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Los Angeles is a city without a center, but with an unjustly bad reputation. It’s also home to fascinating people, places and happenings. But these wonders are dotted over a vast and confusing landscape, drowned out by media blare and corporate blather. You could easily spend years in hard searching to discover the real Los Angeles, those hidden gems and secret gatherings that give this city a soul.

LAVA is the key to the secret Los Angeles you’ve been looking for (or helping to create), and for making connections with people who share your passions and sensibilities. Through participation in LAVA, creative Angelenos come together to provide cultural programming that speaks to the urban experience, and contributes to the creation of that rare thing: positive public space.
Thanks,
Richard

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.
For this installment of urban historian Richard Schaveâ€s site-specific discussion series “The Flâneur & The City,” Richard (Esotouric bus adventures, In SRO Land) is joined by architectural historian Nathan Marsak (1947project, On Bunker Hill).

ABOUT THIS TOUR:

Please join us for a sneak preview of the ongoing refurbishment of the Dutch Chocolate Shoppe interior, in our second dedicated visit to the space.

Commissioned circa 1914 for the “Dutch Chocolate Shoppe” on the ground floor of 217 West Sixth Street, the vaulted interior includes twenty tile murals, and is the largest extant custom interior designed and executed by Pasadena tile artisan Ernest A. Batchelder. Preserved behind steel grates and particle board storefronts for decades, the space is soon to re-open, and can now be seen much as the designer intended it.

The storefront has seen numerous uses since its early days as a provider of hot cocoa to jazz age Angelinos. In the course of our half hour tour and discussion, we will trace the palimpsest of this treasure of the California Arts & Crafts Movement. Discussion topics will include the proposed revisions to the cityâ€s Cultural Heritage Ordinance and the impact these would have on important interiors like this one, a history of the storefront from 1914 to the present, and future plans for the space.

The Dutch Chocolate Shoppe is Historic Cultural Monument #137.

ABOUT THE TOUR SERIES: “The Flâneur & The City” is an ongoing attempt to explore some of the more important issues revealed by the constantly changing heart of the metropolis. The core notion of the series is of culture and history as commodities that are packaged and sold to a target demographic; meanwhile, it’s the ignored and seemingly worthless scraps of meaning found on the sidewalks and marketplaces where the true remnants of positive public space can be found. All interpretations and nuisances of the word flaneur are examined from the modern-day aesthete dreaming of Baudelaire while carried along in the human tide past the stalls and shops of Broadway, to its more recent and perhaps relevant use, someone who is loitering. At its heart this series is a celebration of the simple act of getting out of your car, walking through a neighborhood and learning to see it with your own eyes.

For the latest installment of urban historian Richard Schaveâ€s site-specific discussion series “The Flâneur & The City,” Richard (Esotouric bus adventures, In SRO Land) is joined by architectural historian Nathan Marsak (1947project, On Bunker Hill).

On this excursion weâ€ll be casting our eyes along on one fascinating, but underappreciated, downtown boulevard: Hill Street.

The tour begins at Alfred Rosenheimâ€s Hamburgerâ€s Department Store (the Peopleâ€s Store) at Eighth Street and concludes high atop Bunker Hill, with a focus on the most interesting buildings along the way, and poignant memorials for a few that have fallen to the wrecking ball. The last stop will be at Fort Moore Memorial, where Hill Street meets the 101 freeway, a drab, functional place that now occupies what was once one of the most lyrical corners of old Los Angeles. Weâ€ll share photos of the neighborhoodâ€s beloved funicular Courtâ€s Flight (Angels Flightâ€s forgotten competition), the Victorian mansions of Bunker Hill, and explain how the Hill Street Extension of 1959 destroyed this part of Bunker Hill and took out a large part of the even more ancient neighborhood of Sonora Town.

Tour attendees will meet on the 8th floor lounge of the Los Angeles Athletic Club. The snack bar will be open, and those who wish to purchase a sandwich or beverage before the walk are encouraged to arrive 20 minutes early to avoid a bottleneck. We will start with general historic overview of Hill Street in the lounge, and then make our way to Hamburgerâ€s–no doubt following in the path of that storeâ€s founder Moshe Hamburger, who lived at the Athletic Club in the early years of the 20th century.

