Tours

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Memorial Day: Tour of historic Savannah Cemetery in Rosemead

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UPDATE:  The back gate to the cemetery will be open, this means you can park off of Mission on Encinita or Claudia Ave. Last year the parking on Valley Blvd was taken up quite early on.

The Ukulady will be in attendance at the event, in full pioneer garb and singing pioneer songs. The set will begin about noon.

To sign up for this free event: First register as a user on this site, and then return to this page. Refresh the page and the signup tab will appear just to the left, above this paragraph. Click “signup” and reserve your spot. No plus-ones; each guest must register individually.

Join us for a Memorial Day celebration at Savannah Memorial Park. Established circa 1851 and recently made a California Historical Landmark (#1046), it is the oldest American cemetery in Southern California.

The City of Rosemead will host an official ceremony at 10:30am, complete with 21-gun salute and a bagpipe accompaniment. Around 12:15pm, following the city ceremony, LAVA members will gather at the main gate and at 12:30pm begin their tour of the cemetery.

Tours guides, all of whom have decades of involvement with the cemetery, will recount the trials and tribulations of the pioneer families who braved the Santa Fe Trail and the Mojave Desert to make their homes in the lowlands of the eastern San Gabriel Valley, before finding eternal rest in these hallowed grounds. You won’t want to miss this very special LAVA excursion which has become an annual tradition.

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All About the TCL Chinese Theatre Tour

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The LAHTF returns to the TCL Chinese Theatre for a comprehensive behind-the-scenes tour. Our seasoned volunteer docents will lead you on a full exploration of the theatre – from the projection booth and Grauman’s private box, to behind the screen and under the stage. Theatre historian Ed Kelsey will present the history of the theatre with vintage photos projected on the big screen. All About the TCL Chinese Theatre presents a unique opportunity to explore Sid Grauman’s masterpiece.

The TCL Chinese theatre will soon close for renovation and restoration work. Areas behind the current screen will be altered as part of the renovation. This will be your last opportunity to visit the staging areas of Sid Grauman’s signature prologues. The LAHTF is working in concert with theatre management and can report that no defining historic characteristics in the auditorium or exterior will be affected in the work that will soon take place. In fact, the TCL Chinese will re-open with state-of-the-art equipment and increased patron comfort. It will still be the best place in the world to see a movie.

Buy your tickets now at https://www.lahtf.org/. This event is sure to sell out.

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Pasadena Confidential crime bus tour

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The Crown City masquerades as a calm and refined retreat, where well-bred ladies glide around their perfect bungalows and everyone knows what fork to use first. But don’t be fooled by appearances. Dip into the confidential files of old Pasadena and meet assassins and oddballs, kidnappers and slashers, Satanists and all manner of maniac in a delightful little tour you WON’T find recommended by the better class of people! From celebrated cases like the RFK assassination (with a visit to Sirhan Sirhan’s folks’ house), “Eraserhead” star Jack Nance’s strange end, black magician/rocket scientist Jack Parsons’ death-by-misadventure and the 1926 Rose Parade grand stand collapse, to fascinating obscurities, the tour’s dozens of murders, arsons, kidnappings, robberies, suicides, auto wrecks and oddball happening sites provide a alternate history of Pasadena that’s as fascinating as it is creepy. Passengers will tour the old Millionaire’s Row on Orange Grove, thrill to the shocking Sphinx Murder on the steps of the downtown Masonic Hall and discover why people named Judd should think twice before moving to Pasadena.

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East Side Babylon crime bus tour

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Go East, Young Crime Fiend!

For years, the devoted and demented crime historians of Esotouric have been stockpiling hideous 20th century crime tales from the east side of the Los Angeles River, and waiting for the perfect moment to spring them upon an unsuspecting world. That moment has arrived. On the EAST SIDE BABYLON tour you’ll discover fascinating, little-known neighborhoods and the grim memories they hold. Come visit Boyle Heights, where the Night Stalker was captured and a mad dad ran amok. Roam the hallowed lawns of Evergreen, L.A.’s oldest cemetery and home of some memorable haunts and strange burials. Visit East Los Angeles, where a deranged radio shop employee made mince meat of his boss and bride–and you can get your hair done in a building shaped like a giant tamale. Explore the ghastly streets of Commerce, where one small neighborhood’s myriad crimes will shock and surprise. Visit Montebello, for scrumptious milk and cookies at Broguiere’s Farm Fresh Dairy washed down with a horrifying case of child murder. All this, and so much more on EAST SIDE BABYLON, Esotouric’s exploration of L.A.’s most horrifying forgotten crimes.

