We Need to Talk About Taix

Sometime around 1870, a family of bakers and sheepherders from the Hautes-Alpes left France, emigrating to Los Angeles.

For decades, customers have hotly debated how to pronounce their surname - Taix. Long story short, the family says it's pronounced "Tex".

In any case, the family purchased property in Frenchtown - specifically, at 321 Commercial Street - and opened the Taix French Bread Bakery in 1882.

1911 and 1912 were tough on Marius Taix Sr. In September 1911, his sister Leonie Allemand died in France. In the spring of 1912, Adrian Taix (co-owner of The French Bakery at 1550 West Pico Boulevard), died. By summer, brother Joseph Taix died, also in France. And finally, in the summer of 1912, Joachim Taix (who owned the other half of The French Bakery) also died.

That same year, Marius Taix Sr. tore down the Commercial Street bakery, building the Champ d'Or Hotel on the land and leasing the ground floor to a restauranteur.

Marius Taix Jr. was a pharmacist by trade, and owned the French-Mexican Drug Company nearby at 231-235 N. Los Angeles Street. Ads boasted "French and Mexican Preparations Our Specialty". (With the Plaza and Sonoratown so close by, featuring both French and Mexican medicines was a smart move on Marius Jr.'s part.)

Two stories are told about the origin of the Taix family's eponymous restaurant. One is that Marius Jr. got into an argument with the restaurant owner. The other is that Prohibition agents busted the restaurant owner for illegally selling alcohol, and that Marius Jr. confronted him about it.

This isn't too surprising. Prohibition spelled the end for Frenchtown, since it rendered French restaurant owners unable to serve wine (the vintners had long since sold off their vineyards for development). Without wine, diners didn't want to linger at a French restaurant for an hours-long dinner (Little Italy, on the other side of the Plaza, faced the same issue). The overwhelming majority of Los Angeles' French community took pride in being law-abiding, and although Prohibition was decidedly unpopular, it was still the law. Better to close the restaurant and change jobs than to break the law.

In either case, one day in 1927, words were exchanged, the restauranteur threw the keys at Marius Jr. before storming out, and the Taix family rolled up their sleeves and got to work.

Taix French Restaurant in the 1950s

Marius Taix Jr. started out serving 50-cent chicken dinners at long, family-style tables, with private booths available for an extra 25 cents (he got around Prohibition by selling "medicinal wine"). He partnered with a French immigrant who had become an experienced restauranteur and baker, Louis Larquier. He also continued to run the pharmacy - a very busy guy!

Six years later, Taix French Restaurant could legally serve wine without having to call it "medicinal". Today, they serve more than 400 wines, along with affordably priced country-style French cuisine.

Marius Jr.'s two sons, Raymond and Pierre, grew up washing dishes in the restaurant. In 1962, the beloved Sunset Boulevard location opened under the name "Les Fréres Taix" - the Taix Brothers.

Taix French Restaurant on Sunset Boulevard

The original restaurant at 321 Commercial Street was forced to close in 1964 to make way for new government buildings, including a courthouse and jail (the same block once included the corral where Michel Lachenais was hanged). The Sunset Boulevard location has a bar called the 321 Lounge, presumably in honor of the original restaurant.

The two different restaurant names - Taix French Restaurant and Les Fréres Taix - were reportedly confusing to diners, and the Sunset Boulevard location dropped "Les Fréres" from its name.

In 2012, the intersection in front of Taix was officially designated Taix Square by the City Council. Intersections are typically named after important Angelenos - very few restaurants receive the same honor.

Alas, the good times will be coming to an end, at least for a while.

Taix has been a Los Angeles institution for 92.5 years. It's popular with couples, families, hipsters, Francophiles, foodies, city bigwigs, and Dodgers fans (Dodger Stadium is 5 minutes away). It even managed to survive Echo Park's decline into LA's scariest drug den (before the hipsters moved in). But the restaurant business has changed a lot, and in the 58 years that Taix has been open in Echo Park, the building's six banquet rooms are used less and less.

A building Taix's size, on a lot as big as Taix's, costs serious money to maintain. And in order for a business - even a legacy business - to stay open, it has to make enough money to cover expenses. That's hard to do when wholesale food prices have risen, labor costs have risen, and much of the building isn't being put to sufficient use.

Raymond Taix's son Michael, who currently owns the restaurant, sold the property in August 2019 for $12 million and is leasing the building as a tenant. The real estate developer which now owns the property plans to build a housing and retail complex, which will include a smaller version of Taix (6,000 square feet vs. the current 18,000 square foot building).

The plan is to store the bar, lounge, and signage, and reinstall them in the smaller future space - essentially shrinking Taix, but keeping everything that makes Taix what it is.

Except for the current building. Unless the developer decides to somehow convert the existing building (which I seriously doubt will be the case), it's doomed.

As of this writing, Taix is still open. Go while you can - no one knows for sure when the developer will get the go-ahead to start construction. And when it starts, count on waiting a good 18 months before Taix reopens.

