CUJO presents: California Gothic

25:22So I'm gonna have a hard hair.

25:26Alright, let's go.

25:31One, two, three. Alternating between the head and the body. These are your high percentage weapons.

25:45Bounce.

25:49The timing.

25:53Rhythm.

25:58Well if we consciously break that, we can hide our switch.

26:07Take my step back and reset. Give me a little more to think about.

26:16Start slow.

26:21Low rest, high reward.

26:25Make sense?

27:01All right, y 'all. That is class. I need to circle up. We got Alexis, Al J. And if I can't do it. Hell yeah. Don't bother them. Ask the bigger, ask what you have questions. Thanks a class, y 'all. Good vibes today. Good touch your button, Ryan. And a great guy. We got one team. I'm glad you guys are good. Assistant to the Mops and the Paz. That'd be wonderful.

27:28Hello, how are you? How are you? How are you?

27:40Henry Johnson, Frogtown

27:47I remember how heavy my heart felt, how heavy my legs were. Like they were filled with concrete, the same kind they poured 12 hours later, flattening this place to nothing. This is the most walkable part of Los Angeles and I could barely drag my legs through it because I loved it so much and I knew that it wasn't going to last. That small sliver of the city along what used to be the LA River. Fletcher in the north, down to Egret Park in the south. Riverside in the 5, bounding it to the west. The river, a natural border on the east. As if Alternative 20 wasn't bad enough. Gentrification is bad, but at least it's better than what became of the place.

28:26I walked along the river for the last time. The neighborhood was out. The energy was up. It felt like a funeral and an exaltation. It reminded me of first Fridays like they used to throw. I sat and listened to the people and spoke for a while. I walked some more. I listened to the birds in the park. I smelled the river water for the last time, trying to memorize the smell for these wistful moments in the future when I so badly wanted to be back there. Like how it was. I listened to the water rolling and turning, and I couldn't help but cry. My tears joined in with the water and I became happy that just that smallest part of me had become one with the river.

29:14I wonder where that part of me is now. The rest of me is here, thinking about the last night in Frogtown. The river was dammed and paved over to make a new freeway, the cutely named 555 adjacent to the 5. Unnecessary. The blocks between the two, the 5 and the 555, was turned into a multi-use complex, a quote, necessary high-value economic zone, unquote. The eradication of nature and community, one of the only inland water-adjacent neighborhoods in this city, a place to kayak and bird watch and just breathe a little bit easier. Killing off birds and fish and inspiration. The death of a hub of outsider art and culture and affordability.

29:59Now, when I drive by those buildings at night, I try to count as many lit rooms as I can. There's never more than 40 in that whole complex. A dead economic zone. And it really does look just like a graveyard. These dirty cement boxes looming over the earth. The opposite of the life that used to spring from here. Noise, flora, fauna, fun. But I guess all that wasn't high value enough. I guess it was viewed as unnecessary. Green, replaced by greed. Concrete for water. Frogtown, the first special place I found on my own as a grown-up in this city. Paved over and reduced to just this. Recollection.

30:42I went in the morning to watch the trucks pour the concrete. My heart broke. It has never recovered.

30:56I have forgotten the smell of the river.

31:07Molly Lambert, the Southwest Museum Tunnel, Mount Washington.

31:16At the base of Mount Washington, off a road called Museum Drive, is a tunnel that's been sealed back up. A faux ancient Mayan arch with doors that are permanently locked leads the way into a hole in the mountain. There's an inscription on the arch, the Southwest Museum. The Southwest Museum of the American Indian opened in 1914 and closed permanently in 2022. The museum's extensive collection of Native American and other artifacts has been merged with the collection of the Gene Autry Museum, the museum that deals in Western and Californian history and is famously located directly across from the L.A.

