This Sunday July 24th Find Out How Los Angeles Invented the Wild West (and why no one knows it!)

TODAY - Sunday July 24th - at 11 AM and at 2:30 PM

Discover) where the West really started - Downtown Los Angeles!

To celebrate this  National Day of the American Cowboy, THE LAST BOOKSTORES’s Tours of Historic Downtown LA presents its latest guided walking tour - “How Los Angeles Invented the Wild West (and why no one knows it!)”  on Sunday July 24th from 11 AM - 1:30 PM and from 2:30 PM until 5 PM.  Call 213-804-8396 for more information or reservations.  And still only $15 per person.

WILD WEST TOURS

This Sunday July 24th you will find out that long before the famed Western cowtowns and mining camps Tombstone, Dodge City, and Deadwood existed, Los Angeles was the first town where all the trappings of the Wild West were created.   You will also discover LA was a far ‘wilder’ town than any Western town that followed after it. Tours, led by Brady Westwater, will begin at the 10,000  square foot THE LAST BOOKSTONE - 453 S. Spring Street - and the Western Tour will run from 2:30 PM - 5 PM Saturday July 23^rd and on Sunday July 24^th from 11 AM until 1:30 PM and then also from 2:30 PM until 5 PM.  Call 213-804-8396 for reservations.

Description of what WILD WEST TOUR will cover.

Besides ‘inventing’ the original Wild West, Los Angeles also remained part of the Wild West for far longer than other place (from 25 years to over 90 years - depending upon the definition of the term - compared to the average period of 3 or 4 years to 10 years of other towns) and LA was also one of the few towns built upon both cattle and mining.

It started in the 1820’s when Los Angeles (founded in 1781) became the end of the Old Spanish Trail and the Western end of the Santé Fe Trail.  During that time LA was regularly visited by many of the early West’s leading mountain Men and fur trappers and a number of these early pioneers ended up settling down in Los Angeles.  Los Angeles was also home to the first Western gold rush in 1843 - five years before gold was discovered by John Marshall (who also spent time in Los Angeles) at Sutter’s Mill.

As the largest city in California, Los Angeles was also involved in multiple revolutions and insurrections during both the Spanish and Mexican eras and the exporting of hides from San Pedro starting in the 1820’s made LA the first major cowtown west of the Rockies.  And after the Gold Rush started, Los Angeles rancho owners made cattle drives to Northern California gold camps, a full fifteen years before the first cattle drives left Texas.

The money from those cattle started Los Angeles’s first boom and immediately made LA a magnet for gamblers, bandits and get rich quick artists.   And many of them were the most hardened criminals who were run out of the gold camps by vigilantes.

That’s possibly why when one historian states that from 1870 to 1885, the five Kansas cowtowns of Abilene, Caldwell, Dodge City, Ellsworth and Wichita had a total of 45 homicides during fifteen years, about of three per year per town - in contrast, Los Angeles, when it’s Wild West days were just getting started in 1850, had 31 homicides in a one year - more than all five major Kansas cowtowns had - combined - over 15 years.  

And on a per capita basis LA’s murder comes to 1,240 homicides per 100,000 while the national rate even in the lawless 1990’s was… 9 per 100,000.

So LA didn’t just have the highest murder rate in the old West doing the 1850’s - frontier Los Angeles had the highest homicide rate in all of American history.  And even those statistics were likely surpassed in the middle and late 1850’s when it was commonly said - and only partly in jest - that LA had close to a murder a day every day of the year.

So LA’s secret Wild West history isn't just that LA was the wildest town in the history of the Wild West - - but that LA was single-handedly practically as wild as the entire rest of the West put together.

But that is the only the start.   Besides murders, frontier Los Angeles was also home to stage robberies, multiple vigilante or rangers organizations (the first one in 1836), far grander saloons and gambling halls than any other cowtown, countless posses that regularly rode over multiple counties, jail breaks, lynchings (including one led by the Mayor),  far more gun fights than any other Western town, some of largest man hunts in Western history, bandit gangs that dwarfed those that terrorized other cowtowns, a 10 year two family blood feud that began with two murders and ended up in the ‘Shootout at the Bella Union Hotel’ and more sheriffs, marshals, deputies and police officers who lost their lives in the line of duty than in any other town, including one marshal who was killed his own deputy. 

And almost all of this happened 10 years before Dodge City existed, 15 years before Deadwood was founded and 20 years before Tombstone dug its first mine. 

But  even during the comparatively quiet  1870’s - after its peak years - when the rest of the West was just… beginning its heyday… this ‘quieter’   and the always entertaining  stage robberies of Dick Fellows.  And LA’s Wild West history continued on until  continued on with a final train robbery in the 1890’s in the San Fernando Valley in the 1890’s  and Wyatt Earp being hired for special assignments by the LAPD in the 1900’s and 1910s.

