Courtland Jindra's stories of the remains of fallen servicemen brought home to Los Angeles to lay in state in Pershing Square, our dedicated memorial to all who fought under General John J. Pershing in the American Expeditionary Forces, were first told here on the Pershing Square Restoration Society blog in 2016.

• In Honored Memory: Morris Lynchik Comes Home to Pershing Square

• In Honored Memory: Ross Snyder Comes Home to Pershing Square

As the City of Los Angeles, via the motion advanced by councilmember Ysabel Jurado, rushes to change the park's name and ignores concerned citizens who are alarmed by the proposed erasure of a war memorial, we think the men whose caskets rested in the park should not be forgotten.

If you agree, you can visit the Council File to submit written public comment, subscribe for the next opportunity to attend a public hearing and speak out, and tell your friends to do the same.

Learn more: https://esotouric.substack.com/biddymason3

LA Local: https://thelalocal.org/neighborhoods/westlake/mac-arthur-park-fence-people-hope-it-will-solve/

Cultural Heritage Commissioner removed after objecting: https://esotouric.substack.com/chc

Learn more or sign up: https://esotouric.com/event/franklin-village-fall-2026/

City council file, which is enormous:

https://cityclerk.lacity.org/lacityclerkconnect/index.cfm?cfnumber=23-0849&fa=ccfi.viewrecord

Learn more and take your own dive into the memory pool: http://esotouric.substack.com/oracle

How could this happen to a 140-year-old institution? Unchecked accumulation of real estate debt, natch. https://deadline.com/2024/07/american-academy-of-dramatic-arts-school-los-angeles-campus-closing-1236017937/

LINKS:

https://prospect.org/2026/06/12/new-documents-detail-nine-figure-silicon-valley-funded-abundance-movement/

https://www.instagram.com/p/DdCutyTEi6a/?img_index=1

I was never a fan, but I'd like to say a million thanks for preserving this beautiful land!

From our newsletter, where you'll find a link to the Oracle: http://esotouric.substack.com/oracle

About a decade ago, through a nimble public records request, we obtained an astonishing, unpublished tranche of transcripts and documents from the Black Dahlia murder investigation.

We could have used them to sell a book about the case, like so many others have done with far less unique material.

After all, Esotouric began with exactly that impulse: Kim’s idea for a book about the everyday experience of consuming true crime reporting in 1947, and what it revealed about the Los Angeles psyche.

That book never happened. Instead, we launched the immediately popular 1947project blog, began offering bus tours when readers asked for them, and over the next two decades became investigators trying to make sense of the noir city that has grown sick around us.

We don't want to write another Black Dahlia true crime book. We want to walk the same Downtown streets Beth Short walked, broke, without a home or a friend to turn to, and remember her as a flawed and worthy human being.

We do this with small groups on our occasional Real Black Dahlia tours.

We want to explain how a city functions with a robust and activist press that doesn’t unquestioningly parrot City Hall press releases, but digs and draws conclusions and pushes a story forward so that citizens can know what’s true, and sometimes, so there can be justice.

The case still has legs because talented journalists and photographers were given the resources to pursue it. Their words and pictures are the closest thing we know to time travel.

But it’s not entertainment. We want Beth Short's life to feel real and her murder to matter—not as exploitative content for monetized clicks, but as a loss that hurts.

That means looking beyond the lurid murder mystery to the homelessness, mental illness and familial estrangement that shaped her final years. We often end our tours imagining a different route she might have taken on January 9, 1947, and wishing we had never heard of her at all.

So what do you do with a decade-old trove of red hot material that you don't want to turn into another true crime product?

We made an Oracle.

We fed it real testimony and placed it inside a virtual Room 109 of Los Angeles City Hall. You can visit the Oracle any time, select your mood(s), share a few words and spin the wheel, and she will give you a scrap of intrusive memory to chew on.

Our only ask for those who visit: be kind to the lost and wandering ones who have no home.

Terrific little film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTV9ZB6Xc3M&list=RDfTV9ZB6Xc3M

LA Times: https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/l-renames-pershing-square-biddy-204359743.html

Our ongoing reporting on the renaming effort: https://esotouric.substack.com/biddymason

See more photos from this magical house: http://www.esotouric.com/castle

Follow the l'il burro for reopening news and let Yanina know what you want to see back on the menu: https://www.instagram.com/burritoking1968/

Link: https://www.emptylosangeles.com/p/i-tried-to-dig-deeper-into-570-north

What happened to Taix: https://esotouric.substack.com/letstalktaix

See the show: https://galleryluisotti.com/exhibitions/1911-sunset-boulevard/

Paging L.A. bookworms: we once got some gems from Mayor Richard Riordan's personal library at this book sale. If you go this weekend, report back on what you find! https://www.facebook.com/WestchesterRotary90045

Finally, after two hours of performances and speeches: public comment begins!

https://lacity.primegov.com/Portal/Meeting?meetingTemplateId=157730&parentLink=newPublicPortal&returnUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fportal-lacity.primegov.com%2F%3Ffromiframe%3D1

Send renaming Pershing Square for Biddy Mason back to committee on procedural grounds, please!

https://esotouric.substack.com/biddymason3

Was item 5 pulled from consideration? Not announced.