Episode #128: Chronicling Mid-Century Modern Long Beach and Lomaland’s Lovely Relics

You Can't Eat the Sunshine

https://esotouric.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/yces-128.mp3

Download Podcast Episode!

Join us this month as we talk with Dr. Louise Ivers, architectural historian and preservationist, about her new book, The Remaking of a Seaside City: Mid-Century Modern Architecture in Long Beach, California. We also visit with Kenneth Small and Robert Ray, Head of Special Collections and University Archives at San Diego State University, to hear about their exhibition, “Revisiting Visionary Utopia: Katherine Tingley’s Lomaland – Theosophy in Contemplative Community, Education and the Arts.”

We’ll also discuss the return of the Los Angeles Times to local, private ownership, Hollywood’s Villa Carlotta reopens for short-term tourist rentals as evicted tenants protest, the city reveals the much higher true costs for the Parker Center demolition project, a nice piece in Los Angeles Magazine about our forensic science seminars, West Hollywood approves the enormous Robertson Lane project (which moves and carves up the National Register landmark Factory building) and the developer launches a misleading website using the name of the Save the Factory preservation campaign, your chance to be the owner of the legendary Cerro Gordo silver mining ghost town, we’re not pleased by Frank Gehry’s relentless attempts to demolish Kurt Meyer’s lyrical, landmarked Lytton Savings Bank, the Wiggins Settlement ensures that half the Hotel Cecil remains low-income housing, CBS Television City moves off the Pereira in Peril list and is now a protected city landmark and Thomas Mann’s house was saved from demolition and now it has a library once again.

The Prodigal
(‘The Kingdom of Heaven is Within You’)
Reginald Machell (1854-1927)
Oil on two separate canvases, c. 1895
Hand-carved frame by the artist
Reginald Machell placed the Hermetic axiom “The knowledge of IT is a divine silence, and the rest of ^ all the senses” centrally in his painting, “The Prodigal.”

URLs for podcast

Revisiting Visionary Utopia exhibit

Revisiting Visionary Utopia exhibit press release

Enso Meditation

Robert Ray contact page

Ken Small’s email fohatdharma [AT] gmail.com

Dr. Louise Ivers’ new book The Remaking of a Seaside City: Mid-Century Modern Architecture in Long Beach, California is available from The Historical Society of Long Beach.

UPCOMING EVENTS

September 23 forensic science seminar on the Chester Turner cold case investigation.

Closely Watched Trains

The Los Angeles Times returns to local, private ownership. The future of the paper’s unlandmarked historic Downtown campus remains uncertain.

Villa Carlotta was a special Hollywood community, its tenants protected by rent control. This week, the building reopened as a transient joint. Evicted residents protested the ribbon cutting. Our podcast about Villa Carlotta, when tenants were being made miserable in their homes is here.

The enormous, true costs are revealed for the proposed replacement tower on the Parker Center site as the city fast-tracks removal of the protected artwork, including Joseph Young’s great “Theme Mural of Los Angeles,” ahead of proposed demolition (video). Our Save Parker Center campaign is here.

Some nice press for our grimmest events: Los Angeles Magazine: Inside the Forensics Seminars Where Laypeople Learn About L.A.’s Most Gruesome Crimes – Esotouric’s Forensic Science Seminars are not for the faint of heart.

West Hollywood approves the enormous Robertson Lane project, which moves and carves the National Register landmark Factory building into a meaningless morsel. The developer also registered a website using the name of the preservation group the fought to “Save the Factory” from such insensitive development.

Cerro Gordo silver shaped the west. Now you can shape the ghost town’s next century—if you’ve got $925,000 and a dream. We hope this unique time capsule finds another great steward to follow in the Patterson family’s footsteps.

Shame on Frank Gehry, who has gone to the courts to secure permission to demolish 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. Our podcast interview about Meyer and Lytton is here.

Thanks to the Wiggins Settlement and the efforts of LA CAN, the Hotel Cecil will remain a schizophrenic building, with just over half the rooms dedicated as SRO low-income units and the remainder renovated hotel rooms. Elisa Lam sleuths will meet some interesting people. (PDF link.)

File under Pereira in Peril, and otherwise: CBS Television City is now a protected city landmark. Cheers to our pal Alan Hess, who wrote the LA Conservancy’s landmarking nomination, and to CBS for coming to the table to craft a preservation solution for the future of its historic broadcast production campus. And the citizens of Fullerton aren’t taking the risk to their Hunt Branch library lightly. Can this gorgeous gift from Norton Simon be saved?

Thomas Mann’s house was saved from demolition, and now it has a library once again.