Esotouric's Boyle Heights tour preview - Part Three, Richard Meyer

On Sunday, February 20, 2011, Esotouric debuts a new bus adventure -- Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles: Boyle Heights, hosted by Boyle Heights native Sean Carrillo and Esotouric's Richard Schave.

TOUR INFO - http://esotouric.com/boyleheights

As a preview of this extraordinary event, Richard Schave has tramped across the east side, filming background interviews with three intriguing characters whose studies and life experience reveal some of the unknown history of this fascinating Los Angeles neighborhood.

Part One features David Kipen, former Director of Literature for the NEA and since mid-2010 proprietor of Libros Schmibros, a lending library and bookshop in the heart of Boyle Heights' bourgeoning arts district. Libros Schmibros is a stop on the bus tour, and in his interview, David explains just how this Beverly Hills boy came back to the old neighborhood to promote literacy and conversation just as the neighborhood's libraries were locking their doors.

For Part Two, we go to the back side of Union Station, a concrete patch bordered by freeway, helicopter landing pad and parking lots, but once the home of the visionary social activism of the Bethlehem Institute, led by Dana Bartlett. Here, in the parking lot of a Denny's, Cal State Los Angeles history professor Mark Wild untangles a century's worth of community-building which led straight to Breed Street and the youthful creative awakening of the tour's co-host Sean Carrillo at the All Nations Neighborhood Center.

In Part Three, it's off to Skid Row, and the site of an outrageous May 1970 shooting of Mexican nationals by L.A. and San Leandro police which led U.S. Attorney Robert Meyer to race to the scene and place survivors in protective custody. Three months later, the killing of journalist Ruben Salazar would pit Meyer against his political mentor, Sheriff Peter Pitchess. Meyer's son Richard Meyer tells the tale of the Seventh Street Shooting to tour co-host Richard Schave, and will be on the bus to share personal insights into the Salazar investigation.

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