Esotouric™

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, held on July 25, 2010, we visited 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 explored 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.

The excerpt presented here is a brief discussion of Christine Sterling's conflicting motivations in preserving Olvera Street, and her alliances with business and publishing interests.

On this informative stroll through a provocative and multi-layered space, we explored 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?

* Can arts and culture succeed as a tool for economic development for reinvigorating historic neighborhoods? Was Jane Jacobs right when she proclaimed that "new ideas need old buildings"?

* 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?

For more on free events held under the umbrella of LAVA - The Los Angeles Visionaries Association, visit http://www.lavatransforms.org

Come discover the secret history of the San Gabriel Valley on this provocative and occasional Esotouric architecture tour from the series Reyner Banham Loves LA. Next tour: August 7, 2010.

Just before Memorial Day, your intrepid urban adventurers stepped outside of their asphalt-coated comfort zone for a lightning 40-hour road trip to explore some notable, rural Central Californian attractions. This is the third of several blog posts sharing scenes from the road.

While Nitt Witt Ridge is definitely the granddaddy of all folk art environments on the Central Coast, anyone interested in manifestations of amateur creativity and raw feeling should schedule a visit to Cambria's historic, eclectic, mountain cemetery.

Unlike tidy urban graveyards that frown on mourners placing their own messy memorials on loved ones' burial sites -- it makes it so hard to mow, after all -- Cambria Cemetery welcomes all manner of personal expressions of grief, from elaborate sculptures showing the deceased in life...

...to collections of shiny treasures reflecting their former passions.

Exploring the shaded woodland paths populated with expansive expressions of love and loss, one gets the sense that this is a community that's learned how to say goodbye in a way that encourages healing and personal growth. While all of the deceased were strangers to us, as is typically the case when visiting an historic graveyard, we left Cambria Cemetery feeling as though we had spent an hour with hundreds of distinct individuals. While serene and lovely, it's the farthest thing from sad as a cemetery could be.

For more photos from Cambria Cemetery, click this link.

Just before Memorial Day, your intrepid urban adventurers stepped outside of their asphalt-coated comfort zone for a lightning 40-hour road trip to explore some notable, rural Central Californian attractions. This is the second of several blog posts sharing scenes from the road.

After shaking off the eerie quiet of La Purisima Mission, we took the slow route up the central valley, hitting a few thrift shops in Santa Maria and enjoying an al fresco Mexican lunch in weedy Nipomo. Late afternoon found us rolling into drizzly, seaside Cambria, where Michael O'Malley was waiting for us at Nitt Witt Ridge, the uninhabited home and folk art environment for which he and wife Stacy serve as caretakers.

Michael came bounding down the steps when he heard our car pull up, and threw open the gates with a big welcoming grin. With a warning to walk carefully, and be prepared to duck under low beams, he led us up the abalone shell-risered steps, holding tight to metal stair rails that once doubled as Nitt Witt Ridge's water pipes -- some of them with electrical light fixtures frighteningly entwined.

But there is no longer any flowing water at Nitt Witt Ridge. The water meter, a valuable commodity in a community that actively limits growth, was sold off to a developer years ago, and the old jerry-rigged electric system has been (wisely) switched off. Today, Nitt Witt Ridge exists outside of the modern era, best visited by daylight, and if you want a glass of water or (its builder's favorite tipple) cheap American beer, you'd better bring your own.

During our hour-long exploration of the property that Art Beal designed, built and decorated over the course of 50+ years, Michael shared myths and facts about the eccentric builder, known variously as Der Tinkerpaw or Captain Nitt Witt. Although Michael never met the old curmudgeon, he's made it his business to gather stories (and a rather mean-spirited vintage "Real People" TV clip) to enliven the experience of visiting a place that was once synonymous with its maker.

When Michael bought the place a few years after Art's death, many rooms were stuffed high with junk, and looters had made off with whatever valuables remained. Left behind were Art's real treasures, little bits of junk he accumulated in his decades as Cambria's garbage man and occasional hauler for William Randolph Hearst's San Simeon castle. Bits of salvaged paper, cloth, ceramic and metal are stacked in every cubby, and open dresser drawers reveal Art's personal archives, news clippings and photos fading under dust. Inside the kitchen cupboards repurposed from radio cabinets destined for Cambria's dump, murky canned foods float in jars. Art's clothes still hang in the closet. Dust is everywhere. You feel Art, and art, all around. It's wonderful.

Out in the garden, stacks of cemented metal car wheel rims made for sturdy columns, and an open air puttering workshop was bedecked with climbing nasturtium. A little prodding of the seemingly solid earth at the top of the property has revealed Der Tinkerpaw's ingenious methods: instead of driving out to the dump with the community's garbage, as his contract dictated, plenty of junk ended up in the gully above Art's main house, followed by loads of dirt, until a comfortable garden area with exceptional views was constructed on what was once thin air. A recycled fountain of couple of old sinks spilling into a bath made for an open air washtub.

