Last Remaining Seats is right around the corner which means #FreeTicketFriday is BACK!
👀 Can you guess this location? If you love film and L.A. history as much as our incredible Last Remaining Seats volunteers do, you might know this Los Angeles County spot 🎞️
Take your guess in the comments below for a chance at free Last Remaining Seats tickets! Winner will be chosen at random on Monday.
📸: Photo by Rumi Nola/Last Remaining Seats volunteer committee.
🎨: Last Remaining Seats artwork by @merchmotel .
A recent article in The Guardian characterizes the historic designation of Marilyn Monroe’s Brentwood home as a “forced” monument—framing it as an arbitrary action taken among the owners’ ongoing legal battle to overturn this decision. In reality, it highlights how fragile our shared heritage is and how rarely we use the tools we already have to protect it. Monroe lived there only briefly, but the house marks a turning point: her first home purchased on her own terms, a symbol of autonomy and self-definition. She spoke about it, was photographed there, and took pride in making it her own. Dismissing that because of a short tenure misunderstands how cultural significance works.
Stewardship isn’t about freezing every celebrity address in amber; it’s about recognizing where personal stories intersect with broader social meaning and managing change responsibly. The real question is not whether Monroe’s house constrains property value, but whether we recognize women’s lives as historically important. For generations, places tied to women—their labor, creativity, and private struggles—have been overlooked while “great men’s” sites were protected. Efforts like the Los Angeles Women’s Landmarks Project, a partnership between the Conservancy and the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Where Women Made History initiative, aim to correct that imbalance.
Seen this way, Monroe’s house is not a random historic designation but part of a broader effort to take women’s experiences seriously in our city’s heritage. The issue isn’t that the city is “forcing” a monument—it’s that, for once, we’re choosing not to look away.
*Welcome to #LAPlaceKeeping, an ongoing series that explores Los Angeles through the people and places that matter—written by Adrian Scott Fine, President & CEO of the Los Angeles Conservancy.
You can find the full @guardian article at the link in our bio 🔗
@worldmonumentsfund , @laconservancy , and @arg.create are honored to receive @capreservation ’s Trustees’ Award for Excellence for our Rapid-Response Heritage Documentation project in the wake of the devastating January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires.
After a system of wildfires burned over 50,000 acres across Los Angeles County, destroying more than 16,000 structures, World Monuments Fund partnered with Los Angeles Conservancy and Architectural Resources Group to ensure that heritage sites were accounted for in post-disaster documentation and recovery operations.
Learn more about this award at the 🔗 in our bio.
📸 courtesy of Rico Mandel
#LA #losangeles #lafires
Did you know one of Hollywood’s most important power couples lived right here in the hills of Los Feliz, and cultivated an early LGBTQ+ space in Los Angeles? 🏡✨
Dorothy Arzner was a pioneering director in an era when women directors were exceedingly rare, as Hollywood made the transition from silent films to talkies. Throughout her career, Arzner accomplished many firsts, including the first woman to join the Directors Guild of America and the first woman to direct a sound film. Arzner’s life partner of 40 years, Marion Morgan, was a renowned dancer and choreographer who had her own groundbreaking performance troupe, the Marion Morgan Dancers, and choreographed dance sequences for many films, including Arzner’s “Manhattan Cocktail”.
Together, Dorothy and Marion commissioned this Greek Revival-style home with sweeping views of Los Angeles where they lived for over 20 years. During a time of Hays Code enforcement and censorship in the film industry, the Arzner-Morgan Residence served as a creative refuge and social gathering space for many of Hollywood’s leading ladies and LGBTQ+ community.
On this #WomensLandmarkWednesday, USC Master of Heritage Conservation student, Evan McAvenia, shares why we’re working to amend the original Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument designation of this landmark to reflect the home’s FULL history through the L.A. Women’s Landmarks Project—a partnership between the Los Angeles Conservancy and the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Where Women Made History initiative.
Learn more about the #LAWomensLandmarksProject at the link in bio, and follow along for more L.A. Women’s History!