A Frenchtown Christmas Carol

(Dear readers: the following entry was inspired by my friend Kim Cooper's sizzling-hot take on the "wonderful life" of Eric Garcetti.)

Raymond Taix was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The beloved restauranteur had passed away a decade earlier.

There was no need to change the restaurant’s name; Raymond’s son Mike had taken it over when Raymond retired, just as Raymond had taken over for his father Marius Taix Jr. many years earlier.

Ten years on, Mike Taix still owned the restaurant. The business end, that is. He’d recently sold the restaurant’s building and property - a generously sized parcel fronting Sunset Boulevard, with an adjoining overflow parking lot opening onto Reservoir Street.

In an off-market sale. 

To a notorious out-of-state developer. 

For the whopping sum of $12 million. 

It was chilly in Utah, where Mike now lived. He poured himself a glass of wine before bed, ruminating over the past week.

His family’s restaurant had been nominated for landmark status months earlier. It had just passed the second hearing with a unanimous approval recommendation.

Mike was pissed. He’d made a deal with Holland Partner Group, which intended to build a five-story mixed-use complex on the site, and he did not want anything to get in the way of the plan. It was his business and it was his God-given right to sell what preservationists had called “a rare commercial example of the French Alpine style”, “the last link to old French LA”, “a beloved city institution”, and “the most charming building on the eastern end of Sunset”, among other things.

Mike put the glass in the dishwasher and went to bed. 

Well, he tried to, anyway. No sooner had Mike closed the bedroom door behind him than he heard the front door of his house fly open with a loud BANG!

Mike heard footsteps coming through the door and through the house. All of the color drained from his face as the visitor passed THROUGH the closed bedroom door.

“Dad?!”

“You don’t believe in me,” the ghost of Raymond Taix replied. 

“No…of course I do. Wait - don’t ghosts wear chains in this story?”

“Ghosts wear the chains they forged in life, and I have none. If you could only see the one you’re forging for yourself,” Raymond chided his son. “I can’t stay, Mike. But I had to tell you that you may have a chance of changing your fate.”

“Dad, what are you talking about?” 

“You will be visited by three spirits. Heed their warnings; they are wiser than you may think. Goodnight, son, and do try to have a Merry Christmas.”

And with that, the ghost of Raymond Taix departed. Upon inspection, the front door was locked, just as Mike had left it.

Mike made a mental note to take a better look at that wine in the morning and went to sleep.

A few hours later, Mike was awakened by the clock chiming one a.m. The room filled with light, and Mike found himself face-to-face with a spectral man in glasses, a frock coat, and impressive mutton chops.

“This can’t be real,” Mike groused.

“Oh, I assure you, young Taix, it absolutely can be,” the spirit replied in a faint Quebecois accent. “Good heavens, where are my manners?! I’m the ghost of Christmas Past. Come with me, I have much to show you.” 

Mike grudgingly accepted the ghost’s transparent hand and found himself whisked away to a place he had only seen in old pictures.

City Hall towered over the scene from a few blocks away, but Los Angeles Street was completely different. Gone were the government buildings. Gone was the strip mall. And was that - 

“The French-Mexican Drug Company,” the ghost announced. “Your grandfather’s pharmacy. Shall we drop in?”

Mike watched his grandfather, Marius Taix Jr., accept a shipment of medicinal wine, fill several prescriptions, and dispense instructions to a customer over the phone in his thick French accent. Why was the spirit showing him this?

“That wine is really for the restaurant, of course,” the spirit noted. “It’s 1928. Prohibition killed off every other restaurant in Frenchtown,” he added, gesturing to several vacant restaurant spaces nearby. “But, your grandfather could still get wine because he was a pharmacist. About 12 years from now, the rest of Frenchtown will be gone, and the restaurant will be the only thing left.”

Before too long, Marius Jr. locked up for the night, lugging a crate of “medicinal” wine bottles. The ghost and Mike followed him around the corner and down the street to a more familiar address. 

321 Commercial Street. 

At this point in time it was the Champ d’Or Hotel, housing Taix French Restaurant upstairs. 

“Before your grandfather and great-grandfather built this place, the Taix bakery stood on this lot,” the ghost added. “I remember when your family first came to town and when they set up shop about 10 years later. Los Angeles was much smaller then. My brother Victor and I helped change that, of course, along with our friend Remi.”

Despite the long day at the pharmacy, Marius Jr. wasn’t done for the day yet. The restaurant needed attending to before the family could depart for midnight Mass.

As the Taix family walked into St. Vibiana’s, the cathedral’s bell began to toll.

“Your time with me is up, young Taix,” the spirit replied. “I’ll leave you in the capable hands of the next spirit." 

And with that, the spirit strolled into the cathedral himself.

“Michael Taix, I presume,” stated a woman’s voice.

Mike turned around to see a transparent brunette in a black dress, black beaded gloves, black boots, and a dainty silver guillotine-blade necklace.

