Events Calendar
Welcome to the Windsor Square Hancock Park Historical Society Calendar. We look forward to seeing you at our upcoming events.
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| Windsor Square-Hancock Park Historical Society Invites You to Join a FREE ZOOM Webinar The History, Architecture, and Stories of Wilshire Blvd Wednesday September 23 @5pm Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85947603412 PLEASE RSVP GOING? Yes – Maybe – No more options In July, Sharon Boorstin’s article about an architectural driving tour of Wilshire Boulevard appeared in the Los Angeles Times. But the author has much more to say than her 1000-word limit allowed. Join Sharon in a ZOOM presentation covering the history, architecture — and fascinating stories — about the street once known as then “The Fifth Avenue” of Los Angeles. Bring your own memories of Wilshire Boulevard in the past to share. |
 Sharon Boorstin is a contributing writer for the Los Angeles Times, specializing in lifestyle and travel. She has written for magazines including Bon Appetit, Smithsonian and Town & Country Travel. Sharon edited guidebooks for cities including Los Angeles, New York and London, and with her husband Paul, she wrote dozens of screenplays for feature films and television including “Angel of Death” (ABC) starring Jane Seymour. Her memoir/cookbook “Let Us Eat Cake: Adventures in Food and Friendship” (Harper-Collins 2002) was a selection of the Pulpwood Queens Book Club. In 2019 Sharon won Visit California’s Eureka Award for Best Newspaper Travel Article. Sharon’s presentation is based on a July 23, 2020 article she wrote for the Los Angeles Times: “Wilshire Boulevard Architectural Driving Tour.” She will share the history of — and stories behind— the important L.A. landmarks on Wilshire Boulevard between MacArthur Park and Fairfax Boulevard. Remember Bullock’s Wilshire? The Ambassador Hotel? The Wiltern Theater? Bring memories to share during a Q&A at the end.  |
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| Windsor Square Hancock Park Historical Society Presents The History, Architecture, and Stories of Wilshire Blvd. Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85947603412 Meeting ID: 859 4760 3412 One tap mobile +16699006833,,85947603412# US (San Jose) +12532158782,,85947603412# US (Tacoma) Dial by your location +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose) +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma) +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston) +1 301 715 8592 US (Germantown) +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago) +1 929 205 6099 US (New York) Meeting ID: 859 4760 3412 Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/k6cMBh9ha Going ? Yes – Maybe – No more options |
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Most of us know Patty from being the recently elected President of The Ebell, proprietor of The Larchmont Buzz, a longtime member of the society, and resident of Fremont Place and She currently serves as a member of the Fremont Place Association Board. During her busy life, she somehow found time to write a book on the origin and history of everyone’s favorite street, Larchmont Boulevard. The book is available at Chevalier’s Book Store and the society and Chevalier are teaming up to help each other out during these odd times. Patty has new photos as well as information not shared in the book previously. With her unique presentation, Patty is happy to sign and personalize each book purchased through the historical society. Each book will be purchased directly by us from Chevalier’s Book Store and hand-delivered by elves directly to your door with your desired personalized greeting in it. Please think of friends and family who may like this sweet gift for Christmas, Chanukah, birthdays, etc. Presentation: $10 Presentation + copy of book: $30 (+small paypal fee) Zoom link will be provided after purchase of tickets
Windsor Square Hancock Park Historical Society
PRESENTS
Larchmont Blvd
by
Patricia Lombard
Wednesday
November 18
@7:00pm
Presentation + copy of book: $30
Just Presentation: $10
(+small paypal fee)
Zoom link will be provided after purchase of tickets
Most of us know Patty from being the recently elected President of The Ebell, proprietor of The Larchmont Buzz, a longtime member of the society, and resident of Fremont Place and She currently serves as a member of the Fremont Place Association Board. During her busy life, she somehow found time to write a book on the origin and history of everyone’s favorite street, Larchmont Boulevard. The book is available at Chevalier’s Book Store and the society and Chevalier are teaming up to help each other out during these odd times. Patty has new photos as well as information not shared in the book previously. With her unique presentation, Patty is happy to sign and personalize each book purchased through the historical society. Each book will be purchased directly by us from Chevalier’s Book Store and hand-delivered by elves directly to your door with your desired it to be personalized. Please think of friends and family who may like this sweet gift for Christmas, Chanukah, birthdays, etc.