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Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles: In A Lonely Place

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Bungalows. Crime. Hollywood. Blondes. Vets. Smog. Death.

This was Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles, which resonated under deft and melancholy fits from his writer’s bow.

Join us as we go down the mean streets that shaped his fiction, and that in turn shaped his hard-boiled times, in a four hour tour of downtown, Hollywood and surrounding environs: The Los Angeles Athletic Club, the Larry Edmunds Bookshop, the Hotel Van Nuys, Paramount Studio’s gates, and much, much more, including a Chandler-themed gelato stop at East Hollywood cult favorite Scoops.

Through published work, private correspondence, screenplays and film adaptations, we trace Chandler’s search for meaning and his anti-hero Philip Marlowe’s struggle to not be pigeonholed or give anything less than all he has, which lead them both down the rabbit hole of isolation, depression, and drink.

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Blood & Dumplings crime bus tour

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A criminal and gastronomical excursion into the San Gabriel Valley, Blood & Dumplings rolls through Alhambra, Temple City, Monterey Park, Rosemead and El Monte, revealing dozens of weird, forgotten crimes and oddities from the valley’s past.

Highlights include the mysterious Man from Mars Bandit, the lesbian couple whose bickering over spending cash resulted in one pumping the other full of downers until she died, the young bride who spent her wedding day buried under her parents’ house, the battling neo-Nazis of El Monte, Phil Spector’s spooky castle and the little bar where James Ellroy’s murdered mother Jean had her last drink.

The tour includes a selection of dumplings from one of the San Gabriel Valley’s best Chinese restaurants.(Vegetarian passengers, please let us know your food preference several days before we depart.) If using a gift certificate, please note that this tour has an additional $5 dumpling fee, payable in cash or check at the bus door.

Passenger Feedback

“I’ve taken the famous ‘Ghostly New Orleans’ and ‘Mysteries of Venice, Italy’ tours and also enthusiastically enjoyed London’s ‘Jack the Ripper of Whitehall’ tour, and I assure you none surpasses Richard Schave and Kim Cooper’s Esotouric “Blood & Dumplings” bus excursion into the bizarrely memorable but rarely-visited regions of East Los Angeles. As humorous and constantly entertaining as it is thoroughly researched, this lovingly crafted 4-hour tour is essential for any tourist or long-term denizen who wishes to comprehend the many fascinating characters and their dark, odd-ball deeds which have contributed to Los Angeles’ nutty history. Very comfortable, carefully prepared, weirdly funny, and unforgettable.” (F.A.)

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The Real Black Dahlia

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“This bus tour… has established itself as an L.A. classic.” -The Los Angeles Times

The Black Dahlia murder in 1947 is the most compelling unsolved crime Los Angeles has ever known. What Jack the Ripper is to London, the Torso Killer to Cleveland, the Black Dahlia is to L.A. And yet unlike those other cases, the name Black Dahlia refers not to the killer, but to the victim. What was it about Elizabeth Short that keeps her the object of obsessive fascination by writers, musicians, artists, filmmakers, cops and readers, more than sixty years after she was slain?

The Real Black Dahlia Crime Bus Tour seeks to answer this question by intimately exploring the last weeks of Elizabeth Short’s life, asking not “who killed her?” but “who was she?”

The tour takes us from the human hustle of Main Street to the serene lobby of the Biltmore (the second-to-last place she was seen alive), to the newspaper offices and the Greyhound station where she checked her bags, and concludes at the site where her bisected body was found in Leimert Park and with a little known suspect who lived nearby.

From the few personal possessions she left behind to the friends who scarcely knew her, from the mass hysteria of the investigation with its fruitless leads, wacko suspects and false confessions, the tour reveals all that’s known about this enigmatic black-haired girl who reinvented herself at whim, and shows how she came to be the unfortunate symbol of her time and place.

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All About the Million Dollar Theater

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Join us as we explore Sid Grauman’s first Los Angeles movie palace. The M$ set a new standard for the national movie palace building boom that swept the U.S. during the 1920’s. Designed by architect William Lee Woollett, the M$ is unique – a daring mixture of styles,art and colors. Described as a Spanish cathedral set in a Greek temple, the interior was a riot of rich colors, original art works and lush patron amenities. The M$ is currently closed to the public. Don’t miss this chance to see this amazing work of art.