32:09Zoo. The Southwest Museum was the brainchild of Charles Lummis, an early LA settler and booster. Charles Lummis was a historian, a photographer, an archaeologist, and a librarian. He also became the first city editor of the earliest edition of the Los Angeles Times. But Charles Lummis was best known as a champion of historic preservation and Native American rights. Charles Lummis was very progressive for his time, for a rich white guy, but some of his views are obviously antiquated and patrician. He was a mixed bag. As a preservationist, he loved the California Spanish colonial style, and he advocated for the upkeep of California's missions, those adobe temples of death.

33:11Lummis once claimed to have gone blind, and later miraculously recovered his sight. His friend, the naturalist Jean Muir, who Lummis published in a magazine, didn't believe Lummis had ever gone blind at all. The Southwest Museum itself is built in a Spanish colonial revivalist style by the architect Sumner Hunt, who also designed the Bradbury Building, which is in Blade Runner. The Southwest Museum sits on top of the hill, fully emptied of its 236 ,000 artifacts, which are now mostly in storage, one of the largest collections of Native American artifacts, second only to the Smithsonian. Attempts to save the Southwest Museum building stalled out over the years, as it would require$100 million to stabilize the building that sits on an eroding hill.

34:16The 117-acre compound is up for sale now for the aforementioned$100 million. What will happen to the historic museum building and the grounds is anyone's guess. Will it get bought before the hillside is claimed back into the ground by the earth? The 281-foot-long pedestrian tunnel opened in 1920 because the museum felt that it needed a street-level entrance for those who might not want to make the climb up the hill. Recessed niches in the walls of the tunnel were used to display artifacts and dioramas. The path leads to an elevator, which shoots up inside the mountain to the top, taking people to the museum's main entrance.

35:13A friend who went there on school trips recalls that the tunnel produces an extraordinarily strong echo. The tunnel was opened back up briefly in 2016 for an art exhibit where sculptures were placed in the vacant niches. but quickly it turned out that the tunnel floods during extreme rain. The train station, named the Southwest Museum Train Station, is named, like so many things in Los Angeles, for something that no longer exists in the place where it is. The Southwest Museum tunnel may be closed, but there's a light emanating from inside, visible through the crack between the tunnel doors from the street?

36:03What will happen when the hillside crumbles and erodes? Will the museum come crashing down on the trains? Will the tunnel collapse? Or will it just sit there, closed and unused, holding the sounds of 106 years?

36:32Sophie Bridges, Barnsdoll Park Darkroom, East Hollywood.

36:39Step one, exposure. During this step, you will expose the photosensitive paper to light. Hey Michael, it's Sophie. It's been a while. There's this thing that you said on the first day of photo class, which is that you should never mix developer A with developer B because if you do they'll explode. I was thinking about that recently and I realized that that's probably not true at all and like what was actually true was that if you mix developer A and developer B it would just ruin both chemicals and they were probably pretty expensive and the Barnstall Junior Arts Center probably couldn't afford to be like replacing chemicals because kids had messed them up.

37:23So I'm like did you just tell us that it would explode because that would like freak us out enough so that we would remember to never ever ever mix them. I definitely don't blame you if you did. I feel like I would like to think that we all felt grateful to have this dark room that we had access to as kids but also we were kids and we were dumb and we probably would have mixed those things together given the opportunity. But it was really special to have that space to ourselves like what I really remember is coming up in this elevator and the elevator was like tucked into this part of the hill that you would never know was there if nobody had told you and so suddenly you have this like public park and not only is the art center a special part of the park but then we got to be going to this like extra special extra kind of secret classroom that was just like tucked into the hill.

38:27Step two, developer. During this step, the image will appear. There's one set of curtains, and then you round a little corner, and there's a second set of curtains, and things are just bathed in this red light. Except when we had to develop our own film. We would turn off all the lights, and suddenly you would be in pitch blackness. And so we're just there in the dark, twisting this reel. And all you can do is trust that your hands know what they're doing. And the whole place smells like vinegar because of the chemicals, which also turn your fingernails yellow if you don't use tongs, which we were supposed to always use tongs, but I always wanted to put my fingers in there.