Presentation: $10
Presentation + copy of book: $30
(+small paypal fee)
Zoom link will be provided after purchase of tickets
Bunker Hill Los Angeles: Essence of Sunshine and Noir
In Bunker Hill Los Angeles: Essence of Sunshine and Noir, historian Nathan Marsak tells the story of the Hill, from the district’s inception in the mid-19th century to its present day. Once home to wealthy Angelenos living in LA’s “first suburb,” then the epicenter of the city’s shifting demographics and the shadow and vice of an urban underbelly, Bunker Hill survived its attempted erasure and burgeoned as a hub of arts, politics, business, and tourism.
$40 signed book Bunker Hill Los Angeles: Essence of Sunshine and Noir by Nathan Marsak. Click here to Purchase
$10 Presentation only – Members (Pay Below with small Paypal fee)
$15 Presentation only – Non Members (Pay Below with small Paypal fee)
Windsor Square Hancock Park Historical Society
And
Angel City Press
present
Bunker Hill Los Angeles:
Essence of Sunshine and Noir
by Nathan Marsak
Please join us February 17th at 7:00pm
As compelling as the story of the destruction of Bunker Hill is its people who made the Hill at once desirable and undesirable. Marsak commemorates the poets and writers, artists and activists, little guys and big guys, and of course, the many architects who built and rebuilt the community on the Hill—time after historic time.
Any fan of American architecture will treasure Marsak’s analysis of buildings that have crowned the Hill: the exuberance of Victorian shingle and spindlework, from Mission to Modern, from Queen Anne to Frank Gehry, Bunker Hill has been home to it all, the ever-changing built environment.
With more than 150 photographs—many in color—as well as maps and vintage ephemera to tell his dramatic visual story, Marsak lures us into Bunker Hill Los Angeles and shares its lost world, then guides us to its new one.
July 7th at 7:00pm. Ken Bernstein, the City Planner for the City of Los Angeles and a national advocate for historic preservation shares how Los Angeles has led the nation in historic preservation and shares how other cities can do the same.
Los Angeles has an image as the “City of the Future”―a city always at the cutting edge of change―but also as a “throwaway metropolis” that cares little about its history or architectural legacy. Yet the reality is quite different. Over the past decade, the City of Los Angeles has developed one of the most successful historic preservation programs in the nation, culminating with the completion of the nation’s most ambitious citywide survey of historic resources.
*$10 Presentation only – Members (Pay Below with small Paypal fee)
*$15 Presentation only – Non Members (Pay Below with small Paypal fee)
$66 Presentation and hardcover book including shipping, Member price (Pay Below with small Paypal fee)
$71 Presentation and hardcover book including shipping, Non-Member price (Pay Below with small Paypal fee)
*After your purchase you will be emailed the special presentation link by 6pm the day before the presentation and by 12pm on the day of the presentation.
Presents
Preserving Los Angeles: How Historic Places Can Transform America’s Cities
by Ken Bernstein
July 7th at 7:00pm
All across the city, historic preservation is now transforming Los Angeles, while also pointing the way to how other cities can use preservation to revitalize their neighborhoods and build community. Preserving Los Angeles: How Historic Places Can Transform America’s Cities, authored by Ken Bernstein, who oversees Los Angeles’ Office of Historic Resources, tells this under-appreciated L.A. story: how historic preservation has been transforming neighborhoods, creating a Downtown renaissance, and guiding the future of the city.
While it is younger than many East Coast cities, Los Angeles has a remarkable collection of architectural resources in all styles, reflecting the legacy of notable architects from the past 150 years. As one of the most diverse cities in the world, Los Angeles is also breaking new ground in its approach to historic preservation, extending beyond the preservation of significant architecture, to also identify and protect the places of social and cultural meaning to all of Los Angeles’s communities. Preserving Los Angelesilluminates a Los Angeles that will surprise even longtime Angelenos―highlighting dozens of lesser-known buildings, neighborhoods, and places in every corner of the city that have been “found” by SurveyLA, the first-ever city-wide survey of Los Angeles’ historic resources. The text is richly illustrated through images by a prominent architectural photographer, Stephen Schafer. Preserving Los Angeles is an authoritative chronicle of Los Angeles’ urban transformation― and a useful guide for citizens and urban practitioners nationally seeking to draw lessons for their own cities.
August 25th, 7:00 PM. Do you want to read something funny? Let’s say, a novel set at a divorce ranch in Reno in the 1930s? A book with memorably eccentric characters, sparkling dialogue, a satisfying plot twist, and some romance and sex? A feel-good literary comedy/western? Here it is, then, the book you’ve been looking for: Julia Claiborne Johnson’s Better Luck Next Time.”— author of Dear Committee Members and The Shakespeare Requirement
The eagerly anticipated second novel from the bestselling author of Be Frank with Me, a charming story of endings, new beginnings, and the complexities and complications of friendship and love, set in late 1930s Reno.