Happy Preservation Month! And what better way to kick it off than a visit to a 129-year-old legacy business in Los Angeles ✨
Today, the Conservancy team had the honor of touring Judson Studios—the oldest family-owned-and-operated stained glass company in the United States. Located in the Garvanza district of L.A.’s Highland Park neighborhood, Judson Studios’ historic headquarters was declared a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 1969 and added to the the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.
David Judson, fifth-generation Judson family studio owner and president, gave us a peek behind the curtain at how his team is bringing the craft of glassmaking into the future with cutting-edge (literally) technology while continuing their traditional stained-glass fabrication and restoration projects that have brought them worldwide recognition for their quality and craftsmanship.
Thank you, @judsonstudios , for sharing your awe-inspiring studio and work with us—a true living legacy! 🌟
🚂 All aboard for a train ride through Mary Colter’s stunning Southwest sites!
📍 First stop: Fred Harvey Restaurant in Los Angeles’ Union Station
On this #WomensLandmarkWednesday, we’re excited to share this pilgrimage across the Southwest exploring the work of visionary architect Mary Colter, written by Los Angeles-based author Trisha Cole for Westways Magazine and AAA Explorer. We were thrilled to give Trisha a tour of L.A.’s Union Station and the former Fred Harvey Restaurant for this piece.
In an era of few female architects, Colter had an extraordinary career. She worked at the Fred Harvey Company—known for their chain of restaurants and hotels alongside railroads in the Western United States—for over 40 years. During her time at the company, Colter completed over 20 landmark hotels, commercial lodges, and public spaces, and is best known for designing many of the buildings at the Grand Canyon.
The Fred Harvey Restaurant at Union Station opened in 1939 and incorporated Southwestern elements, including a magnificent tile floor designed to resemble a Navajo rug. Staffed by the famed “Harvey Girls”, the Fred Harvey restaurants offered single women an opportunity to join the workforce and provided room and board during a time when women rarely lived on their own. Immortalized in the 1946 film ‘The Harvey Girls’ starring Judy Garland, the Harvey Girls and Harvey restaurants are recognized as one of the first successful women-dominated workforces in the American West. And in exciting news for the historic space, a new community focused brewery, @everywhere_laus , is set to open in the former Fred Harvey Restaurant at @unionstationla in 2026! 🎉
Explore other iconic Southwest stops on the trail of Mary Colter and read the full story on this trailblazing architect at the link in bio 🔗
✍️: Story by @trishacole for @aaaautoclubenterprises .
📸: Photos by @danielhennessyphoto .
🗺️: Map by Virginia Vallely.
🧑🎨: 1893 Portrait of Mary Colter by Arthur Mathews. Courtesy of the Pioneer Museum, Flagstaff, and the Arizona Historical Society.
Great news for Fox Apartments! 🎉 Last week, the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission voted 3-0 to support the L.A. Conservancy’s Historic-Cultural Monument nomination of this 101-year-old Westwood landmark.
Built in 1925 along the Pacific Electric Railway, the Fox Apartments are a rare surviving example of 1920s mixed-use, streetcar-era development. Designed by architect Kirby T. Snyder, the building combines ground-floor commercial storefronts with apartments above, reflecting a pedestrian-oriented streetscape typical of early Westwood. The apartments were situated directly across from the grand entrance to Fox Hills Studio Ranch (later the Fox Studio Backlot), with Westwood advertised as “the Second Hollywood”. Fox’s famed backlot was eventually sold and transformed into the quintessentially modern Century City. Located along North Santa Monica Boulevard, the Fox Apartments sit within the southern border of Westwood, with Century City beginning on South Santa Monica Boulevard.
As UCLA’s early growth helped shape the neighborhood, the Fox Apartments remain one of the few intact reminders of this formative period in Westwood’s development and the city’s streetcar-era commercial corridors. Today, the Fox Apartments continue to serve as a mixed-use space in Westwood, providing much-needed rent-stabilized apartments and a home for beloved legacy businesses @johnniesnypizza and @clementinefoods .
The L.A. Historic-Cultural Monument nomination for Fox Apartments will move forward to City Council in the coming months. Thank you to all of the Westwood community members who wrote letters and spoke in support of the nomination, including the Westwood Neighborhood Council, Westwood Community Council, and Councilmember Yaroslavsky’s office!