39:14And I liked that they turned yellow. Although it kind of felt like it made me a legitimate photographer.

39:24Step three. Stop that. This step prevents further development. There are so many images. Our lives are just kind of about being bombarded with photographs. And then now they're not even real photographs most of the time. and there was something about slowing down and really understanding how we were capturing what we were capturing that I think changed my relationship to images forever. And I do feel really sad if kids don't have that anymore. Step four, fixer. After one minute, your photo is able to be viewed in daylight. When we were printing our photos, we would always have music on, and there was this little CD player in the corner, and you would bring in all of these mixed CDs that you made.

40:21They were on those pastel-colored, very thin little jewel cases. They were CDs that you had burned of whatever songs you were interested in listening to in a given month, and the CDs would always be labeled April 2005, and then the track listing. and it would be like whatever pop songs were kind of on the radio at that time with like classic rock. Like I just remember listening to American Boy by Estelle next to like an Elvis Costello song. And then at a certain point I started bringing in my own CDs and I think you really cared about music and it felt really good to be trusted. I think the music was also like a way that we told time because like I think one class period would be like two and a half cds and time really stretched in the dark room because obviously there are no windows except then there would be like a day in class where we would do photograms and you'd tell us to go collect our leaves and sticks and pebbles and things to lay on the paper and you would fling open this back door that none of us had noticed and light would come streaming in and we would realize that in fact we were on earth and we had been in the park all along.

41:51Step five. Wash. I don't know if you remember this but at some point you decided to do a digital photography class and it met in this computer lab upstairs at the center and it was a very very different space than the dark room and I remember like the first time I brought in a batch of photos for you to look at you were like wow these don't look like your film photos at all they look like a completely different photographer took them and I think I knew what you meant was that they were bad and I think it has to do with waiting. I think there was something about taking the picture, waiting to finish the role, waiting to develop the role and then getting to print.

42:34By the time you print it, you might not even be printing the photo that you were excited about taking at all. I think that does change the way you take pictures a lot. The other thing about it is that it like, I think it makes you more aware of like how futile it is to try to freeze people in time in this way. When I was taking a picture of a person, I was constructing a reality. I wasn't actually capturing reality. And there's always that sadness that you're making this thing that you then work very hard in the darkroom to, like, we print on archival paper and we store everything properly so that they can last hypothetically forever, or at least they can last so many years that we will all be dead.

43:24And so you're making this thing where somebody will be exactly the age and exactly the way they were just on this piece of paper. And like, does that matter? Why does that matter? You know? I mean, I know one of the things in your work that you were known for was these altered Polaroids, which was like a special stock of Polaroid film that when it came out of the camera, the emulsion on the front would still be wet. And so you could take like a toothpick or a little brush and actually mess with the lines. And you'd make these like warped images that looked almost like paintings. And so I know you must have had thoughts about like never actually capturing something that's real.

44:10And I was looking at some of your photos the other day, and I saw so many pictures that you took in the 70s and 80s of people in their 90s and obviously those people aren't alive anymore.

44:25And yeah, I guess I... I wish it's something that we'd gotten to talk about.

44:37Kristen Torres, Echo Park Lake.

44:47This is a homemade ice cream, like artesanal. What does this park mean to you? Well, I grew up around Echo Park. I went to elementary school around here, so it means a lot. I'm a vendor, so I get to sell. That's how I make my money, too. What would it mean for you if this park didn't exist anymore? If it didn't exist anymore? I'll be sad for sure. It's a big part of L.A. culture, so I'll be really sad. yeah I'll be super sad if you're hearing this please don't report me to my AI overlord look I'm between shifts right now and I just got a chance to stare at the sky and caught a really beautiful sunset the kind of sunset you want to share with friends and for a brief moment I felt like I was transported back to a Saturday at the park the kind we used to have it was my last happy memory of Echo Park Lake before everything changed.