This makes LA the only place in the West with an uninterrupted Wild West history that ran uninterrupted for almost  100 years - from Jedediah Smith, Kit Carson and Peg Leg Smith in the mid-to late 1820's to Wyatt Earp in the late  1910’s.

That’s why it’s not surprising many famous characters of the Old West began their careers in Los Angeles. Wyatt Earp worked here as a teamster or stage driver when he was in his teens, Judge Roy Bean - later to be famed as the law West of the Pecos (and played by Paul Newman) - was head of the Los Angeles Rangers in LA before there was even anything West of the Pecos, the lost Dutchman of the Lost Dutchman mine began his mining career here, Outlaw Belle Starr's outlaw son was born here and Kit Carson and Jon C. Fremont both visited here several times before fighting here during the Mexican War.

And that’s only the start of how LA invented the Wild West. 

Because after rest of the West died down elsewhere, many of the leading characters of the era moved - or returned to -  LA from the  1880’s to the 1920’s, which is one reason why much of early Downtown was built by mining and cattle money.   Many of them then also helped reinvent the Wild West in one more way.  But this time in was for the Hollywood Western films that told the all stories of all the now famous Cowtowns and Mining camps of the Wild West - all of them with just one exception.

Los Angeles.  The place where the Wild West started - and where it ended.

And if you want to find out reason why that happened and why no one knows about this secret history of Los Angeles - or many of the other of many secret histories of Los Angeles - that will all be explained on this weekend’s tours.  

And, again, for reservations or more information - call 213-804-8396.

How Los Angeles Invented the Wild West (and why no one knows it!) TWO MORE TOURS ADDED THIS WEEKEND!

Celebrate the National Day of the American Cowboy this Saturday (and Sunday) where the West really started - Downtown Los Angeles!

To celebrate this Saturday’s National Day of the American Cowboy, THE LAST BOOKSTORES’s Tours of Historic Downtown LA presents its latest guided walking tour - “How Los Angeles Invented the Wild West (and why no one knows it!)”  on both this Saturday afternoon, July 23rd  from 2:30 - 5 PM, and on Sunday July 24th from 11 AM - 1:30 PM and from 2:30 PM until 5 PM.  Call 213-804-8396 for more information or reservations.  And still only $15 per person.

WILD WEST TOURS

This Saturday and Sunday, you will find out that long before the famed Western cowtowns and mining camps Tombstone, Dodge City, and Deadwood existed, Los Angeles was the first town where all the trappings of the Wild West were created.   You will also discover LA was a far ‘wilder’ town than any Western town that followed after it. Tours, led by Brady Westwater, will begin at the 10,000  square foot THE LAST BOOKSTONE - 453 S. Spring Street - and the Western Tour will run from 2:30 PM - 5 PM Saturday July 23^rd and on Sunday July 24^th from 11 AM until 1:30 PM and then also from 2:30 PM until 5 PM.  Call 213-804-8396 for reservations.

Description of what WILD WEST TOUR will cover.

Besides ‘inventing’ the original Wild West, Los Angeles also remained part of the Wild West for far longer than other place (from 25 years to over 90 years - depending upon the definition of the term - compared to the average period of 3 or 4 years to 10 years of other towns) and LA was also one of the few towns built upon both cattle and mining.

It started in the 1820’s when Los Angeles (founded in 1781) became the end of the Old Spanish Trail and the Western end of the Santé Fe Trail.  During that time LA was regularly visited by many of the early West’s leading mountain Men and fur trappers and a number of these early pioneers ended up settling down in Los Angeles.  Los Angeles was also home to the first Western gold rush in 1843 - five years before gold was discovered by John Marshall (who also spent time in Los Angeles) at Sutter’s Mill.

As the largest city in California, Los Angeles was also involved in multiple revolutions and insurrections during both the Spanish and Mexican eras and the exporting of hides from San Pedro starting in the 1820’s made LA the first major cowtown west of the Rockies.  And after the Gold Rush started, Los Angeles rancho owners made cattle drives to Northern California gold camps, a full fifteen years before the first cattle drives left Texas.

The money from those cattle started Los Angeles’s first boom and immediately made LA a magnet for gamblers, bandits and get rich quick artists.   And many of them were the most hardened criminals who were run out of the gold camps by vigilantes.

That’s possibly why when one historian states that from 1870 to 1885, the five Kansas cowtowns of Abilene, Caldwell, Dodge City, Ellsworth and Wichita had a total of 45 homicides during fifteen years, about of three per year per town - in contrast, Los Angeles, when it’s Wild West days were just getting started in 1850, had 31 homicides in a one year - more than all five major Kansas cowtowns had - combined - over 15 years.  