Congratulations to the graduates of our 11th Community Leadership Boot Camp! 👏🎓
Since launching in 2020, this program has been grounded in a simple belief: historic preservation in Los Angeles is strongest when driven by the passion of the communities within it. With the graduation of our 11th cohort, we’re proud to celebrate another milestone in advancing community-led preservation across Los Angeles 🎉
For this cohort field session, we explored the vibrant and ever-evolving Pico-Union neighborhood, highlighting powerful examples of advocacy in action including:
• An incredible interior tour of the Alcoholism Center for Women (ACW). Thank you to @acw.la for the warm welcome!
• Learning about ongoing efforts to honor Central American heritage through the Central American Heritage Markers (CAHM-LA) project with @cahaasofcali
• Exploring sites in the Pico-Union Historic Preservation Overlay Zone (HPOZ)
A special thank you to Claudia Portillo (Boot Camp 11 graduate 🎓) and ACW for guiding us and sharing your inspiring work. Here’s to the continued impact of our graduates in shaping and preserving historic places in Los Angeles communities!
📸: Photos by Andrew Salimian, M. Rosalind Sagara, and Daniela Velazco/L.A. Conservancy.
Los Angeles Conservancy’s partnership with Altadena artist Alma Cielo and the 1000 Voices Altadena Mosaic project is making progress! 💠 Alma leads free workshops for Altadena residents impacted by the 2025 Eaton Fire to make a monumental mosaic by and for the community—one that reflects the voices of Altadenans and their journey through loss and recovery.
Join Alma this Sunday, April 19, for a Clay Tile Pop-Up workshop as part of Earth Day Altadena! 🌎 We’re proud to be a sponsor of the 3rd annual Earth Day Celebration in the heart of West Altadena, hosted by Soul Force Project. Alma will also be opening the day with a Land Offering and performing on violin with Earthseed Band. For more information on this Sunday’s festivities and the 1000 Voices Altadena Mosaic project, visit the link in bio 🔗
Thank you to the Iron Mountain Living Legacy Initiative for helping to support our work uplifting the extraordinary cultural assets and communities of Altadena. The 1000 Voices Altadena Mosaic is a collaboration between Alma Cielo, Artists at Work, the L.A. County Department of Arts & Culture, and the Los Angeles Conservancy.
📸: Clay & Storytelling Workshop with Co-Instructor Amy Shimson-Santo at Armory Center for the Arts on April 12, 2026. Photos courtesy of Alma Cielo.
The Los Angeles Conservancy didn’t just hand out preservation awards this week; it sketched a roadmap for the future of the county. These projects show that saving places isn’t nostalgia—it’s strategy.
Consider the Historic House Relocation Project, where at-risk older homes are literally put on wheels and turned into housing for families displaced by wildfires. What used to be landfill-bound debris is now stability, dignity, and helping people get back into homes. Across town, the Charlotte and Robert Disney Bungalow quietly reminds us that world-changing ideas often begin in modest rooms (or, in this case, a garage); preserving them keeps creative possibility tangible, not abstract.
El Rodeo Elementary School and UCLA’s Powell Library prove that “historic” and “safe” aren’t opposites, marrying seismic resilience with architectural integrity so students and scholars inherit buildings that are both inspiring and stand the test of time. Little Tokyo Towers and The Union on Garey go further, treating preservation as social infrastructure—protecting elders, anchoring and supporting communities, and making sure long-term residents aren’t edited out of the urban story.
Then there’s joy. Stanley Burke’s gleams again in neon Googie optimism, ready to franchise a distinctly Angeleno sense of fun, while El Paradiso and the USC Dick Wolf Drama Center turn high design and adaptive reuse into working laboratories for how we want to live, learn, and create together. Our tribute to Diane Keaton celebrates how one person’s passion can create lasting change and inspire others to make a difference.
Taken together, this year’s winners ask an uncomfortable, necessary question: if preservation can deliver housing, safety, equity, climate action, and happiness, what excuse do we have not to do more of it?
*Welcome to #LAPlaceKeeping, an ongoing series that explores Los Angeles through the people and places that matter—written by Adrian Scott Fine, President & CEO of the Los Angeles Conservancy.
📸: Photos by Gary Leonard.
