In 1895, the journalist, author and collector Charles Fletcher Lummis gathered a crew of history-loving friends to form The Landmarks Club of Southern California, dedicated to the preservation and interpretation of the endangered places that told the story of the Southland.

Without their passionate advocacy, the derelict adobe Missions would have melted away before the century turned.

Today, Southern Californiaâ€s landmarks are threatened by corporate developers who seek to extract the maximum value from every inch of land, their demolition and spot-zoning requests enabled by well-greased politicians. Often, the only thing standing in the way of the wrecking ball is a dedicated citizen-activist fighting for a place they love too much to lose without a fight.

They might not realize it, but every local preservationist stands on the shoulders of Lummis.

L.A.â€s most eclectic historic tour company Esotouric invites you to gather in the spirit of Charles Fletcher Lummis and in his beloved arroyo home El Alisal, to encourage and learn from preservation activists, mix and mingle with fellow history lovers, enjoy tasty snacks, tour the historic home and gardens and imagine the Los Angeles you want to live in.

Our special guest for the August 2019 debut salon is preservation activist Steven Luftman, appearing in conversation with Esotouricâ€s Richard Schave. Steven will share his personal path to loving and saving old buildings, including his successful landmarking of Kurt Meyerâ€s Lytton Savings (1960), continued threats to the “protected” building from Frank Gehryâ€s mega-project, his efforts to preserve and designate L.A.â€s unique bungalow courts, vernacular apartments and Tom Berginâ€s Irish pub, and tips for picking the landmarking battles that will feed your soul. A no-holds-barred Q&A follows. Plus, Professor Jeremiah Axelrod, Director for the Institute for the Study of Los Angeles (ISLA) at Occidental College, with a status report on the proposal to base ISLA at Lummis House.

Come be part of a supportive and creative preservation community, as we reactivate El Alisal and draw on the homeâ€s long tradition of activism, storytelling, social justice and good fellowship. It wouldnâ€t be the same without YOU!

Salon Schedule:
2.30pm – Check in desk opens
2.40 to 3:45pm – Tours of Lummis House
4.00pm – Professor Jeremiah Axelrod opening remarks
4.15 to 5.15pm – Steven Luftman and Richard Schave in conversation
5.15 to 5.30pm – Q & A
5.30pm – Coffee & sweets
6.30pm – Salon ends, see you next time!

STEVEN LUFTMANâ€S PRESERVATION BIOGRAPHY:

Born in Hollywood, Steven Luftman gained a lifelong appreciation for art and architecture in the mid-century cultural institutions of Los Angeles: at five he opened a savings account at Lytton Savings on the Sunset Strip, he took art classes at the then brand-new William Pereira-designed Los Angeles County Art Museum, took in movies at the Cinerama Dome, and with his mother and sister experienced L.A. Philharmonic rehearsals at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. After graduating from the Craig Ellwood/James Tyler-designed campus of Art Center College of Design, he moved to New York City to work in advertising.

Returning to Los Angeles in 1997, Steven used the seminal Gebhard & Winter “An Architectural Guidebook to Los Angeles” in his search for the perfect apartment. With some luck, Steven and his partner Karen found themselves in what would become the Mendel and Mabel Meyer Courtyard Apartments (Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #1096). While always a preservationist and a social activist at heart, it wasnâ€t until his beloved home of eighteen years was threatened with demolition in 2015 that he wrote his first Historic-Cultural Monument application.

To date, Steven has written or co-written ten HCM applications, and has been an active participant in trying to save fifteen historically-significant buildings. He also campaigns for affordable housing and is active in the tenants†rights movement, and can regularly be found in City Hall supporting the preservation efforts of others. Steven longs for the day when greedy developers take a break from trying to destroy the historic buildings and neighborhoods of Los Angeles so he can take enough time off to enjoy his other passion, racing his 1978 Crosslé Formula Ford.

“Failed public space… a zone of repulsion… where retail goes to die.”

Such is the perceived wisdom about the Los Angeles Mall, an underappreciated and underutilized shopping, dining and public plaza development which is in the cross-hairs of the same City Council-driven redevelopment plan that calls for the demolition of Welton Becketâ€s Parker Center.

Join us for an afternoon exploring the history, integrated artwork and possibilities of a cultural landscape that is worth reconsidering – before itâ€s too late! This Sunday Salon and walking tour will be hosted by Richard Schave & Nathan Marsak with contributions from Joseph Youngâ€s daughters, Cecily & Leslie Young.

The entire Los Angeles Civic Center, which includes the Los Angeles Mall, is being re-imagined, and the Civic Center Master Plan (PDF link) has just been approved. The Master Plan calls for the the Department of Cultural Affairs to produce a report on the public art in the Los Angeles Mall (The Public Art District Plan) which is sensitive to its history and comprehensive in scope. We believe this document should set a new bar for how DCA is to take the lead on advocating for and preserving public art throughout Los Angeles.

The goal of this Sunday Salon is identify and to advocate for the public art and landscape of the Los Angeles Mall, and for Joseph Youngâ€s “Theme Mural of Los Angeles” (1955), slated for removal, restoration and relocation, in the adjacent, soon-to-be-demolished Parker Center.

The Los Angeles Mall was constructed between 1973 and 1975 and occupies 1.5 square blocks on the east side of City Hall, from Main to Los Angeles Street, running north to Aliso. Stanton & Stockwell were the architects, and the landscape architects were Cornell, Bridgers, Troller and Hazlett. The two plazas which make up the mall are surrounded by civic buildings. At Temple Street, a stunning 120†cantilevered pedestrian bridge by the Mallâ€s landscape architect Howard Troller and artist Tom Van Sant connects the plazas.

