LA bus tour drives through the City of Angels gruesome past and explores the last days of the Black Dahlia

On January 9th, 1947 Elizabeth Short walked out of the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles and into infamy. Even then, everyone wanted to become a star.

She was to become the Black Dahlia after her bisected, vivisected, mutilated and brutalized corpse was discovered in a vacant lot a few miles east of Downtown LA. Despite dozens, if not hundreds of suspects (including Orson Wells), her killer was never found and the case remains open to this day.

This day – January 9th, 2010 — also happens to be the 63rd anniversary of the last time anyone saw Elizabeth “Beth” Short alive. We were invited by Esotouric, a company specializing in “Bus Adventures into the secret heart of LA,” to come along for a ride exploring Beth Short’s life in Los Angeles.

Like Jack the Ripper is to London, the Black Dahlia case is to Los Angeles. Not only were poor Elizabeth Short’s guts ripped out, but the guts of the city, too. The shiny, Hollywood fueled facade so carefully built up around the City of Angels cracked, its dark center exposed. Pretty young women typically portrayed as budding starlets were in fact scraping by as taxi dancers, B-girls and prostitutes.

Psychologically shattered WWII vets wandered the streets searching for a way out of their loneliness and bad memories through drink, cheap sex and/or some form of violence. Organized crime, headed by celebrity like bosses such as Mickey Cohen, Jack Dragna and Bugsy Segal did what they liked and liked what they did.

Meanwhile, the LAPD was at the height of their pre-Rampart corruption and ineptitude, which no doubt played a role as to why the Black Dahlia case – as well as the cases of many other murdered women in 1947 – remains unsolved.

Recently, a lot of attention has been focused on Elizabeth Short’s murder, fueled by the publication of James Ellroy’s book called The Black Dahlia and Brian DePalma’s movie of the same name. But rather than concentrating on the “whodunit” aspect like the book and the movie, Esotouric smartly decides to  focus on who Beth Short was and what she was doing in Los Angeles, as well as what was going on in the city proper.

We say smartly because as even James Ellroy admits, the Black Dahlia case will never be solved. This frees the tour up to concentrate on Beth and her sad, typical though interesting, down and out postwar life.

As mentioned, the tour begins at the luxurious Biltmore Hotel (the presidential suite maintained a well stocked bar, especially during prohibition), the second to last place Elizabeth Short was seen alive. We then followed her footsteps south on Olive Street to a modern day strip club called the Galaxy Ball Room, that back in 1947 was known as the Crown Grille (and known to be a gay bar), the very last place Beth Short was seen alive.

The tour traces not only Elizabeth footsteps around Los Angeles, but also a tough female reporter named Aggie Underwood who became central to the Black Dahlia case.

The tour itself is a blast, as our guides pull no punches. One liners like “That’s where Beth Short got laid” and “Beth didn’t put out very often” are heard, but always balanced by a respectful, almost loving admiration of Elizabeth Short. For instance, Beth Short is often popularly portrayed as not only promiscuous, but often times as a prostitute. These notions are quickly dismissed by the hosts.

In what might have been the most interesting segment of the tour, one of the guides deconstructs Beth’s goth-like make up, contrasting it to the popular style of the time (“Ava Gardner in an apron”) and speculating on what her choice of a nearly white face with dark lips might have meant.

Finally we get to the body dump site in Leimert Park. Talk about the banality of evil. Beth Short’s corpse was found in what in 1947 was a vacant lot but today is a well manicured lawn in a solidly middle class neighborhood. A classic Rolls-Royce and a Delorean were parked across the street. There’s no marker, no sign, no plaque depicting the spot where the crime that in some ways came to define Los Angeles occurred. Just a lawn, like any other lawn.

One that you’ll likely never find, unless you get on the the Esotouric bus.

For more information, go to Esotoric’s website or call 323-223-2767. Tours cost about $60 (some are listed as $58 and others as $63).

Here’s Esotouric’s current schedule

Sat January 16 – Wild Wild West Side crime bus tour
Sat January 23 ­ Weird West Adams crime bus tour
Sat January 30 – East Side Babylon crime bus tour
Sun Feb 7 – Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles: South LA
Sat Feb 13 – Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles: Route 66
Thurs Feb 18 ­ Jeremy Kasten presents “Spider Baby” with director Jack Hill
Sat Feb 20 – Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles: The New Chinatowns
Sun Feb 21 – Joan Renner lecture “How the ‘Bob’ Changed History” (tentative)
Sat Feb 27 – Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles: The Lowdown on Downtown-The
Secret History of LA
Sat March 6 –  Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice crime bus tour
Sat March 13 – Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles
Sat March 20 – Maja’s Mysteries: Rapture & Release (debut)
Sat March 27 – Raymond Chandler’s Bay City
Sat April 3 ­ John Buntin’s L.A. Noir
Sat April 10 ­ Crawling Down Cahuenga: Tom Waits’ L.A.
Sat April 24 ­ Haunts of a Dirty Old Man: Charles Bukowski’s L.A.
Sat May 1 – Pasadena Confidential crime bus tour with Crimebo the Clown
Sat May 8 – Blood & Dumplings crime bus tour
Sat May 15 – The Real Black Dahlia crime bus tour
Sat May 22 – The Birth of Noir: James M. Cain’s So. Cal Nightmare

Related posts:

1. Daily Getaways: Last day
2. Love bus touring NYC
3. Obama does Asheville
4. LA: Not your mother’s bus tour
5. Three days of ironic bliss

Tags: Black Dahlia, Esotouric, Los Angeles, murder mystery, tour