Los Angeles Visionaries Association

Join your host Richard Schave, the founding director of the Downtown LA Art Walk non-profit, on a tour that reveals the secret history, and the fascinating future, of this most beguiling LA neighborhood.

This is a tour about the populated, vibrant mid-20th Century Downtown Los Angeles you've only heard about, and about the 21st Century Downtown which will rise again with a richness of heritage and quality of life that leaves natives and visitors gaping in disbelief. This is a tour about Downtown's invisible neighborhoods and great public spaces which managed to escape the wrecking ball. This is a tour about how gentrification sprung up on the city's meanest streets, with all the conflicts that go along with a major socio-economic shift in a small community. This is a tour about the real Los Angeles, the city even natives don't know. Get on the bus for the real Lowdown on Downtown, as no one but Esotouric's Richard Schave can reveal it.

Our tour begins in the corporate public spaces of Bunker Hill and Pershing Square, each the result of deliberate social engineering (the razing of old Bunker Hill which displaced 9,000 residents; the elimination of positive public space in Pershing Square to thwart public address and gatherings). We segue to the underappreciated yet extremely successful public spaces of the Historic Core and then to the emerging live/work community of The Old Bank District, where developer Tom Gilmore’s gentrification and the popular monthly Art Walk are bringing life to spaces which have been dead for decades. The tour concludes in the DIY loft spaces of the Arts District for a reception at an artist's gallery.

Having studied under architecture critic Reyner Banham in the mid-1980s, tour host Richard Schave has taken it upon himself to correct his teacher’s gross oversight of downtown Los Angeles, relegated to a dismissive coda in his seminal Los Angeles guidebook Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies. Richard and his wife Kim Cooper work extensively with the history and lost cultures of downtown in their bus tours, in their work placing Art Walk into a non-profit, on blogs including On Bunker Hill and 1947project, and through public lectures on the subject.

This tour has a significant walking component, down the stairs along Angels Flight, around Pershing Square, through several other pedestrian locations. It is broken up, but please be advised to be ready to stretch your legs.

Locations on the tour include:
Angels Flight
Grand Central Market
Mercantile Arcade Building
Bloom's General Store
A visit to artist Dave Hollen's studio

This tour is just one of our Reyner Banham Tour Series.

On the last Sunday of each month, LAVA welcomes interested individuals to gather in downtown Los Angeles (noon-2pm), for a loosely structured conversational Salon featuring short presentations and opportunities to meet and connect with one another. 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. Please note that due to ongoing renovation work at Clifton's Cafeteria, we are moving to a nearby location, and starting the Salon one hour earlier. 

Special program at the November 27 Salon:

 • LAVA Visionary SUSANNA DAKIN is a sculptor, performance artist, writer and once upon a time publisher of artists’ books, magazines and a community newspaper. She is currently on the Board of the 18th Street Arts Center in Santa Monica, California. She has taught sculpture and drawing, exhibited both in solo and group shows, and completed a few large-scale sculpture commissions. She has done several unique performance pieces at various venues in southern California. Dakin’s most well known work was a year-long performance campaign around the United States as “An Artist for President” in 1983-84, in which she advanced the idea that “The Nation is the art work and we the people are the artists.” The book about that campaign, as timely today as it was then, is being published in fall 2011. Dakin will reprise the campaign as a book tour.  About "An Artist for President": In 1984, Reagan was running for his second-term, while pursuing what would become a relentless, multi-decades long retreat from democratic ideals. Susanna Dakin, sculptor, performance artist and High Performance Magazine publisher, had an outlandish notion: she declared with the Federal Elections Commission as an Artist/Candidate for President of the United States. Now a compelling and high-entertaining book, as timely today as it was then, An Artist for President makes a case for the vital role of art and creativity in all aspects of life, including politics. This "biography of an event," records the loony ideas people hold about woman, artists and the political process. November is Election Month, so cast your vote for art, civil liberties and freedom of expression, by attending this fun refection on where we’ve been and where we’re going.

• LAVA is proud (and not too terrified, since we’ve been good this year!) to present the KRAMPUS CHOIR, who will literally kick-start the holiday season with their odes to the Real ghost of Christmas, Lord Krampus. You’ve heard all about Santa’s Evil Twin, who follows the Jolly One with burlap sack in hand, taking gifts away from miscreant children and giving them a thrashing to boot! This long-toothed, tongued charmer now has his very own CHOIR, who, in dulcet harmony, will regale our Visionaries and guests with such favorites as, “Bleeding through the Snow,” “O Shining Lump of Coal,”  and “Bring a Switch, Jeannette Isabella.” King Krampus himself will be on hand to autograph your child’s deficiency notices.  Don’t miss this one-time-only event! 