And on a per capita basis LA’s murder comes to 1,240 homicides per 100,000 while the national rate even in the lawless 1990’s was… 9 per 100,000.

So LA didn’t just have the highest murder rate in the old West doing the 1850’s - frontier Los Angeles had the highest homicide rate in all of American history.  And even those statistics were likely surpassed in the middle and late 1850’s when it was commonly said - and only partly in jest - that LA had close to a murder a day every day of the year.

So LA’s secret Wild West history isn't just that LA was the wildest town in the history of the Wild West - - but that LA was single-handedly practically as wild as the entire rest of the West put together.

But that is the only the start.   Besides murders, frontier Los Angeles was also home to stage robberies, multiple vigilante or rangers organizations (the first one in 1836), far grander saloons and gambling halls than any other cowtown, countless posses that regularly rode over multiple counties, jail breaks, lynchings (including one led by the Mayor),  far more gun fights than any other Western town, some of largest man hunts in Western history, bandit gangs that dwarfed those that terrorized other cowtowns, a 10 year two family blood feud that began with two murders and ended up in the ‘Shootout at the Bella Union Hotel’ and more sheriffs, marshals, deputies and police officers who lost their lives in the line of duty than in any other town, including one marshal who was killed his own deputy. 

And almost all of this happened 10 years before Dodge City existed, 15 years before Deadwood was founded and 20 years before Tombstone dug its first mine. 

But  even during the comparatively quiet  1870’s - after its peak years - when the rest of the West was just… beginning its heyday… this ‘quieter’   and the always entertaining  stage robberies of Dick Fellows.  And LA’s Wild West history continued on until  continued on with a final train robbery in the 1890’s in the San Fernando Valley in the 1890’s  and Wyatt Earp being hired for special assignments by the LAPD in the 1900’s and 1910s.

This makes LA the only place in the West with an uninterrupted Wild West history that ran uninterrupted for almost  100 years - from Jedediah Smith, Kit Carson and Peg Leg Smith in the mid-to late 1820's to Wyatt Earp in the late  1910’s.

That’s why it’s not surprising many famous characters of the Old West began their careers in Los Angeles. Wyatt Earp worked here as a teamster or stage driver when he was in his teens, Judge Roy Bean - later to be famed as the law West of the Pecos (and played by Paul Newman) - was head of the Los Angeles Rangers in LA before there was even anything West of the Pecos, the lost Dutchman of the Lost Dutchman mine began his mining career here, Outlaw Belle Starr's outlaw son was born here and Kit Carson and Jon C. Fremont both visited here several times before fighting here during the Mexican War.

And that’s only the start of how LA invented the Wild West. 

Because after rest of the West died down elsewhere, many of the leading characters of the era moved - or returned to -  LA from the  1880’s to the 1920’s, which is one reason why much of early Downtown was built by mining and cattle money.   Many of them then also helped reinvent the Wild West in one more way.  But this time in was for the Hollywood Western films that told the all stories of all the now famous Cowtowns and Mining camps of the Wild West - all of them with just one exception.

Los Angeles.  The place where the Wild West started - and where it ended.

And if you want to find out reason why that happened and why no one knows about this secret history of Los Angeles - or many of the other of many secret histories of Los Angeles - that will all be explained on this weekend’s tours.  

And, again, for reservations or more information - call 213-804-8396.

Escape Carmageddon! Take a Historic Downtown Los Angeles Walking Tour! Our Sunday July 17th Tour - 'How Los Angeles Invented the Wild West!

Escape Carmageddon by fleeing east by car - or bike or take the subway Downtown for our Sunday July 17th walking tour from 11 AM - 1:30 PM.

The Last Bookstore's newest tour - 'How Los Angeles Invented The Wild West - will premiere this Sunday, July 17th, the weekend before next Saturday's  'National Day of the American Cowboy festivities.  This tour will then be repeated on both Saturday July 23rd and Sunday July 24th if you miss this special preview.

Our newest tour will feature the hidden Western history of Los Angeles and it will uncover LA's secret origins as the toughest cow town in the history of the Wild West long before the Wild West existed anywhere else - and long before Los Angeles invented the Western film.  

Learn what Wyatt Earp, Judge Roy Bean  (all the law West of the Pecos), Peg Leg Smith, Belle Star, Peg Leg Smith, the Dutchman of the Los Dutchman Mine, the Dalton Brothers, Liver-Eating Johnson, Death Valley Scotty and many, many other were all doing in Los Angeles.

