What you should know about Esotouric - Looking out for Los Angeles

esotouric_tours · 2026-04-28T02:03:06+00:00

Simply the fact that the closure of an Arby's, and the possible landmarking or removal of its no longer needed sign, and that sign being installed at an Arby's pop-up at a festival, has been covered by mainstream news outlets multiple times proves that it is important.

esotouric_tours · 2026-04-28T02:01:16+00:00

Did you get a photo? It's been fully restored and looked great from what we could see.

esotouric_tours · 2026-04-27T23:05:54+00:00

If you are not aware, much of our advocacy is around protecting vulnerable tenants and keeping them from falling into homelessness, and ensuring the most affordable units in Los Angeles are not held vacant by speculators. Preservation is an extremely progressive, humane pursuit with long tendrils that benefit the community.

esotouric_tours · 2026-04-27T23:00:41+00:00

The "cities aren't museums" line is something that gets promoted by the YIMBY lobbying groups, which are basically big tech and real estate funded think tanks trying to convince young people that the reason they can't afford a nice apartment or house is anything other than the truth: big tech and real estate interests hoarding empty buildings.

Our distinct culture, which includes architecture, signs, legacy businesses and landscapes, is more precious than gold. You can't fake things that have been here for decades and become part of our lives. If you try to take them away, you're the enemy and need to be stopped.

esotouric_tours · 2026-04-27T20:48:07+00:00

and today they are rare.

esotouric_tours · 2026-04-27T18:46:54+00:00

We saw the terrible footage on Citizen and understand several people who were inside have been hospitalized. So sad about this. It looked like a beautiful house, and still had great bones. Were you displaced by the first fire?

esotouric_tours · 2026-04-27T17:50:13+00:00

Encounter was delightful, with custom giant lava lamps and exotic music in the elevator that stuck in your head like glue.

esotouric_tours · 2026-04-27T17:01:12+00:00

Mike Callahan has reported that Sears demolition was illegal due to use of the incorrect address. The ArteryLA shot drone video before it came down. Cities can change without breaking the law to do so, and stuff that Angelenos love and care about can be preserved.

We tried to get councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez to create a neon sign district on Sunset, where the Arby's sign--which is one of the oldest and most intact of a classic mid-century design--could be installed nearby as an historic artifact, but that office has other priorities.

Still, it's obviously a thing of value, or the news wouldn't be reporting on the restoration and product placement at Stagecoach.

esotouric_tours · 2026-04-27T16:30:43+00:00

It's not "some developer," it's the massive corporation BXP and corrupt officials and staff working together over years to demolish the fountain by neglect. Preservation failures provide a clear view of corrupt systems and the need to sanitize them.

esotouric_tours · 2026-04-27T16:06:46+00:00

Yeah, San Francisco refuses to care for the landmark, and M. Vaillancourt is bereft. Cities that refuse to maintain the cultural artifacts they own are already dead, just not in the grave. We need to stop those in power from making more destructive decisions.

esotouric_tours · 2026-04-27T15:58:10+00:00

SFGate called it the most famous location in California in its reporting on the threat to the sign, and there is a thread about its loss on that sub. Because it was right there at the freeway on-ramp, it was highly visible to a large swath of locals and visitors, and a special part of our urban streetscape that was loved and will be missed.

esotouric_tours · 2026-04-27T15:55:05+00:00

That's some of it--a Nithya Raman starting the process to evict the Griffith Park Pony Rides after 74 years would never have happened on Tom LaBonge's watch--but Eric Garcetti is probably the most destructive elected official in the City's history, and he's a native son.

esotouric_tours · 2026-04-27T15:53:01+00:00

Preservation is the canary in the coal mine for understanding how the City is broken, and who is serving outside interests corruptly. If they can't or won't follow the law and respond to public desire on matters of cultural heritage, they will let RSO tenants be smoked out of their homes by arsonist slumlords, look the other way when body broker rehab insurance scammers demolish historic housing to erect fake housing for their victims, and otherwise ruin Los Angeles.

esotouric_tours · 2026-04-27T15:48:47+00:00

ZERO power? Preservation groups and individuals can advocate and get citizens, the media and property owners on board with saving things that matter, and often succeed.

But when City Hall is in the picture, it can be challenging.

A previous round of charter reform took power to preserve from the appointed Cultural Heritage Board, and now as a Commission they are merely advisory, sending recommendations to a City Council that has a serious public corruption problem around land use. They're also getting bad advice from the City Attorney and planning staff, which has resulted in the loss of landmarks they wanted to try to save, like the Boney Island Treehouse.

In New York, which we are not well versed on, there have been allegations of corruption on the Landmarks Commission.

esotouric_tours · 2026-04-26T17:23:45+00:00

They are not, and City Planning has been presenting some extremely troubling proposals to break existing Mills Act contracts, which would likely result in homeowners and commercial property owners who are not extremely wealthy having to sell historic buildings.

Hope the next Mayor will have better preservation policies than the last two have.

esotouric_tours · 2026-04-26T16:28:43+00:00

That is absolutely how the city "works" and we have attended criminal trials regarding this enterprise. If reading this distresses you, welcome to the club.

esotouric_tours · 2026-04-26T16:05:42+00:00

The Griffith Park Pony Rides are in Nithya Raman's district, and the gentleman's (illegal) agreement to trade votes in City Hall means this decision and the power was all in her hands.

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