45:45There was something inside me that knew I had to document this perfect day at the park. And as most of us creatives tend to do, I let the tape collect dust on an old hard drive. It was one of those, I'll make something tomorrow. And then tomorrow never came. Or when it did, it was not the tomorrow I had hoped for it to be. And sorry for being so vague, but you know that we can't say everything as plainly and as freely as we used to. But if you'll indulge me, I finally got around to making that piece I had promised myself I would make. A not-so-distant time capsule that couldn't feel further away from our reality today.

46:27So here it is, Echoes. A remembrance of a place that was once known as Echo Park Lake. It's a community park, so everybody just comes, walks around to their own things. It's very cute seeing the leaves, the grass, the trees, everything's very aesthetic. If you want to come out just have a time with your friends, perfect place to come to. It's like the one of the rare places where you get to see sort of like the neighborhood come to life in person. Like you know there's very few places these days where you get to just walk in and see your neighbors and like see what's happening around. I just love that you have a little piece of nature that you can come to and there's just like There's animals, birds, people.

47:08It just feels very sort of calming and grounding.

47:20Generations of Angelenos have found respite from the demands of daily life at Echo Park Lake. The lake was originally built as a reservoir for drinking water in the 1860s. It got its name because of the echoes that could be heard during construction. And although the park has lived many lives and has had many identities over the years, it has always been an integral part of the city.

47:48Okay, so I see you have your fishing wire. Can you tell me what brings you to the park and what you're doing today? So it's really just fishing. I brought my fiancé and my two-year-old, my toddler. So they're taking a couple laps. They're gonna hit the playground and I'm buying some time to fish, a mouse. There's a bluegill and bass here, largemouth bass and smallmouth bass. I have caught the smaller fish, which are the bluegill. It's nice. It's like culture. They're selling stuff. It's cute. There's street food, street drinks on the side if you want to come there. Not too pricey, so very calm, very cool to collect.

48:26Who are you here with today? Today I'm here with my dog Uma and she's one of the reasons I come here more often. It's like she loves being out here, she loves chasing the ducks and smelling all the smells and it's sort of like her way of knowing where she is. So yeah, this is our sort of like a evening ritual of whenever we can, we come out here to watch sunset. I'd say it's pretty magical and like I think it's one of the few places where I feel like very at peace and as this park has been there for me through ups and downs and it's like a place where I come to just sort of like collect my thoughts.

49:02It's always been a chill spot like I've brought my kids here, my dogs here, everybody you know it's always been a chill spot for me. I've been coming here since I was a kid. I live in Boyle Heights so that's just down the street and just seeing it grow from you know when I was a child it's just a lot more greener and And I think it's good for the community. You know, as you can see, there's a lot of people, especially on the weekends. And it's just going to create more memories, you know, for generations.

49:34How long have you been coming here to feed the geese? 24 years. 24 years? Why did you start feeding the geese? Because they're hungry. You know, there's nothing to eat in here. Oh, and then you got some apple in there? Apple? Yeah, or whatever, little watermelon, whatever fruit I have. And I give everybody a bite. If somebody's hungry, I give a piece of whatever that I have every day.

50:10What would it mean for you if this park didn't exist? Oh, man, it would suck. I mean, I do have other hobbies that, you know, I do have, but taking fishing away and I guess, you know, this park where, I mean, people are running. So everyone has a hobby, whether it's running, fishing, you know, bringing their children, having a picnic and not having that, it would suck. Yeah, I think it would take away a big part of the culture here, you know, because this has been here forever. and it's just evolved with LA, I think it would definitely take part of the culture away.

