We’re very happy to announce that the best of issue of the Downtown News is on the stands, and Esotouric has been named Best Tours.
In 2005, Kim Cooper, Larry Harnisch and Nathan Marsak created the 1947project, a blog that chronicled a different L.A. crime for each day of that year. The project was such a success that they followed up with a similar blog detailing the sordid affairs of 1907 and 1927. Now, Cooper and others lead excursions for a tour bus company called Esotouric. The four- or five-hour adventures canvass the city, highlighting crime sites from the heinous to the quirky. This summer, Esotouric debuted "John Fante’s Dreams of Bunker Hill," which visited the Downtown haunts of Arturo Bandini, the protagonist of Fante’s 1939 novel Ask the Dust. In August, don’t miss the Charles Bukowski birthday tour, which celebrates what would have been the author’s 87th birthday. At esotouric.com.-LL
Well, if the Downtown News thinks we’re doing something right with our Black Dahlia, John Fante and other downtown-centered tours, the least we can do to say thanks is to offer two new bus tours celebrating the neighborhood as it was in the wild old days.
So on September 8, we’ll launch our first 90-minute Crime Bus tours, the back-to-back Hotel Horrors and Main Street Vice, with a cocktail/snack break between. You can ride one for $25 or both for $45, and we hope the lower price and shorter running time will be an opportunity for folks who’ve been wanting to ride for a while to join us. See you on the bus!