And usual, this new walking tour will start at THE LAST BOOKSTORE at 453 S. Spring Street, at the corner of 5th Spring and each tour is still only $15 and you can reserve in advance by calling 213-804-8396.

Escape Carmageddon! Take one of THREE different Historic Downtown Los Angeles Walking Tours! Saturday July 16th and Sunday July 17th!

Escape Carmageddon by fleeing east by car and checking into a hotel Downtown hotel for the weekend - or bike or take the subway Downtown for one of our three different walking tours Saturday July 16th or Sunday, July 17th from 11 AM until 1:30 PM.

The Last Bookstore's newest tour - How Los Angeles Invented The Wild West - will premiere this Sunday, July 17th, the weekend before next Saturday's  'National Day of the American Cowboy festivities.  This tour will then be repeated on both Saturday July 23rd and Sunday July 24th if you miss this special preview.

Our newest tour will feature the hidden Western history of Los Angeles and it will uncover LA's secret origins as the toughest cow town in the history of the Wild West long before it invented the Western film.  It will also illustrate how parts of that culture still remain alive today.

And usual, this new walking tour will start at THE LAST BOOKSTORE at 453 S. Spring Street, at the corner of 5th Spring and each tour is still only $15 and you can reserve in advance by calling 213-804-8396

Next, this Saturday's (July 16th) event will be our popular Historic Downtown 101 Tour - see description below. 

And - by special request - one can also arrange for a tour of Main Street from Historic Downtown to the Plaza and back on Spring Street on either Saturday or Sunday afternoon  starting at 2:30 by calling and requesting a reservation.  This tour will focus on how LA & Downtown developed in the 19th and 20th centuries - and how it is now developing in the 21st Century.

And, again, each tour is only $15 and you can reserve in advance for all the tours by calling 213-804-8396

The Last Bookstore Presents….

  

The Secret Lives of Downtown

A series of guided walking tours of Historic Downtown Los Angeles’s secret past, its present - and its future.

The “Historic Downtown 101” tour is a general introduction to our rapidly developing neighborhood and an overview of the multiple histories of the streets of Broadway, Spring and Main.  All tours begin at THE LAST BOOKSTORE at 453 S. Spring Street in the Spring Arts Tower and will be led by long time Downtown resident Brady Westwater who, besides being involved with the Downtown LA Neighborhood Council, the Historic Downtown BID, Gallery Row, Art Walk, and the BOXeight & CONCEPT Fashion Weeks, has brought over 150 businesses, artists and non-profit institutions to Downtown.

If you are a participant, you will see where first motion picture theater was built,  the place where Babe Ruth signed his contract with the Yankees, the hotel where Charlie Chaplin lived when he made his early films (and the place where he made his Los Angeles vaudeville debut in 1910), where Bing Crosby was discovered - plus the homes and haunts of everyone from actor Nicholas Cage, the Black Dahlia, Rudolph Valentino, LA’s version of Jack the Ripper, President Teddy Roosevelt, the Night Stalker, western outlaw Emmet Dalton,  actor Ryan Gosling and more.  And you will also visit where O. J. Simpson bought his knife.

You’ll explore an intersection where all four buildings were often visited by gunfighter/sheriff Wyatt Earp since they were all built or occupied by friends of his from Tombstone during the shoot-out at the OK Corral.  At this intersection you will also discover what John Wayne, a prime minister of Italy, Houdini, Winston Churchill, boxer Jack Dempsey, Greta Garbo, President Woodrow Wilson and multiple Mexican boxing champions all had in common here.

You will also see where the first new lofts were opened, the places where Gallery Row and the Art Walk began and where Fashion Week returned to Downtown.  You will see many of the new boutiques, designer showrooms and stores that have recently opened in the area along with getting a sneak preview of what will soon be happening in the area.

Tickets for all this are only $15 per person - free for children under 8 - and reservations can be made by calling Brady Westwater at 213-804-8396 or emailing bradywestwater@gmail.com.  All credit card orders will be processed  at Last Bookstore and cash payments may be made at the start of the tour.   All proceeds will go towards the revitalization and the study of the history of the neighborhood.  

Lastly, future tours will feature specialized areas of interest such as architecture, art of all kinds, shopping and food, single streets, sports (from steer wrestling to Luchador wrestlers to a Sumo wrestler), transportation, specific periods of history, the hidden Wild West history of Los Angeles, movie locations, Downtown after hours and many other aspects of the neighborhood.  

We will also be soon starting weekday & evening tours on what it's like to live in Downtown Los Angeles. You will be introduced to the many of stores, restaurants, bars, and entertainment venues (and often their owners, too) - along with being given previews of one of a kind special events - so you can get a feel for what it is like to live in Downtown Los Angeles.

