerist Otto Kallir just announced by LACMA. The Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele paintings will get the headlines, but ten works by the sublimely weird Alfred Kubin is also a score. lacmaonfire.blogspot.com/2025/10/lacm...

Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric.bsky.social · 1d

Gazing into our crystal ball, we see YOU asking to be on the list if there are cancellations for the 10/25 Know Your Downtown LA tour with the Dutch Chocolate Shop and turn of the century basement time capsules. Or you could just book before it sells out! esotouric.com/event/know-y...

KNOW YOUR DOWNTOWN LA: BRADBURY BUILDING, BASEMENTS OF YORE AND THE DUTCH CHOCOLATE SHOP

Visit the post for more.

esotouric.com

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Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric.bsky.social · 1d

Shades of Curren Price and Del Richardson in Los Angeles, except that appointed councilman Bob Miller's Yucaipa City Council colleagues went into closed session, asked him to resign; the indicted Price is still voting and sits on prominent committees. www.redlandsdailyfacts.com/2025/10/07/y...

Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric.bsky.social · 1d

Palisades fire complaint USA v. JONATHAN RINDERKNECHT alleges 1/1/25 blaze intentionally set by Uber driver in a bad mood. Digital activity the gov't considers suspicious: generating dystopian AI art, watching a French rap video with fire starting scenes. archive.org/details/pali...

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Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric.bsky.social · 2d

The good houses are all being snapped up for more than they're worth to be upzoned and demo'd, this one by Lindon Shiao of unsecured, burned down Hollywood cottage infamy. esotouric.substack.com/wilton

2219 Wellesley is a great candidate to move to Altadena. planning.lacity.gov/pdiscaseinfo...

Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric.bsky.social · 2d

Los Angeles is lousy with derelict, vacant buildings and City Hall knows it. Here's a motion, not to compel owners to fix and lease them, but to find ways to wrap them in GIANT FREAKING BILLBOARDS. Come on! We need vacancy tax, eminent domain, restoration, reactivation--not ads!

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Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric.bsky.social · 2d

New date just added for Know Your Downtown Los Angeles, with the Dutch Chocolate Shop and basements of yore. Join us on Saturday, October 25 for a time travel trip esotouric.com/event/know-y...

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Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric.bsky.social · 2d

Prosecutors say Brian K. Williams was desperate to get out of an ongoing virtual meeting with senior Los Angeles City Hall colleagues when he made the false bomb threat... and who amongst us Spring Street watchdogs can't relate? laist.com/news/politic...

Former LA deputy mayor gets probation for fake City Hall bomb threat

Brian Williams called in the bomb threat during a stressful meeting he wanted to get out of, prosecutors say.

laist.com

Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric.bsky.social · 2d

Westwood Memorial Park seeks to demolish the much altered 1924 office building next to the chapel to free up more room for burials. How about moving it to Altadena? planning.lacity.gov/plndoc/Staff...
To be heard by the CHC on 10/16 ens.lacity.org/pln/heritage...

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Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric.bsky.social · 2d

Westwood Memorial Park seeks to demolish the much altered 1924 office building next to the chapel to free up more room for burials. How about moving it to Altdena? planning.lacity.gov/plndoc/Staff...
To be heard by the CHC on 10/16 ens.lacity.org/pln/heritage...

Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric.bsky.social · 2d

Kind of a shock to see the BRADBUR Building at 3rd and Broadway... did the Y just flake off after 132 years?

Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric.bsky.social · 2d

Help us honor Warren Zevon with a City Square in the heart of Hollywood, at the real life Hollywood Hawaiian Hotel site.

Sign it, share it, howl at the moon!

www.change.org/p/help-us-ho...

Sign the Petition

Help us honor Warren Zevon with a City Square!

www.change.org

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Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric.bsky.social · 2d

Now the project is on ice, and these beautiful and important buildings remain mostly vacant, with no plan for redevelopment. The Civic Center would be much improved if they were rented out--or sold to a local owner who cared about them and about Los Angeles.

Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric.bsky.social · 2d

Finally the nomination was submitted and accepted by the Cultural Heritage Commission, only to be rewritten before the PLUM Committee vote by confessed racketeer councilmember Jose Huizar, to make it possible to demolish the Pereira addition for one of two towers.

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Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric.bsky.social · 2d

So we put a dream team together to work on the expanded nomination--then hit the pause button after a threat was conveyed to the group.

Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric.bsky.social · 2d

We only wanted to nominate the Art Deco building, but the city refused to accept a nomination that didn't include the Mirror tower and William Pereira's modernist addition.

Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric.bsky.social · 2d

In case you missed all the drama, buckle up. This was the only landmark designation we ever took on ourselves, at the request of the city's Office of Historic Resources.

Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric.bsky.social · 2d

Onni Group tells the Wall Street Journal www.wsj.com/real-estate/... what we predicted after they sued Nexstar to get out of the 222 W. 2nd St deal last August: the Times Mirror Square project is DOA. How about getting some tenants for these great buildings? esotouric.com/pereira/

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Esotouric's Secret Los Angeles @esotouric.bsky.social · 2d

We've noticed the massive crow's nests around the heads of the saints at Blessed Sacrament, Hollywood for years, but this is the first time we've seen birds in them!

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