The Los Angeles Athletic Club is located at 431 West 7th Street, on the north-east corner of 7th and Olive Streets. When you enter the Athletic Club, inform the person at the desk that you are there as a guest of club member Richard Schave attending the LAVA event. They will sign you in, and send you upstairs to the third floor. If you want to have breakfast, please arrive no later than 10:30am. The price per person for the buffet breakfast is $15.50 (including taxes and gratuity), and the buffet includes orange juice, hot and cold cereal, yogurt, fresh and dried fruits, eggs, bacon/sausage, potatoes, muffins, croissants, etc. (Alternately, the 8th floor snack bar, which is not in the Salon space, will be open serving sandwiches, wraps and salads after 11am.) If you want to attend the Salon, you should arrive by 11am. We recommend parking under Pershing Square at Fifth and Olive, which is also the nearest Metro Station. If you order food, the Athletic Club will validate for their parking lot. 

Join Friends of the Los Angeles River for a special tour with HiddenLA:
Carpool tour (option to leave midday)
Led by Jenny Price

Everyone in Los Angeles has seen the LA River, and has heard that it's being revitalized. But who knows where it is, exactly--and what exactly is happening on its banks?

Join us as we walk and drive along the river, to talk about its central role in the city's history and the necessity of the ambitious revitalization projects to LA's future.

The tour convenes at the River Center  (570 W Ave. 26, near the 5/110--8:30am sharp!--for a 9:00 departure), where we form carpools, and stops at the verdant Glendale Narrows, the historic Arroyo Seco confluence, and the industrial downtown stretch that everyone's seen in movies and on TV.
 
We'll eat lunch at an excellent Boyle Heights taqueria en route (or feel free to bring your own)--and then we'll head into the even less well-known South, to the new Maywood Riverfront Park, an optional raspados stop in Bell, and the stunning new Dominguez Gap wetland in Long Beach.

Bring snacks and water and shoes that can get a little wet.  Dogs welcome.

DIRECTIONS TO RIVER CENTER:

http://www.lamountains.com/maps/riverCenter.pdf 

(or Metro Gold Line--Lincoln/Cypress exit, W 3 blocks on Ave. 26, entrance on S side 1/2 blk after Figueroa)

Tour LA's mighty River -- w/Friends of the LA River!

Led by Jenny Price

Everyone in Los Angeles has seen the LA River, and has heard that it's being revitalized. But who knows where it is, exactly--and what exactly is happening on its banks?

Join us as we walk and drive along the river, to talk about its central role in the city's history and the necessity of the ambitious revitalization projects to LA's future.

The tour convenes at the River Center  (570 W Ave. 26, near the 5/110--9:00am sharp!--for a 9:30 departure), where we form carpools, and stops at the verdant Glendale Narrows, the historic Arroyo Seco confluence, and the industrial downtown stretch that everyone's seen in movies and on TV. 
 
We'll eat lunch at an excellent Boyle Heights taqueria en route (or feel free to bring your own)--and then we'll head into the even less well-known South, to the new Maywood Riverfront Park and the stunning new Dominguez Gap wetland in Long Beach.

 Bring snacks and water and shoes that can get a little wet.  Dogs welcome.

Tour LA's mighty river!-- w/ Friends of the LA River.

Special water-in LA tour--with speakers from Santa Monica Baykeeper, Food & Water Watch, & Environment Now

Everyone in Los Angeles has seen the LA River, and has heard that it's being revitalized. But who knows where it is, exactly--and what exactly is happening on its banks?  On this carpool tour, we'll walk and drive along the river, as we talk about its central role in the city's history and the necessity of the ambitious revitalization to LA's future.

The tour convenes at the River Center, where we form carpools, and stops at the verdant Glendale Narrows, a new stormwater park in the same stretch, and the historic Arroyo Seco confluence, and the industrial downtown stretch that everyone's seen in movies and on TV.  We'll eat lunch at an excellent Boyle Heights taqueria en route (or you can bring your own)--and we'll head into the even less well-known South, to the new Maywood Riverfront Park and the stunning new Dominguez Gap wetland.

Led by Jenny Price.  Carpool tour-- Option to leave midday.
 
$25 adults, $20 students/seniors/nonprofits, kid rates. Family and group rates available.  

To sign up, and for more info, click HERE

Esotouric's "Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles: The Lowdown on Downtown"

Join your host Richard Schave, the founding director of the Downtown LA Art Walk non-profit, on a tour that reveals the secret history, and the fascinating future, of this most beguiling LA neighborhood.