We expect this tour to be popular with not only people considering moving to Downtown and people who work in Downtown and who would like to know what to do after hours in Downtown - but also to recent and even long established Downtown residents who want to know more about their neighborhood.

For future updates and more information go to www.historicdowntownlosangeles.blogspot.com

THREE Cool Historic Things to do in Historic Downtown Los Angeles this 4th of July Weekend

First, of course, is The Last Bookstore's 11 AM to 1:30 PM walking tour of the secret histories of Historic Downtown Los Angeles Sunday, July 3rd.  Two and one-half hours of stories - and rare historic photographs - about the past, present and future of Historic Downtown for only $15!  All tours start at The Last Bookstore in the Spring Arts Tower 453 S. Spring at its 5th St. door. Call 213-804-8396 or just show up.

You can also call for a special 4th of July tour day/or  night - hours of your choosing and the bookstore will be open until 11 PM Saturday, 5 PM on Sunday and on the 4th, it will close early at 6 PM.

(photo courtsey of brighamyen.com)

And among the hidden in plain view secrets on these tours - is not just the oldest flagpole in LA - but the very first flagpole ever put in front of any commercial  building  in Los Angeles - clear back in the 1860's.

For more details of the tours go to:

http://historicdowntownlosangeles.blogspot.com/2011/06/this-weekends-tours-of-secret-lives-of.html

Above is a photo of the Bradbury Building which we will be visiting. You can see other photos of this building on this great a great LA-centric photo  blog:

http://laplaces.blogspot.com/2009/05/bradbury-building.html

SECOND, if you have not yet been to... LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes (aka - LA PLAZA)...  a just opened museum about the stories of Mexican American in Los Angeles - shame on you!

But your oversight is, unfortunately, totally understandable as this superb museum has so far gotten shamefully little press.  However, the good news on this 4th of July weekend is that your procrastination will pay off for since admission tickets are $2 off.  The museum is located at 501 N. Main Street - across from the Plaza and Olvera Street) in two historic old buildings, the 1883 Plaza House and the 1888 Vickry-Brunswig Building.

(photos courtesy of blogdowntown,  walknride LA and DiscoverLA)

The museum will be open from noon to 7 PM both Sunday and Monday, but you must enter by 6 PM to be admitted and it is better to allow two full hours to fully see everything

THIRD, and speaking of saving money, METROPOLIS BOOKS, also on Main Street between 4th and 5th, has a July sale with 20% off all new books - and a full 50% off of all used books!  They are located at 440 S. Main Street.  Their phone number is 213-612-0174 and their web address is http://www.metropolisbooksla.com/

Metropolis Books is Downtown's only general interest new book store and it always has a superb collection of new books on Los Angeles and Downtown in particular.

So come this Saturday July 2nd and visit all three places - or on Sunday July 3rd plus onMonday the 4th, you can call and ask for a special tour of Historic Downtown on Monday after which (or even before) you can also see the... LA PLAZA.

Metropolis Books Has Big July Summer Sale!

Metropolis Books is Downtown's only general interest new book store and it always has a superb collection of new books on Los Angeles and Downtown in particular.

Don't miss this one of a kind sale!

440 S. Main Street

LA  CA 90013

213-612-0174

www.MetropolisBooksLA.com

METROPOLIS BOOKS

JULY CLEARANCE SALE!

20% OFF NEW BOOKS

50% OFF ALL USED BOOKS

Specific Media Buys MYSPACE

This is the press release announcing the sale and the good news is that MYSPACE sold to a local - Irvine - company which means MYSPACE hopefully will remained headquartered in the LA area.  The other good news is that the Vanderhook brothers might just be the perfect guys to revitalize the brand.

SPECIFIC MEDIA ACQUIRES MYSPACE FROM NEWS CORPORATION

Los Angeles, Calif. — June 29, 2011 – Specific Media, a digital media company, today announced it has acquired Myspace from News Corporation. As part of the agreement, News Corporation will take a minority equity stake in Specific Media. Additional terms of the agreement are confidential and will not be disclosed.

“Myspace is a recognized leader that has pioneered the social media space. The company has transformed the ways in which audiences discover, consume and engage with content online,” said Tim Vanderhook, Specific Media CEO. “There are many synergies between our companies as we are both focused on enhancing digital media experiences by fueling connections with relevance and interest. We look forward to combining our platforms to drive the next generation of digital innovation.”

Specific Media is an innovative global interactive media company that enables advertisers to connect with consumers in meaningful, impactful and relevant ways. Founded in 1999 by brothers Tim, Chris and Russell Vanderhook, Specific Media is currently headquartered in Irvine, CA and operates offices around the world.

