Walking Tour

For the first LAVA Sunday Salon of 2018, architectural historian Nathan Marsak (LAVA’s 2015 Visionary of the Year) will give an illustrated talk tracing how shifting aesthetic dicta from the chieftains of Good Taste morphed the way in which the lost Victorian neighborhood of Bunker Hill appeared and functioned. He will show that while the hill’s fabled descent into decrepitude and demolition is often touted as borne of social engineering and political transgressions, much of its history relates to how the arbiters of mores abandoned it as “lowbrow” after its construction.

We’ll explore architectural styles including Eastlake and Queen Anne, Mansard and Mission, as they found and fell out of favor with the likes of Edward Bok and Elsie de Wolfe; investigate how Edith Wharton and The Munsters shaped and reflected the cultural milieu; and review the manner in which the Los Angeles Times mocked the hill’s architecture through the 1950s, prefiguring redevelopment by the CRA.

At the conclusion of the talk, we’ll take a walking tour of the immediate neighborhood, looking at extant buildings and visiting locations of lost ones featured in the presentation.

Photo: Martz Flats, Southeast Corner 7th & Hope in 1939. Built by Henry Martz. Julius V. Krause, architect, 1898.

ABOUT THE SALON: On the last Sunday of the month starting at 2pm, LAVA welcomes interested individuals to gather in downtown Los Angeles for the Sunday Salon, featuring a presentation by a LAVA Visionary and opportunities to meet and connect with one another. Immediately after the Salon, a walking tour expands on the Salon theme. If you’re interested in joining LAVA as a creative contributor or an attendee, we recommend Salon attendance as an introduction to this growing community.

RESERVATIONS: The LAVA Sunday Salon and walking tour are free, but reservations are required. There are no “plus ones,” so tell your friends to sign up individually. Please don’t reserve unless you plan to attend. To reserve your spot for this free event, click on the “Buy Tickets” button above.

Join us as C.C. de Vere, creator of the Frenchtown Confidential blog, shines a light on the long-forgotten Gallic roots of the city of Los Angeles.

Did you know that French and French-Canadian newcomers outnumbered all other immigrants in 1850s Los Angeles… that the city’s second-oldest hospital was called The French Hospital for over 125 years… that until the 1890s, French was the second most commonly spoken language (after Spanish)? At this month’s LAVA Sunday Salon and walking tour, Frenchtown Confidential lives again.

C.C.’s short illustrated lecture begins at 2pm, and highlights some of the more famous locations and incidents covered in her blog. After the lecture, we will pack our gear and walk to the Plaza, to visit a number of significant Franco-Angeleno sites. Attendees should arrive on time and immediately check in at the LAVA table, and be prepared to make a walk of a little over a mile.

At the end of C.C.’s talk, and just before we leave for the Plaza, Fanny Daubigny, a French-born, Los Angeles–based writer, will read an excerpt of her forthcoming book ‘Proust in Black’. She teaches at CSUF and is the author of numerous articles on Marcel Proust. Fanny is also currently working on a translation of Suzanne Lummis’ poems.

Register by following the “buy tickets” link above. Each attendee must be registered with their own name and unique email address.

UPDATE: We are pleased to announce that Dion Neutra will be joining us at the LAVA Sunday Salon on the mid-century Public Art of the Civic Center. Clare Haggerty, deputy Director of Collections for the LA County Arts Commission will co-host the event with LAVA’s Richard Schave. Dion Neutra will speak to his father Richard Neutra’s architectural legacy at the Hall of Records (1958). The Hall of Records is also where Joseph Young’s “Topographic Map” is installed. The artist’s daughters Leslie & Cecily Young will be talking about their father’s work, and conservator Donna Williams will discuss her current restoration of “Topographic Map.”

Please join us as LAVA welcomes Clare Haggarty, the Deputy Director of Collections for the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, and Richard Schave, for a tour of civic art in the Civic Center. Special guests: Cecily & Leslie Young, the daughters of artist Joseph Young, whose iconic mid-century artwork is featured on the tour, and conservator Donna Williams, who is presently restoring Young’s “Topographic Map” at the Hall of Records.

Richard will begin the afternoon with an illustrated lecture focusing on the rich architectural legacy of Downtown L.A.‘s civic center, including the Hall of Administration (1958), Mosk Courthouse (1958) and Hall of Records (1962).

Then we’ll walk over to the civic center to visit a number of historic and more recent civic artworks, including Alison Saar’s “Embodied” (Hall of Justice), Frank Ackerman’s “Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial” (Grand Park), Joseph Young’s “Topographic Map” (Hall of Records) and Malcolm Leland’s ceramic screen (Hall of Records).
On the walk, Clare Haggarty will discuss specific works, and the County’s stewardship of its growing collection. Cecily & Leslie Young will tell us about their father Joseph Young’s artistic legacy, and the challenges they face while seeking to preserve and interpret his artwork, which is widely held in both private and public hands. And conservator Donna Williams will share how she has approached the restoration of Young’s “Topographic Map” at the Hall of Records.

Register by following the “buy tickets” link above. Each attendee must be registered with their own name and unique email address.

The Cranky Preservationist in Search of Lost Art Deco Landmarks

Join us as Nathan Marsak, AKA The Cranky Preservationist, talks about the Richfield Building, the most amazing Art Deco building the world has ever known.

Erected in 1928 at the prominent Bunker Hill intersection of Sixth and Flower Streets by the Los Angeles-based Richfield Oil Company, the Stiles O. Clements-designed tower was distinguished by Gladding, McBean’s black and gold terra cotta decoration including sublime angel figures, and an outlandish erupting neon oil gusher roof sign.

