On the last stop on Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice, the Hotel Barclay (1896), Joan Renner conjures up the spirit of her titian-tressed friend Betty Rowland, who famously danced next door at the Follies--and once took this tour! #esotouricroadtrip

The only way to get this shot of the Edward Hotel, where Skid Row Housing Trust's redevelopment pyramid scheme collapsed, is to pull up on it with a group in a tour bus--so we did! National Register eligible homes they tried to demolish. https://esotouric.com/skidrowhousingtrust #esotouricroadtrip

On the Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice tour, we spied this sign on the Hotel Cecil's side door reminding tenants that their side hustle walking true crime tourists through the supposedly haunted halls is verboten. #esotouricroadtrip #DTLA

On San Fernando Road, the old Capitol Records Pressing Plant dreams of the chart toppers and flops that started life within. #esotouricroadtrip #artdeco

There are a number of recent pictorial monuments at Glenview Cemetery in Glendale, including this magnificent neo-noir portrait. R.I.P. #esotouricroadtrip

Simply gutted today to see gouges in the wall of the shuttered Charlie O's / Down N' Out bar at the Alexandria Hotel, where the Guv'nor's Grille mascot raised his glass of cheer from 1961 until quite recently. A pox on the fink who took him! #esotouricroadtrip #signgeeks #DTLA

We're sort of obsessed with the too naturalistic shrimp that adorn Carniceria Dos Amigos in Norwalk. #esotouricroadtrip #signgeeks #bugsofthesea

RIP to 12217 Rosecrans Avenue, Norwalk, the Jack and Madeline Thomas Residence. The prettiest house in town, it's doomed to be demolished for a business park. #esotouricroadtrip #thisplacematters https://www.facebook.com/groups/1042279032495297/permalink/6364459193610561/?mibextid=DcJ9fc

Incandescent squiggle arrow/star sign and a fantastic double torchiere Art Deco streetlight on Lincoln in the city of Cypress. This wee storefront used to be a library branch. #esotouricroadtrip #signgeeks

The Jade Palace totem is a rare retro survivor on Stanton's motel row. #esotouricroadtrip #signgeeks #ipulledoverforthis

Old school ad technique in play on Beach Boulevard, Westminster. #esotouricroadtrip #signgeeks

Korker Liquor has been keeping Corona del Mar lubricated since the 1950s... and the phone number is STILL ORiole 3-0916! #esotouricroadtrip #signgeeks

Black Oystercatchers on the hunt at Crystal Cove, winners of the most beautiful beak competition. #esotouricroadtrip

There are now two protected city landmarks a stone's throw apart in Westlake / CD1, as Morris Kight's House rises to join the lovely Grier-Musser House (HCM #333). G-M is a small museum of Victorian culture, and MK might one day be a teaching space, too! #esotouricroadtrip

Boo to Eli Elimelech, who terrorized our dear friend Bob Baker at the end of his life with a cockeyed scheme to redevelop his landmark marionette theater, build on soil rich in oil and tar. That never happened, and this is what it looks like today. Save me! #esotouricroadtrip

On the Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue tour, we dipped down a back alley to peer over a fence at Richard Neutra's tragic 1941 Maxwell House, a "protected" city landmark moved across town to "save" it, but now rotting away. We hope it can yet be restored! #esotouricroadtrip

While writing our gay Downtown LA history tour, a key text was Richard Halliburton's coded guide to Main Street, published in Reader's Digest in 1937. The sale helped pay for the ultra-modern home William Alexander Levy built for him in Laguna, shortly before he was lost at sea. #esotouricroadtrip

Always get a kick of the spirit of Spirit still tramping down these motel steps across from Hollywood High School. 1968/2023 = more stucco, less neon,but it's all reversible. #thenandnow #nowandthen #history #esotouricroadtrip

The best stop on the Raymond Chandler bus tour was one we've looked forward to for years: a return, with a big group of eager customers, to the great Larry Edmunds Bookshop--the last survivor on Hollywood's Book Row. Glad to help support this legacy business! #esotouricroadtrip

Has the lighthouse keeper at Crossroads of the World gone missing? Bummed to see tagging on this this National Register landmark, which has always been so well maintained. #esotouricroadtrip