About Myspace

Myspace, Inc. is a leading social entertainment destination powered by the passions of fans. Aimed at a Gen Y audience, Myspace drives social interaction by providing a highly personalized experience around entertainment and connecting people to the music, celebrities, TV, movies, and games that they love. These entertainment experiences are available through multiple platforms, including online, mobile devices, and offline events.

Myspace is also the home of Myspace Music, which offers an ever-growing catalogue of freely streamable audio and video content to users and provides major, independent, and unsigned artists alike with the tools to reach new audiences. The company is headquartered in Beverly Hills, CA.  http://www.myspace.com/pressroom/

About Specific Media

Specific Media is a digital media company driving viewership for content owners, engagement for brands and relevance for consumers. With capabilities spanning original programming, cross-channel distribution and addressable advertising, the company connects audiences, content and brands, adding meaning to each touch-point. As people discover new ways to consume content, Specific Media creates impactful media experiences no matter where they are.

www.specificmedia.com.

Blogdowntown Recommends 'Secrets of Historic Downtown LA' Tours This Saturday and Sunday

Downtown's Cowboy Launching History Tours

By ERIC RICHARDSON

Published: Thursday, June 23, 2011, at 07:21AM

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — If you want to get to know the story of Downtown's development, you're not going to hear it from a much more colorful character than Brady Westwater. He's had some sort of a hand in most deals that had come through the Historic Core over the last decade, and probably done them all while wearing his trademark cowboy hat and wrestling t-shirts.

This Saturday, Westwater partners with The Last Bookstore to kick off a series of tours with "Historic Downtown 101." He promises "an overview of the multiple histories of the streets of Broadway, Spring and Main" that will offer a view of both new and old history of Downtown.

Attendance is $15, proceeds from which will go to "the revitalization and the study of the history of the neighborhood." To reserve a spot, call Westwater at 213-804-8396.

Tours are this Saturday June 25th from 11 AM - 1:30 PM and Sunday, June 26th, from Noon to 2:30 PM and the Saturday tour will include the interior of the Palace Theater.

http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=4386121434576458106&postID=4182588513504583554

http://blogdowntown.com/2011/06/6286-downtowns-cowboy-launching-history-tours

Guided Tours of Historic Downtown Los Angeles Start This Saturday & Sunday June 25th and 26th

The Last Bookstore Presents….

  

The Secret Lives of Downtown

A series of guided walking tours of Historic Downtown Los Angeles’s secret past, its present - and its future.

The first two tours - at only $15 per person - start this Saturday June 25th from 11 AM - 1:30 PM and Sunday, June 26th, from Noon to 2:30 PM.   All tours begin at THE LAST BOOKSTORE at 453 S. Spring Street in the Spring Arts Tower and will be led by long time Downtown resident Brady Westwater who, besides being involved with the Downtown LA Neighborhood Council, the Historic Downtown BID, Gallery Row, Art Walk, and the BOXeight & CONCEPT Fashion Weeks, has brought over 150 businesses, artists and non-profit institutions to Downtown.

The first two “Historic Downtown 101” tours will be a general introduction to our rapidly developing neighborhood and an overview of the multiple histories of the streets of Broadway, Spring and Main. 

If you are a participant, you will see the first motion picture theater built,  the place where Babe Ruth signed his contract with the Yankees, the hotel where Charlie Chaplin lived when he made his early films (and the place where he made his Los Angeles vaudeville debut in 1910) - plus the homes and haunts of everyone from actor Nicholas Cage, the Black Dahlia, Rudolph Valentino, LA’s version of Jack the Ripper, President Teddy Roosevelt, the Night Stalker, western outlaw Emmet Dalton,  actor Ryan Gosling and more.  And you will also visit where O. J. Simpson bought his knife.

You’ll explore an intersection where all four buildings were often visited by gunfighter/sheriff Wyatt Earp since they were all built or occupied by friends of his from Tombstone during the shoot-out at the OK Corral.  At this intersection you will also discover what John Wayne, a prime minister of Italy, Houdini, Winston Churchill, boxer Jack Dempsey, Greta Garbo, President Woodrow Wilson and multiple Mexican boxing champions all had in common here.

You will also see where the first new lofts were opened, the places where Gallery Row and the Art Walk began and where Fashion Week returned to Downtown.  You will see many of the new boutiques, designer showrooms and stores that have recently opened in the area along with getting a sneak preview of what will soon be happening in the area.

Tickets for all this are only $15 per person - free for children under 8 - and reservations can be made by calling Brady Westwater at 213-804-8396.  All credit card orders should be processed either at Last Bookstore or after you make reservations.   All proceeds will go towards the revitalization and the study of the history of the neighborhood.  