This is a tour about the populated, vibrant mid-20th Century Downtown Los Angeles you've only heard about, and about the 21st Century Downtown which will rise again with a richness of heritage and quality of life that leaves natives and visitors gaping in disbelief. This is a tour about Downtown's invisible neighborhoods and great public spaces which managed to escape the wrecking ball. This is a tour about how gentrification sprung up on the city's meanest streets, with all the conflicts that go along with a major socio-economic shift in a small community. This is a tour about the real Los Angeles, the city even natives don't know. Get on the bus for the real Lowdown on Downtown, as no one but Esotouric's Richard Schave can reveal it.

Our tour begins in the corporate public spaces of Bunker Hill and Pershing Square, each the result of deliberate social engineering (the razing of old Bunker Hill which displaced 9,000 residents; the elimination of positive public space in Pershing Square to thwart public address and gatherings). We segue to the underappreciated yet extremely successful public spaces of the Historic Core and then to the emerging live/work community of The Old Bank District, where developer Tom Gilmore’s gentrification and the popular monthly Art Walk are bringing life to spaces which have been dead for decades. The tour concludes in the DIY loft spaces of the Arts District for a reception at an artist's gallery.

Having studied under architecture critic Reyner Banham in the mid-1980s, tour host Richard Schave has taken it upon himself to correct his teacher’s gross oversight of downtown Los Angeles, relegated to a dismissive coda in his seminal Los Angeles guidebook Los Angeles: A Study of Four Ecologies.. Richard and his wife Kim Cooper work extensively with the history and lost cultures of downtown in their bus tours, in their work for Art Walk, on blogs including On Bunker Hill and 1947project, and through public lectures on the subject.

This tour has a significant walking component, down the stairs along Angels Flight, around Pershing Square, through several other pedestrian locations. It is broken up, but please be advised to be ready to stretch your legs.

Locations on the tour include:
Angels Flight
Grand Central Market
Mercantile Arcade Building
Bloom's General Store
A visit to artist Dave Hollen's studio

This tour is just one of Esotouric's our Reyner Banham Tour Series.

Tour the mighty Los Angeles River!-- w/ with Friends of the LA River, Santa Monica Baykeeper, Food & Water Watch, and Environment Now.

Everyone in Los Angeles has seen the LA River, and has heard that it's being revitalized. But who knows where it is, exactly--and what exactly is happening on its banks?  On this carpool tour, we'll walk and drive along the river, as we talk about its central role in the city's history and the necessity of the ambitious revitalization to LA's future.

This special Water-in-LA tour convenes at the River Center (near the 5/100), where we form carpools. We'll visit the verdant Glendale Narrows, the historic Arroyo Seco confluence, the downtown spot you've seen in all the movies, a new park in Maywood, and the spectacular new Dominguez Gap wetland in Long Beach. We'll stop for lunch at a terrific taqueria near Mariachi Plaza in Boyle Heights--or feel free to bring your own.

Led by Jenny Price, Santa Monica Baykeeper, Food & Water Watch, & Environment Now. 

Option to leave midday.  Bring snacks and water and shoes that can get a little wet.  Dogs welcome.
 
$25 adults, $20 students/seniors/nonprofits, $5 kids. Family and group rates available.  

To sign up, and for more info, click HERE.

Tour the mighty Los Angeles River!-- w/ Friends of the LA River.

Everyone in Los Angeles has seen the LA River, and has heard that it's being revitalized. But who knows where it is, exactly--and what exactly is happening on its banks?  On this carpool tour, we'll walk and drive along the river, as we talk about its central role in the city's history and the necessity of the ambitious revitalization to LA's future.

The Valley tour visits one of the least-known stretches--with stops at the headwaters, the verdant stretch in the Sepulveda Basin, the 1/2-mile-long Great Wall of LA mural and new Tujunga Wash Greenway, and the new park projects through the neighborhoods and film studios in Sherman Oaks and Studio City and beyond. We'll eat lunch at an excellent Thai noodle shop en route (other options too--or feel free to bring your lunch), and we'll end with an optional stop at the legendary Cuban bakery Porto's.

Led by Jenny Price.  Option to leave midday.

Bring snacks and water and shoes that can get just a little wet.  Dogs welcome.
 
$25 adults, $20 students/seniors/nonprofits, $5 kids. Family and group rates available.   

To sign up, and for more info, click HERE.

Esotouric presents: Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles: The New Chinatowns: San Gabriel Valley