In 1966, Richfield merged with Atlantic, and the following year, the newly branded ARCO made the fateful decision to demolish the most important Art Deco heroic setback skyscraper in the world because it simply wasn’t big enough. A.C. Martin was hired to design the 52-story twin glass ARCO Plaza towers, which are the West Coast’s response to the Seagram Building (Ludwig Mies van der Rohe; Philip Johnson, 1958).

Following Nathan’s presentation, we will walk to the site of the former Richfield Building and current ARCO Plaza (now City National Plaza). We’ll visit the public art installation created from the Richfield’s Art Deco elevator doors, and discuss the importance of preserving this exemplar of Meisian Corporate International style, as the current owners contemplate significant “re-imagining” of the towers, something that already has the Cranky Preservationist hopping mad.

Register by following the “buy tickets” link above. Each attendee must be registered with their own name and unique email address.

Come take a time travel trip to old Los Angeles as Gordon Pattison presents an illustrated talk about the development of the lost downtown neighborhoods of Bunker Hill and Crown Hill, with a focus on the short-lived Second Street Cable Car, which ran from Spring Street to Diamond (now Beverly) from 1885-89. Then we’ll take a walk along the start of the old Cable Car route and up to Bunker Hill to talk about things that aren’t there any more, and some that are, including Angels Flight Railway, currently being renovated for a Labor Day reopening.

Gordon Pattison is a native son of Bunker Hill. His family owned the Salt Box and the Castle, the last two homes standing after the neighborhood was cleared for redevelopment. To learn more, see Gordon’s LAVA Sunday Salon presentation Old Bunker Hill: One Family’s Perspective. Gordon can also be found blogging about the old neighborhood on On Bunker Hill, talking about Angels Flight Railway on Off-Ramp, visiting the few remaining pieces of his family’s houses at Heritage Square Museum, on KCET’s Lost L.A. series Lost Hills episode, and remembering novelist John Fante at his square dedication and atop Bunker Hill. He can also be found on Esotouric’s The Lowdown on Downtown tours, sharing memories of lost Bunker Hill.

IMPORTANT: Space is extremely limited and each attendee must be registered with their own name and unique email address. There are absolutely no “plus ones” and any attempts at making multiple reservations using the same email address will result in cancellation. We will maintain a waiting list in the event of cancellations.

This edition of the LAVA Sunday Salon and Broadway on My Wind walking tour focuses on the holy grail of Los Angeles mass transit history: the sealed-off streetcar station and tunnel located beneath the Subway Terminal Building (Schultze and Weaver, 1925).

The program begins in the basement of Grand Central Market, with a short history of the Subway Terminal Building and Los Angeles streetcar service. We’ll then walk down Hill Street and underground for a rare visit to the this fascinating time capsule, the decommissioned streetcar station and its tunnel.

IMPORTANT: Space is extremely limited and each attendee must be registered with their own name and unique email address. There are absolutely no “plus ones” and any attempts at making multiple reservations using the same email address will result in cancellation. We will maintain a waiting list in the event of cancellations.

This edition of the LAVA Sunday Salon and Broadway on My Wind walking tour focuses on Charles Bukowski, as seen through the eyes of Los Angeles poet S.A. Griffin.

The program begins with a talk in the lower level of Grand Central Market, where S.A. Griffin will talk about his journey discovering Los Angeles writer and King of Poets Charles Bukowski, and the man’s global influence on modern verse.

S.A. will trace his personal pilgrimage route from his time on Grand View Street in MacArthur Park (1980-82), when he heard about Bukowski at a party in Long Beach, to finally finding Red Stodolsky at Baroque Bookstore on Las Palmas in Hollywood, where Red mentored him as a bookman in Bukowski and the Beats. S.A. would later create a plaque in Red’s honor and place it at the bookshop’s old location.

S.A. will also read from Bukowski’s first novel, Post Office, at the former Terminal Annex sorting facility, the novel’s setting, which Sunday Salon attendees will walk to from Grand Central Market, as part of our own pilgrimage.

S.A. Griffin is the co-editor of The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry. Between 1989-2009 S.A. toured the U.S., Canada and the worldwide web with performance poets the Carma Bums. During April-June 2010 he toured the U.S. with Elsie The Poetry Bomb, a Vietnam era practice bomb converted into an art piece and filled with poems from around the world. S.A.’s most recent titles are Dreams Gone Mad With Hope (Punk Hostage Press, 2014), “The Hideous Bible” (Rose of Sharon Press, 2016) with The Lost Bums and Harvey Korman Harvey Korman Harvey Korman (Spartan Press, 2017) with John Dorsey and Scott Wannberg.

ABOUT THE SALON: On the last Sunday of the month starting at 2pm, LAVA welcomes interested individuals to gather in downtown Los Angeles for the Sunday Salon, featuring a presentation by a LAVA Visionary and opportunities to meet and connect with one another. Immediately after the Salon, a walking tour expands on the Salon theme. If you’re interested in joining LAVA as a creative contributor or an attendee, we recommend Salon attendance as an introduction to this growing community.

RESERVATIONS: The LAVA Sunday Salon and walking tour are free, but reservations are required. There are no “plus ones,” so tell your friends to sign up individually. Please don’t reserve unless you plan to attend. To reserve your spot for this free event, click on the “Buy Tickets” button above.

Photos of S.A. Griffin by Aaron Farley