Events Calendar
Welcome to the Windsor Square Hancock Park Historical Society Calendar. We look forward to seeing you at our upcoming events.
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.
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.
November 10th at 7:00pm. In Saving Radio City Music Hall, published by TurningPointPress, Rosemary Novellino-Mearns reveals how Radio City Music Hall, Art Deco masterpiece and New York City’s premiere tourist attraction for generations, was saved from demolition. After years of struggling with intense, sometimes painful memories, “Rosie” tells the honest, fact-filled, emotionally charged, and often humorous story of how she organized the gargantuan effort to save Radio City Music Hall in the Spring of 1978. Against all odds, and in only four months, she succeeded. Readers will be shocked by the “no good deed goes unpunished” climax of the story in which Rosie reveals her reward for spearheading the movement to save “The Showplace of the Nation.”
*$10 Presentation only – Members (Pay Below with small Paypal fee)
*$15 Presentation only – Non Members (Pay Below with small Paypal fee)
Book available through Amazon
*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.
Windsor Square Hancock Park Historical Society
Presents
Saving Radio City Music Hall – A Dancer’s True Story
by Rosemary Novellino-Mearns
November 10th at 7:00pm
A modest but determined young dancer from Glen Rock, New Jersey, Rosemary Novellino joined the Radio City Music Hall Ballet Company, the classical dance counterpart to the world-famous Rockettes, in 1966. After a shaky beginning, she danced with the group for twelve years, eventually becoming its Dance Captain and Assistant to the legendary choreographer Peter Gennaro. In the mid-1970s, questionable behind-the-scenes changes in Music Hall management alarmed hundreds of employees, but no one was prepared for the official announcement in early 1978, that Radio City Music Hall was slated to close that April and be demolished.
Drawing upon formerly untapped inner strengths, Rosemary refused to let this happen. She became President of “The Showpeople’s Committee to Save Radio City Music Hall” and motivated fellow workers, friends, thousands of Radio City fans around the world, New York and national media, cultural leaders and politicians to support the cause. As a result of these efforts, the Art Deco palace was declared a National Historic Landmark. saving not only the building but the jobs and livelihoods of thousands of Music Hall employees on stage and behind the scenes who have entertained millions to this day. This “heartfelt and very personal account of that effort,” says Booklist, “provides a backstage glimpse of the drama that ensued and features a cast of characters that includes performers, politicians, the media, and some very heavy hitters in the world of New York real estate that will delight readers interested in the performing arts and their history in the U.S.”
LOVE GARDENS?
The Windsor Square Hancock Park Historical Society is showcasing 5 beautiful local gardens.
Enjoy Music, Plant Sale & Raffle Items
Docents available at each garden.
Refreshments will be served.
JUNE 5, 1-5pm
Tour begins at 166 S. Plymouth
Members $40
Non-Members $50
Partner Organization $40
Saturday June 3rd. Five Gardens within
Windsor Square and Fremont Place
Starting at 355 S. Windsor Boulevard
Enjoy Six Gardens, Plant Sales & Silent Auction
Refreshments will be served
Members: $45
Non-Members: $55
The Windsor Square Hancock Park Historical Society
Presents
A Secret Garden Tour
Saturday, June 3rd 2023
1:00 to 5:00 PM
TICKETS CAN BE PURCHASED IN PERSON AT 355 SO. WINDSOR BLVD.
355 S. Windsor Boulevard is ground zero for A Secret Garden Tour. At this location will be the reception desk where guests and docents will receive their wristbands. This is also where you can pay by credit card, cash, or check for admittance to the tour. This location also has a plant sale, food and refreshments, and a silent auction.
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.
The Windsor Square Hancock Park Historical Society
Presents
All
Good Gardens,
Great and Small
Saturday, May 4th, 2024
12:00 to 4:00 PM
Enjoy Refreshments and Silent Auction.
355 S. Windsor Boulevard is ground zero once again for All Good Gardens, Great and Small, a tour of five private gardens. This year’s garden tour features five delicious gardens of varying sizes, three in Windsor Square, one in Fremont Place and one just outside Hancock Park on Fuller Avenue. The one on Fuller Ave. is a charming garden attached to a lovely home designed by the one and only Paul Williams.
At 355 S.Windsor Boulevard there is also a lovely garden and at this location our reception committee will greet you. This is where guests and docents will receive their wristbands and programs with the addresses on the tour. Walk-ins can pay by credit card, cash, or check for admittance to the tour as well as membership to the Historical Society. This location also has refreshments, a Prosecco happy hour and a silent auction.
Members $55.
Non-Members $75.