ABOUT THE TOUR SERIES: “The Flâneur & The City” is an ongoing attempt to explore some of the more important issues revealed by the constantly changing heart of the metropolis. The core notion of the series is of culture and history as commodities that are packaged and sold to a target demographic; meanwhile, itâ€s the ignored and seemingly worthless scraps of meaning found on the sidewalks and marketplaces where the true remnants of positive public space can be found. All interpretations and nuisances of the word flâneur are examined—from the modern-day aesthete dreaming of Baudelaire while carried along in the human tide past the stalls and shops of Broadway, to its more recent and perhaps relevant use, someone who is loitering. At its heart this series is a celebration of the simple act of getting out of your car, walking through a neighborhood and learning to see it with your own eyes.

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.

ABOUT THIS TOUR:

For the latest installment of urban historian Richard Schave‘s site-specific discussion series “The Flâneur & The City,” Richard (Esotouric bus adventures) is joined by architectural historian Nathan Marsak (1947project, On Bunker Hill, In SRO Land).

Part Two of the Victorian Downtown walking tour will cover First Street north to Aliso and Los Angeles Street west to Broadway. It is a distinct departure from Part One, which almost exclusively dealt with the development of the mature business block of the 1880s and ‘90s. This tour will deal, for the most part, with the hotels and early business blocks of the 1870s, whose unique stylistic developments in this “bust out” time are heavily influenced by the experiences of Angelenoes in the “tempestuous ‘60s.” This is an era which saw drought, disease, plagues (of grasshoppers no less), and the bottom falling out of the real estate market, and those citizens who dared remain were the toughest and most stubborn ones.

The Bella Union, US Hotel, Hotel de Paris, the Baker Block, the Temple Block, and the whole slew of county and city buildings surrounding Pound Cake Hill and Fort Moore will all be discussed as we orient you to their locations beneath what exists today.

It is a Los Angeles that you will not recognize, and yet, strangely, you will not be surprised at all. For as we hold as a vademecum for this tour that haunting quote from Victor Hugoâ€s The Hunchback of Notre-Dame: “When a man understands the art of seeing, he can trace the spirit of an age and the features of a king even in the knocker on a door.”

By the conclusion of Part Two of Victorian Downtown, with only the rich region of the Plaza left for Part Three, we will have covered sufficient ground and decades to begin to make sweeping generalizations about the aesthetics of Victorian Los Angeles and how they drove the growth, appearance and very spirit of the city.

ABOUT THE TOUR SERIES: “The Flâneur & The City” is an ongoing attempt to explore some of the more important issues revealed by the constantly changing heart of the metropolis. The core notion of the series is of culture and history as commodities that are packaged and sold to a target demographic; meanwhile, itâ€s the ignored and seemingly worthless scraps of meaning found on the sidewalks and marketplaces where the true remnants of positive public space can be found. All interpretations and nuisances of the word flâneur are examined—from the modern-day aesthete dreaming of Baudelaire while carried along in the human tide past the stalls and shops of Broadway, to its more recent and perhaps relevant use, someone who is loitering. At its heart this series is a celebration of the simple act of getting out of your car, walking through a neighborhood and learning to see it with your own eyes.

This tour is now full. If you want to try to get a space on the tour, you may attend the LAVA Sunday Salon and ask about openings before the tour departs.

ABOUT THIS TOUR: For the fourth installment of urban historian Richard Schaveâ€s site-specific discussion series “The Flaneur & The City,” Richard (Esotouric) is joined by architectural historian Nathan Marsak (1947project, On Bunker Hill).

On this excursion weâ€ll focus on several landmark buildings by the architectural firm of Albert R. Walker and Percy A. Eisen. The firmâ€s significant contributions to the downtown skyline have been overshadowed by the massive structures erected since the 1957 ordinance permitting buildings to be taller than 150â€. On this tour, weâ€ll ignore such behemoths while shining our spotlight on the modest beauties that Walker and Eisen constructed in the Historic Core.

Walker & Eisen made their mark on downtown during the building boom which immediately followed the first World War. What we think of as “Jazz Age” L.A. architecture is in large part defined by this very successful team. In the year 1923, Los Angeles recorded $185,000,000 in building expenditures. Walker & Eisen at that time employed fifty draftsmen in their office, while the great civic architectural firm Parkinson & Parkinson had just 13. In the 21 years of partnership (1920-41), Walker & Eisen were responsible for $40,000,000 worth of buildings.

Walker & Eisen were the spiritual heirs of the now-forgotten Victorian-era architects Robert A. Young & Burgess J. Reeve, who shaped Los Angeles during its early boom years and depressions, and on which our last tour focused. Standing on their shoulders, and in the shadow of C.C. Julianâ€s financial scandal, Walker & Eisen quietly, distinctly, and on budget, translated the hopes, dreams, and sometimes outright arrogance of their clients into beautiful meditations on surface treatment and the play between light, window and wall.