Lastly, future tours will feature specialized areas of interest such as architecture, art of all kinds, shopping and food, single streets, sports (from steer wrestling to Luchador wrestlers to a Sumo wrestler), transportation, specific periods of history, the hidden Wild West history of Los Angeles, movie locations, Downtown after hours and many other aspects of the neighborhood.

For future updates and more information go to www.historicdowntownlosangeles.blogspot.com

THE LAST BOOKSTORE has 2,000 discounted new art & architecture books on sale at tonight's Art Walk!

2,000 new art books for sale on Art Walk!  The Last Bookstore, which just moved and expanded into a 10,000 sq ft space in the Ground Floor of the Spring Arts Tower at 5th & Spring, will release 2000 new discounted art and architecture books Thursday June 8th for Art Walk.  Five live bands are playing, starting at 7 pm.  Store opens at 10 AM & closes at midnight.

Need Pharmacy with 30 MG generic adderall in stock - or new dopamine or norepinephrine agonist drug

Does any know of a pharmacy that still has 30 MG generic adderall in stock?  It's the only thing that still keeps me functioning now that all of my dopamine agonist drugs have stopped working.  Now I do not know if I have been on an 'authorized' generic or not - but would like to know if that is available, too.  I am the only person my neurologist has on this drug so he does not have a relationship with the manufacturer or distributor.

And - I am also looking for any new dopamine or norepinephrine agonist drugs that might be new to the market or are being tested right now.  I might add that the only drugs that have every fully worked for me have had the exact same three side affects.  They all 100% kicked in within a few hours of my taking them, the first change I sensed was the feeling of dryness in my nostrils which was closely followed by a feeling of alertness and then a loss of appetite.

I have already burned through over a dozen such drugs since the mid-1990's with the three best ones being desipramine; eldepryl aka selegiline aka Deprenyl ; and Provigil aka Modafinil - and they were the best three drugs as they allowed me to be not just be awake - which is all that adderall and all other stimulants (everyone one of which I have also now burned though ever does - but they also allowed me to be stay alert.  But now even the adderall is losing its effectiveness.

Was the 1970's & 1980s Soviet Union a Hotbed of Cutting Edge Contemporary Architecture?

Well, the GUARDIAN Says - Yes!

Swansongs of a superpower: Russia's secret architecture

Did this building spell the end of the Soviet empire? Jonathan Glancey on the extraordinary stories behind some of Russia's wildest architecture

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• • Jonathan Glancey
  • guardian.co.uk, Monday 7 February 2011 21.31 GMT
  • Article history

A floating metropolis … the Georgian Ministry of Highways Photograph: Frédéric Chaubin

Frédéric Chaubin was wandering through a market in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, in 2003 when an old book snared his eye. Although unable to read the words, the French photographer was mesmerised by the images it contained.

1. CCCP: Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed
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Chronicling 70 years of post-revolution architecture, the book featured an extraordinary collection of buildings that drew on an extraordinary collection of styles: as well as the Soviet schools of suprematism (a controlled explosion of geometric forms) and constructivism (wild projections, provocative angles), there was a strong western undercurrent, with echoes of everything from Alvar Aalto and Antoni Gaudí to Oscar Niemeyer. And running through all this was a thrilling element of Soviet over-reaching, a hint of sputniks, space rockets and flying saucers.

Chaubin was hooked. And so began a seven-year odyssey to seek out and photograph some of the Soviet era's most unusual architectural creations, many now under threat. Each one, says Chaubin, was amazing. "It was like finding an undiscovered monument – a Machu Picchu of your own."

Take the highly improbable Georgian Ministry of Highways, a heroic, Jenga-like arrangement of windowed oblongs completed in the mid-1970s. Based on a concept called the Space City method, and showing an eco-awareness way ahead of its time (especially for a highways agency), the ministry takes up little ground area, allowing nature to swarm in under it. Or take the architecture department of the Polytechnic Institute of Minsk: in Chaubin's photograph – which appears in Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed, the culmination of his odyssey – it resembles some mighty passenger ferry breaking through a frozen Belarussian river.

And then there's the marvellous Druzhba sanatorium by the sea at Yalta, a stack of cogged carousels rising out of a bank of trees, each notch a living space. "It was mistaken for a missile base by Turkish intelligence and the Pentagon," says Chaubin, who is the first to admit that his book is the work of a keen-eyed amateur, not an architecture expert. Perhaps we should be grateful: it's hard to imagine any expert going to the lengths Chaubin did. His book features a ravishing shot of the president of Armenia's holiday home, a glazed modern tower perched on a peninsula that looks out like a sentinel over Lake Sevan and the mountains beyond. To get the picture of the home, which perfectly captures its air of invincibility, Chaubin had to hire a boat and bob about as near as he dared, risking the attentions of the president's well-armed security guards.