The South Plaza, dominated by the Brutalist City Hall East, includes the Eleanor Chambers Memorial Fountain (also known as Dan-de-lion for its effect when running) designed by Howard Troller and Hanns Scharff. A sunken palm court features Jan Peter Sternâ€s stainless steel Cubed Square and arcing paths which lead off to retail and food court options in the subterranean North and South Malls. There are four levels of below-ground parking.

The North Plaza, called Fletcher Bowron Square after the reformer mayor (served 1938-53), is defined by Joseph Youngâ€s neglected 60-foot-tall Triforium (1975) a free-standing computerized sound and light sculpture comprised of 1,500 blown-glass prisms synchronized to an electronic glass bell carillon. The adjacent sunken plaza has a food court, a collection of mature palms, and the Robert J. Stevenson Fountain, which consists of a carved and painted obelisk set in a tiled pool of centrifugal jets.

Doug Dunn is a specialist in legacy, enterprise, and proprietary computers. In practice, this really just means anything that is not a server, desktop, laptop, or phone – in other words, “weird computers”. Starting as an e-waste reseller in college, he turned a fascination with computing history into a career path. After an unsatisfying stint with a tech “start up”, he decided to start his own business focusing on support for the IBM AS/400 and z/System product lines. Legacy computing consultation is a very niche field, so he hopes to get some high-profile exposure from his first major project, the Triforium restoration. During the initial review, he found the original paper software tapes, and believe that the system can be made to appear functionally identical to its intended design.

Come explore a true time capsule of Imperial California and get to know this endangered landscape and its integrated artwork, fixtures and vistas while you still can.

The LAVA Sunday Salon is delighted to welcome back the esteemed poet and educator Suzanne Lummis as she curates a third series of Poem Noir readings.

Starting in the basement of Grand Central Market, Suzanne will describe the defining characteristics of this poetry, whose dark themes, atmosphere, and voice of cool detachment are inspired by the low budget black-and-white crime movies of the 1940s and 1950s. Then weâ€ll move across the street to the Bradbury Building for the Poem Noir readings, presented by a star-studded lineup of poets.

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 youâ€re interested in joining LAVA as a creative contributor or an attendee, we recommend Salon attendance as an introduction to this growing community.

Presenters

D. W. JACOBS is a playwright, director, actor and poet. He wrote R. Buckminster Fuller: THE HISTORY (and Mystery) OF THE UNIVERSE, a play based on the life, work and writings of Buckminster Fuller. This play has had over 1,000 performances in Southern California, San Francisco, Chicago, Portland, Seattle, Santa Fe, Boston/Cambridge, Washington, D.C., Asheville, N.C., Atlanta, Montreal and Poland. Jacobs has twice lectured on Fuller at the Wrocław University of Technology in Poland. He lives in Highland Park, Los Angeles, where he co-founded TEATRO ARROYO // Theater Stream (a performance division of the Arroyo Arts Collective.) He also co-founded San Diego Repertory Theatre, where he served as Artistic Director for 20 years.

BETH RUSCIO is part of a large working class family of artists, actors, writers and vaudevillians. Sheâ€s a poet, an accomplished award-winning actress (upcoming in the romantic comedy feature film The Unicorn) and a one-time playwright, co-writing 1961 Eldorado with husband Leon Martell. In 2016, her manuscript Hollywood Forever Cemetery won both Honorable Mention for The Two Sylvias Prize, and was a finalist for the Sunken Garden Poetry Prize (Tupelo Press). Her work has appeared in California Journal of Poetics, Tupelo Quarterly, Cultural Weekly, The Malpais Review, In Posse Review, Spillway, Speechless the Magazine, and is anthologized in Beyond The Lyric Moment; Poetâ€s Calendar; Conducting A Life: Maria Irene Fornes and upcoming in 1001 Nights. She will read from her newest manuscript on KPFKâ€s broadcast of Why Poetry on February 18 at 4:30PM.

SUZANNE LUMMIS (organizer) has for many years been one of the best-known poets associated with California and the Los Angeles region, and is among those poets exploring the “poem noir.” She created and teaches a class “poem noir.” She created and teaches a class for the UCLA Extension Writers Program, “Poetry Goes to the Movies: Writing the Poem Noir,” and her essays “The Poem Noir: Too Dark to be Depressed,” and “Never Out of the Past: Noir and the Poetry of Lynda Hull” were published by Malpais Review and The Los Angeles Review of Books respectively. They Write by Night, her video series produced by www.Poetry.LA, will debut in February. Lummis’ most recent poetry collection, Open 24 Hours, received the Blue Lynx Poetry Prize.

Fanny Daubigny is a writer, critic and translator. She is the author of numerous articles on Marcel Proust, J.M.G LeClézio and Marthe Bibesco and her articles have appeared in numerous literary reviews such as, Los Angeles Review of Books, French Forum, Bulletin des Amis de Marcel Proust. Her genre-bending essay ‘Proust in Black’ (Notes on LA noir) will be published in the Fall by SDSU Press. She is currently working on the translation of the poetry of Suzanne Lummis. She lives in Los Angeles.

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 donâ€t reserve unless you plan to attend. To reserve your spot for this free event, click on the “Buy Tickets” button above.