 

More than any other Broadway theatre, the many glories of the M$ are faded or completely hidden from view. Ed Kelsey will highlight the history, illustrate the many interior alterations and celebrate what remains. We’ll take you behind the scenes – from the basement to the balcony – and share the hidden treasures of L.A.’s most unusual movie palace.

 

LAHTF Member Tour Admission: $10 – limit 2 tickets per member. Tickets are available exclusively at: www.lahtf.org

 

Tour capacity is limited and a sellout is likely. Act Now! Don’t miss this rare opportunity to experience a breathtaking masterwork. Sign on as a new volunteer, spend extra time inside and see even more! Email info@lahtf.org to sign up.

 

 

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The Birth of Noir: James M. Cain’s Southern California Nightmare

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Southern California 1931: Amongst the burgeoning urban sprawl built atop bulldozed orange groves and the bitter realization that you can’t eat the sunshine, recent emigré James M. Cain found a kernel of truth and his voice, which would eventually distill through his novels, ”The Postman Always Rings Twice,” “Mildred Pierce” and “Double Indemnity” and subsequent film adaptations into the unique American genre: Film Noir.

How did this East Coat sophisticate go from managing editor of “The New Yorker” to populist novelist accused of writing dirty books? The tour explores Cain’s L.A. from Hollywood to Glendale and along old Route 66, and includes illuminating visits to Forest Lawn Memorial Park (a Glendale institution and site of the funeral of Mildred Pierce’s “other” daughter, Ray), the Glendale Train Station where the “Double Indemnity” murder plot played out, and the punch line to a Billy Wilder joke so subtle, it’s taken 63 years for anyone to get. The tour will also cover the artisans who transformed Cain’s tales into film, including Billy Wilder, Raymond Chandler, Joan Crawford and Lana Turner, each an important contributor to the Film Noir canon.

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Haunts of A Dirty Old Man: Charles Bukowski’s Los Angeles

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“[This tour is] a poetic journey full of rare insight into the life of a man who’s come to represent the ghettoized contingency of the City of Angels.” – Tanja M. Laden, Flavorpill

“Haunts of a Dirty Old Man: Charles Bukowski’s LA” focuses on Bukowski’s great passions: writing, screwing and Los Angeles. We’ll take in the canonical locations of his life and myth: the Postal Annex Terminal where he gathered the material for “Post Office,” the De Longpre apartment where he briefly experimented with marriage and fatherhood, one of his favorite bars and liquor stores, and many other spots. Along the way, we’ll explore the people and ideas that made up the warp and weft of Buk’s rich inner life. This Esotouric bus adventure is hosted by Richard Schave.

The tour spans Bukowski’s personal city, from Skid Row to once-genteel Crown Hill, to Bukowski’s favorite East Hollywood liquor store, the Pink Elephant.

Esotouric has made its name with true crime bus tours (Black Dahlia, Pasadena Confidential) and explorations of literary LA (Raymond Chandler, John Fante, James M. Cain). Now they turn their creative attentions to Bukowski, the prolific poet, novelist and screenwriter whose rough-hewn tales of boozing, wild women and rotten jobs never obscure the deep vein of sweetness and hope that runs through all his work. In one of his finest poems, he described this as a bluebird he kept caged, and that bluebird is been represented in the Bukbird, a pale blue version of his beloved alcoholic crow character, represented by a logo created by cartoonist Tony Millionaire exclusively for this tour. The Bukbird is available on T-shirts, beer coastersand fine art prints by plasticmuse.

Press clips:

LA Weekly interviews Charles Bukowski tour host Richard Schave to compile a list of L.A. sites that were important to the writer.

Slake wonders if the Charles Bukowski tour is “‘Fawlty Towers’ on wheels.”

Spike Magazine digs our literary tours.

Novelist Anna Stothard explores the hidden gems of Los Angeles for the London Guardian, including our Bukowski tour.

Annenberg News Radio covers our Charles Bukowski tour in a video/slideshow.

Marco Mannone on the Charles Bukowski bus: “Four hours after we departed, the tour drops us back off at Philippe’s. This is a terrible way to simplify the tour, filled with so much wit and insight into not only Bukowski, but lost parts of Los Angeles.&quot

Girls Gone Wild digs the Charles Bukowski tour.

For more info, see this short film on the landmarking of Bukowski’s former bungalow on De Longpre.

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