Partly because of the language barrier and partly because the creators of these wonders have rarely been feted, this Soviet capacity for exuberant architecture has passed by all but undetected in the west. It comes as a surprise, a shock even. Their openings were recorded, but usually only in Architecture SSSR, a state magazine, or in books such as the series published in 1987 for the 70th anniversary of the October Revolution, celebrating the architecture of each of the 15 Soviet republics in those years; it was this publication that so transfixed Chaubin in the market. There was also the fact that travelling through the Soviet Union, especially off the beaten track, was not exactly encouraged, so many fascinating buildings remained almost unknown outside their homelands.

The Armenian president's holiday home. Photograph: Frédéric Chaubin

What really surprised Chaubin, though, was the fact that the most stunning buildings he found had gone up in the dying days of the communist era. "They were nearly all built in the last 15 years of the Soviet Union. It seemed strange, at first, that they were realised in so many different forms – especially as most Soviet architecture was still in the prefabricated style of the mid-1950s laid down by Khrushchev, with cheap concrete, straight Modernist lines, and little place for the artistic imagination."

This, he says, was because the 1970s and 1980s saw an upsurge of local talent, as designers found themselves no longer so shackled by constraints laid down by Moscow. In this way, they could even be read as the swansong of a superpower, created by people freed from centralisation, looking to and borrowing from the west. "You can see in these buildings the break-up of the Soviet Union," says Chaubin, "before the system finally collapsed in 1991."

Universities in Russia are beginning to research the buildings of this era, many of which have been abandoned and are falling into disrepair. They generally share one problem: these were public buildings constructed on a huge scale to impress and inspire local populations, with uses that have become redundant now that the state is no longer all-powerful and all-giving. But in among all the science academies and sports training centres, the sanatoriums, swimming pools and camps for youth movement pioneers, there are also some oddities, such as the "wedding palaces".

These fascinating things, built in prominent locations, were cathedral-like in their ambitions as well as their size. Chaubin concocted a game around his photograph of the Palace of Weddings in Vilnius, capital of Lithuania. He would show it to people and ask them what it could be: a monastery, a power station, maybe even a giant laboratory? "No one guessed it was a registry office for weddings built on a huge scale to encourage people away from getting married in churches."

Druzhba sanatorium in Yalta Photograph: Frédéric Chaubin

Chaubin has a serious purpose, too, though: he wants to understand how these buildings came about and who designed them – but the architects have proved hard, if not impossible, to track down. They were civil servants, after all, working for enormous state bureaus. Had they produced such buildings in the west, they might have ended up rich and famous penthouse dwellers; instead, many lived in cramped one-bedroom flats in Soviet-style concrete housing estates.

The floating metropolis

Some of the youngest architects to have worked on these late-Soviet projects are now in their 60s, and have moved onwards and upwards. Oleg Romanov – who in 1985 co-designed a young offenders camp at Bogatyr, Russia, in a zig-zagging style that became known as deconstructivism in the west – is now the vice-president of the St Petersburg Union of Architects. He has been campaigning vigorously against the vast and vulgar Gazprom tower, designed by British architects RMJM, which is threatening to destroy the skyline of what remains one of the most magnificent cities on Earth.

One of Romanov's partners on his camp, built by the inmates and photographed by Chaubrin on a bleak winter's day using a 90-second exposure, was Mark Khidekel. In 1994, Khidekel emigrated to New York to work with Philip Johnson, the personification of decadent, bourgeois capitalist design. And George Chakhava, it turns out, wasn't just lead architect on the magnificent Georgian Ministry of Highways, he was also minister of highway construction. So he allowed himself a free hand in the design, inspired by the work of El Lissitzky, one of the leaders of the suprematist movement. The result – a near metropolis in its own right, complete with roads and buildings criss-crossing each another in the sky – lifted the ministry high above a forest, letting nature and avant-garde architecture live happily together.

Will these gems survive beyond the pages of Chaubin's book? Ruthless property development may yet see most of them perish, with the now valuable land they stand on becoming a place for unimaginative hotels, casinos, resorts, and villas for the rich. In one piece of good news, Chakhava's Highways Ministry was declared a national monument in 2007, the year the architect died. There have since been plans to convert it into an office for the Bank of Georgia. But not all local people are fans: many see it as a glaring symbol of the bad old days. This has been true of many of the buildings photographed by Chaubin, despite his belief that they represent the end of the USSR rather than its continuation.

"I have no nostalgia for the Soviet Union," he says, "but in these strange and wonderful buildings, I saw the skin of a culture that fascinated me.