Esotouric™

UPDATE 11/15: This tour is sold out. Join us when the tour repeats on 12/29.

Esotouric is thrilled to announce a very special tour for everyone seeking some blood, guts and swagger in their Christmas week: "James Ellroy Digs L.A."

Passengers on “James Ellroy Digs L.A.” will accompany the author on an uncensored time travel journey to tony Hancock Park, where he stalked his teenage classmates and later broke into houses. . . to the Hollywood flats to explore some of the heinous 1950s murder cases that fascinated him as a youth and continue to feed his obsessions. . . and out to El Monte, where his mother Geneva was murdered, the unsolved crime that runs through all his work, from “The Black Dahlia” to “My Dark Places.”

We are unable to honor any of our regular tour discounts (including KCRW or Season Passes) on special event tour.

There are no paper tickets: your name will be on a list at the bus door. Check in is at 12:30pm for a 1pm sharp departure from Arnie Mortons’s Steakhouse downtown. The restaurant (bar service and light snacks only) will be open at noon especially for our party.

MAP

Tickets can be ordered online until the morning of the tour, but we expect this tour to sell out quickly. If it's sold out but you would like to be on the stand-by list, please email.

Food and drink are permitted and suggested; no audio or video-taping without permission. We regret that there are no refunds for passengers who miss the bus.

UPDATE 11/17, 8am: We are now sold out. If you'd like to get on the cancellation list, click CONTACT above and send an email.

There are no paper tickets: your name will be on a list at the bus door. Check in is at 12:30pm for a 1pm sharp departure from Arnie Mortons’s Steakhouse downtown. The restaurant (bar service and light snacks only) will be open at noon especially for our party. Arnie Mortons is across the street from the 7th street Metro Station.

MAP

Tickets can be ordered online until the morning of the tour, but we expect this tour to sell out quickly. If it's sold out but you would like to be on the stand-by list, please email.

Food and drink are permitted and suggested; no audio or video-taping without permission. We regret that there are no refunds for passengers who miss the bus.

TOUR SYNOPSIS

A special edition of our most popular Crime Bus tour exclusively for friends of Pasadena's venerable Vroman's Bookstore (with reservations available directly from the store), The Real Black Dahlia spans the city from downtown to South Central, visiting the actual scenes of Elizabeth Short's final day in LA, and those places that have become attached to her in the ever growing mythology of the Black Dahlia murder. The real woman behind the murder mystery is revealed, along with suspects, reporters and investigators who were drawn into her orbit. Passengers will also be introduced to a little known and quite convincing suspect with ties to the body dump scene near 39th and Norton.

Since January 1947, this iconic mutilation murder has lingered unsolved at the forefront of the American imagination, with dozens of books, films, TV shows and websites dedicated to solving the slaying of the ambitious young woman from Medford, Mass. who came to Hollywood hoping to make it, and ended up cut in two in a vacant lot. Suspects have included famous men like Norman Chandler and Orson Welles, crazed lesbians, twisted drifters and more than one writer's father, but still the mystery abides.

On the Real Black Dahlia Crime Bus, Kim Cooper and Richard Schave give a guided tour to scenes from the real and imaginary history of the Black Dahlia case. Along the way, passengers will explore the social history of postwar Los Angeles, several popular Dahlia theories will be debunked and a little known but likely suspect will be introduced. The tour will introduce passengers to the real Elizabeth Short and some of the peculiar characters who knew her in life or become obsessed with her in death.

There will be a snack stop at Krispy Kreme Donuts.

To make your reservations contact Vromans Bookstore directly: 626-449-5320