The two buildings of prime focus will be the Oviatt (1927) and the Fine Arts Building (1928). We will not be visiting the penthouse of the Oviatt, and it will be at the discretion of the buildingâ€s management if we are permitted a peek inside the the former Oviatt & Alexander haberdashery. The Fine Arts Building lobby will be open, and we plan on spending a fair amount of time in it, amongst the Batchelder tile.

While the calculus to minimize the route and maximize other Walker & Eisen buildings along its path has yet to be computed, attendees can be assured that there will be a great deal to see, and yet more to talk about.

The tour will begin in the exterior lobby of the Oviatt Building at 1:30pm. Please wear comfortable shoes and dress appropriately for the weather, as we will walking at least six blocks and possibly farther before the tourâ€s end.

ABOUT THE TOUR SERIES: “The Flaneur & The City” is an ongoing attempt to explore some of the more important issues revealed by the constantly changing heart of the metropolis. The core notion of the series is of culture and history as commodities that are packaged and sold to a target demographic; meanwhile, itâ€s the ignored and seemingly worthless scraps of meaning found on the sidewalks and marketplaces where the true remnants of positive public space can be found. All interpretations and nuisances of the word flaneur are examined—from the modern-day aesthete dreaming of Baudelaire while carried along in the human tide past the stalls and shops of Broadway, to its more recent and perhaps relevant use, someone who is loitering. At its heart this series is a celebration of the simple act of getting out of your car, walking through a neighborhood and learning to see it with your own eyes.

This tour is now full. If you want to try to get a space on the tour, you may attend the LAVA Sunday Salon and ask about openings before the tour departs.

For the latest installment of urban historian Richard Schaveâ€s site-specific discussion series “The Flâneur & The City,” Richard (Esotouric bus adventures) is joined by architectural historian Nathan Marsak (1947project, On Bunker Hill, In SRO Land).

On this excursion weâ€ll explore the mostly lost architectural landmarks of the Northern Historic Core, starting from 3rd & Spring, east to Main, then north to the lawn of City Hall, then westward to 2nd & Spring. Within this small footprint, we will discover some of the most fascinating structures in L.A. history, most of them quite forgotten.

The tour is inspired by the September 2011 launch of a new series on the In SRO Land time travel blog featuring archival material from the collection of the Union Rescue Mission, which presents an opportunity for exploring the lost lore of the old commercial neighborhood which was largely cleared via eminent domain in the 1920s and 1930s in order to provide a clean slate for the erection of City Hall and other government buildings. This was a precursor to the much larger and more destructive eminent domain project by which the residential neighborhood Bunker Hill was cleared in the 1950s and 1960s.

Locations on the walking tour will include Joseph Newsomâ€s exquisite Bryson-Bonebrake Block (1888), first two Union Rescue Mission locations, and the original “civic center” encompassing the Courthouse (1887), the Hall of Records (1911) and the State Building (1931).

To start, we will seek to answer some basic questions about the early development of downtown Los Angeles:

• Who were the architects and financiers of 19th Century Los Angeles?

• Which buildings were most representative of these individuals†aims, and which were the most significant architecturally?

• What did the Victorian-era Angeleno think of the architecture of his city?

• How did architecture reflect the growth of the city?

Having established these early themes, we will start to ask questions about the emotional and spiritual core of the city of Los Angeles –-its zeitgeist—and begin to draw the connection between architecture and the cityâ€s culture.

An example is the discussion of the Union Rescue Missionâ€s first two buildings at 145 N. Main Street and 226 S. Main Street. More than a century ago, the URMâ€s unique mission brought them to the heart of Skid Row, a place filled with characters and scenery worthy of Victor Hugo, and it keeps them there to this day. The city has twice forced a move of the URM as it seeks to “move along” the disenfranchised and those who seek to aid them. These snapshots of lost architectural spaces that were once an intrinsic part of a dynamic urban core tell us much about the tensions and forces still at play in the community.

The tourâ€s closing thoughts are inspired by a quote from Hugoâ€s The Hunchback of Notre-Dame: “When a man understands the art of seeing, he can trace the spirit of an age and the features of a king even in the knocker on a door.”

TAKING THIS TOUR: This tour is now full. If you want to try to get a space on the tour, you may attend the LAVA Sunday Salon and ask about openings before the tour departs. – Reservations will be required for this free walking tour, and space is very limited for all events in this series. Reserve your space for the September 25 event by clicking “Signups” (THERE ARE NO “PLUS-ONES” – ONE RESERVATION PER PERSON, PLEASE!).