At the top of the property a visitor reaches a ramshackle fence with a conventional wooden shack ruin behind it. This is the old house, where it was said Art once lived with a woman named Gloria. One day she ran off with the contents of his bank account, and he let the place rot. There may be something to this sad legend: Michael has crept inside and found a lady's shoe and other evidence of habitation.

Art Beal lived a long life, but despite his best intentions, did not die in the home he built. The narrative is muddy, but it seems a small loan obtained for medical services in the 1970s went unpaid, and the lender sought to take Art's land. Some do-gooders formed a foundation to save Nitt Witt Ridge, but Captain Nitt Witt didn't cotton to interfering kids or their newfangled ideas. Art became senile, and often ran around naked and hollered at passersby. Complaints were made about self-neglect, social workers started sniffing around, and eventually Art was forced to go into a nursing home. He died there in 1992, and a few years later Michael and Stacy came along and were compelled to take up the mantle of maintaining the strange house on the hill.
 
Although Nitt Witt Ridge is a California Historical Landmark, the city of Cambria hasn't made it easy for Michael and Stacy to make a go of their tourist attraction. Some community members disliked Der Tinkerpaw during his lifetime, and that animosity has continued after his death. Large houses have sprung up all around the structure, and while Art's was there first, some seem to have built their homes with the expectation that Nitt Witt Ridge would be absorbed by the elements or demolished. While neither has happened, thanks to Michael and Stacy's devotion, small indignities are trotted out to discourage them.

So this landmark example of California vernacular architecture cannot be visited by tour buses, a modest fee cannot officially be charged for Michael's delightful tour (though you are welcome to tip), and we were denied the opportunity to purchase a commemorative Nitt Witt Ridge t-shirt or tea cosy. To which we say phooey on Cambria. Art Beal's spirit, and his incredible home, will outlive such petty prejudices. We highly recommend a visit to Nitt Witt Ridge if you're visiting the Central Coast. Call Michael at 805-927-2690 to book a private tour, and tell him Esotouric sent you.

Video links:
See Art Beal and his kitties
Watch Michael lead a tour

 For more photos from Nitt Witt Ridge, click this link. Up next: Cambria's unique community cemetery.

Just before Memorial Day, your intrepid urban adventurers stepped outside of their asphalt-coated comfort zone for a lightning 40-hour road trip to explore some notable, rural Central Californian attractions. This is the first of several blog posts sharing scenes from the road.

After filling the cat bowls with high-end dry nibbles and promising the beasts we'd be back soon, we hit the highway around 6:00 AM with the aim of a hearty mid-morning breakfast at Ellen's Danish Pancake House in Buellton, just across the road from the more famous Pea Soup Andersen's.

Seated under the Zen gaze of an elaborately coiffed Ron and Nancy Reagan, Richard enjoyed the Danish Pancakes with Danish Sausage (after enduring a grilling from the friendly waitress who wanted to be sure he understood there would be sausage slices between his crispy pancakes and not on the side), Chinta had a fluffy omelet and the buttermilkiest biscuit imaginable, while Kim tucked into a big plate of those crisp pancakes with a side of poached eggs.

After a brief stroll to Pea Soup Andersen's for the ritual Ha' Pea and Swea' Pea photo op, we climbed back into the Exploration Wagon for the short trip out to La Purisima Mission, the most complete of all the restored California Missions, and a California State Historic Park.

While the Mission has a newish glass-and-steel information center and trumpets its interpretive history programs, we were fortunate to arrive on a day when the expansive grounds were nearly empty of human inhabitants, giving the impression that a sudden disaster had whisked away all the padres, noviates and Indians, leaving their livestock, workshops, chapels, gardens and fountains behind.

We split off to explore the vast grounds separately, coming unexpectedly upon lovely scenes that evoked the romance of old Mission days familiar to readers of Ramona and Charles Lummis.

Of course, La Purisima is a simulachra, an imaginary Mission replicated from a briefly-inhabited 19th Century ruin by a young crew of federal workers in the 1930s. The real La Purisima, closer to Lompoc, was destroyed by the Santa Barbara earthquake in 1812, and this unusually long quake-resistant compound failed to find favor among the local Indian tribes. Following a violent rebellion in the 1820s, most of the villagers fled, and within a decade the Mission was abandoned as Spanish rule faded. Once the roof tiles were taken, it only took a few years until the the adobe buildings melted into their foundations. The restoration was completed in 1941.

And yet on a quiet morning, with the ground squirrels gamboling and swallows zipping from beneath the red roof tiles, cool water flowing over the fountain tiles and stark shadows delineating the long, cool white walls symbolizing European faith and order, this might be the most powerful early California experience available anywhere. If you live in Southern California and have looked in vain for a place where the Spanish era feels real and alive, take a drive up to Santa Barbara County and let La Purisima get under your skin.

For more photos from the first part of our trip, click this link.

Up next: Nitt Witt Ridge, a recycled folk art environment facing some unique preservation problems in coastal Cambria.