$10 Presentation only – Members (Pay Below with small Paypal fee)*
$15 Presentation only – Non Members (Pay Below with small Paypal fee)*
$31.74 Better Luck Next Time book signed by author Julia Claiborne Johnson – Available for pick up at Chevalier’s Bookstore or shipped for an additional $6
*After your purchase you will be emailed the special presentation link by 6pm the day before the presentation and by 12pm on the day of the presentation.
The Windsor Square Hancock Park Historical Society
presents
BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME
with author Julia Claiborne Johnson
Please join us WEDNESDAY August 25th, 7:00 PM
It’s 1938 and women seeking a quick, no-questions split from their husbands head to the “divorce capital of the world,” Reno, Nevada. There’s one catch: they have to wait six weeks to become “residents.” Many of these wealthy, soon-to-be divorcees flock to the Flying Leap, a dude ranch that caters to their every need.
Twenty-four-year-old Ward spent one year at Yale before his family lost everything in the Great Depression; now he’s earning an honest living as a ranch hand at the Flying Leap. Admired for his dashing good looks—“Cary Grant in cowboy boots”—Ward thinks he’s got the Flying Leap’s clients all figured out. But two new guests are about to upend everything he thinks he knows: Nina, a St Louis heiress and amateur pilot back for her third divorce, and Emily, whose bravest moment in life was leaving her cheating husband back in San Francisco and driving herself to Reno.
A novel about divorce, marriage, and everything that comes in between (money, class, ambition, and opportunity), Better Luck Next Time is a hilarious yet poignant examination of the ways friendship can save us, love can destroy us, and the family we create can be stronger than the family we come from.
September 18, 5pm to 7pm. Please join us on a fascinating twilight walk through of historic Windsor Square on September 18th from 5:00 to 7:00. Explore the architecture and learn about the current and former residents of this beautiful area right in the center of Los Angeles. This is the second in our new series of walks around Windsor Square and Hancock park with Eleanor Schrader and Bret Parsons. Wear comfortable shoes. You won’t want to miss this.
This event has been SOLD OUT.
Member $50. Non-member $60 (You may pay below with a small Paypal fee)
The Windsor Square Hancock Park Historical Society
presents
Mansions, Moguls & Movie Stars Twilight Tour
with Eleanor Schrader & Bret Parsons
Please join us September 18th, 2021, 5:00pm – 7:00pm
Refreshments will be Served
Eleanor Schrader is an award-winning educator, lecturer, and author. She lectures worldwide on the history of architecture, interiors, and decorative arts and leads art and architecture tours throughout the world. She has been named a Distinguished Instructor of design history at UCLA Extension. She is also Professor Emeritus of Art and Architectural History at Santa Monica College. She has done graduate work in fine and decorative arts at Sotheby’s Institute in London and New York and has served as Design Review Commissioner for the City of Beverly Hills. She is co-author of “Master Architects of Southern California, 1920-1940: Wallace Neff”.
Bret Parsons has written five books, including Colcord Home (2008), the biography of the beloved Southern California architect Gerard Colcord. He is the co-author of books on Paul R. Williams, Roland E.Coate, Gordan B. Kaufmann, and Wallace Neff among others in the Master Architects of Southern California 1920-1940s published by Angel City Press. A residential Realtor, he founded Bret Parsons Real Estate in 2008. He is the founder and executive director of the architectural division of Compass. Bret resides in Los Angeles.
Join architectural historian Eleanor Schrader and realtor/architectural author Bret Parsons for a spectacular tour of the historic enclaves of greater Hancock Park. Our double-decker bus will guide us down streets filled with beautiful homes as we reveal secrets that illuminate this coveted neighborhood. We’ll regale you with details about its historic revival styles, extraordinary architects (Elmer Grey, Sumner Hunt, Paul R. Williams, Wallace Neff, and others), filming locations including “Sunset Boulevard,” and anecdotes about the lavish lifestyles of famous personalities who inhabited these estates.
Members Tickets are $75
Note that all tours require 48 hours’ cancellation notification for refund. You will be asked to sign a waiver of liability.
A portion of the proceeds benefit Windsor Square Hancock Park Historical Society.
Upper-deck seats provide a unique view of the homes on our tour.
Additional details to be emailed a couple of days before the tour.
Please, no children, babies, or pets.