ABOUT THE TOUR SERIES: “The Flâneur & The City” is an ongoing attempt to explore some of the more important issues revealed by the constantly changing heart of the metropolis. The core notion of the series is of culture and history as commodities that are packaged and sold to a target demographic; meanwhile, itâ€s the ignored and seemingly worthless scraps of meaning found on the sidewalks and marketplaces where the true remnants of positive public space can be found. All interpretations and nuisances of the word flâneur are examined—from the modern-day aesthete dreaming of Baudelaire while carried along in the human tide past the stalls and shops of Broadway, to its more recent and perhaps relevant use, someone who is loitering. At its heart this series is a celebration of the simple act of getting out of your car, walking through a neighborhood and learning to see it with your own eyes.

Urban historian Richard Schave’s site-specific discussion series “The Flâneur & The City” is an ongoing attempt to explore some of the more important issues revealed by the constantly changing heart of the metropolis.The core notion of the series is of culture and history as commodities that are packaged and sold to a target demographic; meanwhile, it’s the ignored and seemingly worthless scraps of meaning found on the sidewalks and marketplaces where the true remnants of positive public space can be found. All interpretations and nuisances of the word flâneur are examined — from the modern-day aesthete dreaming of Baudelaire while carried along in the human tide past the stalls and shops of Broadway, to its more recent and perhaps relevant use, someone who is loitering. At its heart this series is a celebration of the simple act of getting out of your car and walking through a neighborhood and learning to see it with all your eyes.

In this installment, we will visit Olvera Street, the historic seed of Los Angeles and the first place where issues of urban preservation entered the city’s consciousness. On this free 45-minute walking tour, we’ll explore the site’s history, from the founding of the city (1781) to the present day, with a focus on the “classic” era: Christine Sterling’s nearly thirty years of preservation and reinterpretation, which resulted in the entire Plaza becoming a State park, now managed by the city of Los Angeles.

On this informative stroll through a provocative and multi-layered space, we’ll explore such key questions as:

* What core challenges, goals and strategies are shared by Christine Sterling at the Plaza in the early 20th century and the developers of downtown’s Old Bank District (4th & Main) in the early 21st century?

* Is there a point on the continuum where the creeping kitsch of a tourist attraction overwhelms the value of a vital community space? Can a positive public space be ruined by popularity and accessibility? 

The 45-minute tour will be followed with a preview visit to downtown’s newest cultural institution, LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes in the old Brunswig Building just south of “La Placita” church. Here President and CEO Miguel Angel Corzo will give us a 30-minute walkthrough of the newly-refurbished site and touch on the core goals and objectives for the institution, which opens in the fall.

Space is very limited on this free walking tour, and each guest must sign up using their own name and email address–no plus ones can be accommodated. To reserve, please click “Signups” above (or at this link) and give your full name when filling out the form. If unable to attend, please cancel to free up space for another guest.

Parking will be validated for those who have signed up for the tour in the parking lot of La Plaza de Cultura y Artes, just south of 501 North Main Stree (see map link). Please plan to arrive about 10 minutes before the tour starts for check in at the entrance to La Plaza de Cultura y Artes, 501 North Main Street.

Urban historian Richard Schave’s site-specific discussion series “The Flâneur & The City” is an ongoing attempt to explore some of the more important issues revealed by the constantly changing heart of the metropolis. The core notion of the series is of culture and history as commodities that are packaged and sold to a target demographic; meanwhile, it’s the ignored and seemingly worthless scraps of meaning found on the sidewalks and marketplaces where the true remnants of positive public space can be found. All interpretations and nuisances of the word flâneur are examined — from the modern-day aesthete dreaming of Baudelaire while carried along in the human tide past the stalls and shops of Broadway, to its more recent and perhaps relevant use, someone who is loitering. At its heart this series is a celebration of the simple act of getting out of your car, walking through a neighborhood and learning to see it with your own eyes.

The first installment of this series will begin on the roof of the Los Angeles Athletic Club for a general overview of the forces at play within the Historic Core and a basic orientation to the geography of the neighborhood, followed by a stroll along Broadway and Spring Streets to discuss the finer points of the impact of recent public policy on urban renewal, gentrification and positive public space on the fragile ecologies of these two important thoroughfares. Reservations will be required, and space is very limited for all events in this series. Reserve your space for the March 28 event by clicking “Signups” above ((before 10:30am on 3/28, after which you should just show up at the Sunday Salon and ask if there is space available), and subscribe to LAVA’s mailing list for announcements of future events in the series.