50:57I tried to track down some of the people I met at the park that day. I couldn't find the fisherman or the woman who fed geese for 24 years. I heard that the ice cream vendor moved somewhere far away. A community that once was, is lost. I hope families have found a new place to rest in the shade to laugh as they share an ice cream to make memories for the next generation I hope that the man with the dog has a peaceful spot to watch the sunset but with the way things are going in this city I doubt it

51:43Andrea Dominic The Sunset Strip, West Hollywood. It's a tragic day on Sunset Boulevard. That's what the sneakerheads said when the first sinkhole quietly swallowed the intersection of Sunset, Holloway and Palm in the middle of the night. Liquefaction returning that well-trod crossroads of Los Angeles possibility to the sand and water from which it came. All slash. The Sneakerheads were a nomadic tribe of zealots, in perpetual pilgrimage between a network of temples scattered across the Southland, processions of supplicants gathered at their doors in hopes of being invested with a relic of one of their gods.

52:28Nike. Jordan. Supreme. The facade of Supreme now crests just behind the north ridge of the chasm, smooth and alabaster from unremitting sun and tributaries that feed the cataract below. It's believed to have once been adorned in crimson and white script, and before that, scarlet and gold, the vestiges of a prior cosmology known as Rock and Roll, administered here by the Order of Tower Records.

53:00At its height, the Strip was a promised land with no single promise, a profane holy city where every form of longing maintained its own house of worship. The flower children, the billboard queens, the famous in waiting, the rock stars, the runaways, and the exiles all converged here. Those who would settle for nowhere else and those who simply had nowhere else to go, convening within a glittering, disreputable ecosystem of clubs, theaters, diners, motels, and cheap apartments. It wasn't harmony, exactly, that held them together, but a collective faith in becoming otherwise. At first, the sinkhole was dismissed as an anomaly.

53:43A 110-year-old pipe bursting under the accumulated strain of deferred maintenance, fragmented oversight, and cross-jurisdictional finger-pointing. But a week later came a second deluge at Santa Monica and Laurel. Then another in the middle of Melrose, just days after that. What was blamed at first on old pipes would later be understood as the accumulated weight of luxury hotels, digital billboards, and mixed-use brand activations, a landscape of stacked superstructures built to receive pilgrims while displacing what had drawn them. The hoteliers were the last order to arrive. One by one, each destination was replaced by somewhere to stay near it, until the Strip became a city of antechambers, lobbies leading to elevators, elevators to rooms, rooms overlooking other hotels.

54:42There were, at last, more rooms than reasons, and people, to occupy them. Pilgrimage itself became faith. Aspiration was its final creed, sustained by the promise that salvation, enlightenment, nirvana, whatever, waited one floor, one reservation, one gleaming vantage point higher. Capital flowed upward accordingly, while the infrastructure below rusted and groaned beneath the weight of a destination consuming itself.

55:16When the chasm finally took the strip hole, wresting Chateau Marmont from its hillside perch in the east and swallowing Soho House beneath the western rim. Many called it judgment visited upon the faithless. Others blamed the lack of weight, human presence that had once held the land at bay. The land here has never settled. Neon flickers without current. Elevator bells sound from buried shafts. Somewhere beneath the remains of the rainbow, a video poker machine begins its trill, followed by the attendant hum of a bass amp waiting to be played. At dusk, pink taillights climb the eastern bluff, circle the ridge once, then vanish into the mud.

56:08Coyotes yawn awake in the shells of condos and gather along the escarpment to listen. Where the tributaries meet the rim, deer lower their muzzles to drink, their reflections trembling at the brink before spilling over. Sometimes the water takes more than the reflection. Still, pilgrims kneel beside them and peer into the current, searching for the faces they might yet become. What they find appears only for an instant, then slips over the edge. Perhaps that is why they lean closer.

56:52This episode of The Culture Journalist was produced and edited by Emily Friedlander and me, Andrea Dominick. To check out more, head to our Substack. That's theculturejournalist.substack.com. And if you like what you're hearing, leave a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or share us with friends to help support independent journalism. you