“Come with me, Mike. We need to talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

She scoffed. “Who’s the Ghost of Christmas Present, you or me?”

The spirit removed one of her gloves and snapped her fingers.

In an instant, Mike was back on Commercial Street. But now it was 2020 again, and Taix was gone.

In its place were a jail, courthouse, and parking garage. Commercial had been rerouted into Aliso Street to accommodate a curve in the 101 freeway. 

The spirit guided him on a quick tour of the neighborhood. More government buildings, parking garages, weedy empty lots, a scuzzy strip club, a bus parking lot, an old industrial building...

“This was a thriving French enclave for over 80 years. Unfortunately Beaudry didn't have time to show more of it to you. And now it’s gone forever. Only one thing remains.”

She snapped her fingers again and they were whisked by unseen forces to Sunset Boulevard.

This being Christmas eve under pandemic lockdown, Taix was only open for takeout. But that didn’t stop customers from chatting while waiting for their food.

“Man, I love this place. I don’t want it to go.”

“I moved across the street to be closer.” 

“Do you really think Taix will come back?”

“What, if the complex gets built?”

“Yeah. I mean...it just seems like Mike doesn’t care anymore. And I heard he tried to sell out a long time ago. Echo Park’s a lot more expensive now, of course.”

“I feel you. He doesn’t even live here.”

“So he sells the property. He’s got the money. Why is he involved with the development plan?”

“No one knows. But the whole thing is fishier than last week’s leftover salmon.”

“Off market sale, shady developer, bigger price tag than expected.”

“Yeah, I think something’s up.”

"Did anyone actually fall for those giant glossy flyers he sent to everyone in Echo Park?"

“I just want to know what his end game is. What’s the point of all this?”

The spirit snapped her fingers again, muting the conversation.

“Mike, do you even want to continue with the business? Philippe Mathieu sold his sandwich shop and retired when he turned 50, you know. There’s no shame in it.”

"It's not your business."

"Damn right it's not. It's YOUR family's legacy business. Mike...do you understand how all of this looks to people?”

He didn’t answer.

“Do you even care what HPG is doing to this city?”

“Building housing,” Mike snapped. 

The spirit scoffed again. “Oh, they build, all right. But it’s not enough to build housing. The city needs good housing, managed well, with an appropriate mix of price points.”

“And what do you know?”

“I was an apartment manager,” she replied. “And I was a small business owner after that.”

Mike was surprised.

“That took the wind out of your sails, didn’t it? Now watch closely.”

She snapped her fingers again.

An image appeared on the wall before them, like a projection. It was a hallway in a sleek new apartment building.

People with suitcases and bags came and went, in time lapse speed, from sunrise until the following sunrise.

“This is one of HPG’s buildings, Mike. They’re allowing illegal short-term rentals on the site. Every short-term rental is a space that’s not lived in by long-term tenants. That drives down occupancy, keeps rents high in cities like LA, and does nothing for the community. You do know the value of community, right, Mike? Frenchtown was obliterated decades before I was born.”

“The building is coming down,” Mike replied. “It’s too big for the restaurant now.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way,” the spirit shot back. “But our time is up. The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come will take over from here.”

And with that, she floated down Sunset Boulevard and out of sight.

Mike heard a low, raspy voice. “Mike...MIKE...” He nearly jumped out of his skin when a clammy hand came down on his shoulder.

Mike whirled around to see a tall, thin spirit in gray jeans and an oversized black hoodie, both having seen better years.

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come hacked and coughed, finally clearing his throat. “Sorry about that. You get a lot of colds living in a public park. Especially with limited access to sanitary facilities.” 

“You’re homeless?”

“I wasn’t always. I had a place on Alvarado. But when the mixed-use complex went up, a lot of landlords raised rents, and there weren't enough low-income units in the complex to meet the demand. Not by a long shot. I was an essential worker, but I suddenly couldn’t afford rent anymore. And I work right down the street. You know how hard it is to commute and park in LA.”

“So what do you want with me? The property is sold. I can’t stop the developer.”

“You’ve still got some pull with HPG. And the building doesn’t have to disappear.”

The spirit waved his hand.

In an instant, the property changed. The restaurant now shared the lots with a bigger, French Alpine-inspired apartment building that matched it perfectly. 

“Come on,” the spirit urged, waving Mike through the door of the restaurant and towards the banquet rooms.

Mike was stunned to see a lawyer’s office in the first room...an accountant in another one...the CD13 office in the biggest one...small businesses in the other three.

“In this future, the building was adapted and the extra space rented out. You saw the apartments on the way in. The people who hated HPG’s original plan love it. This is what the project could be, Mike.”

The spirit waved his hand again. They were back out on Sunset. 

“Or this could happen,” the spirit added.

With one more wave, the proposed development appeared. It was, to be fair, ugly, and already suffering from visible maintenance problems. Traffic backed up in either direction as residents and patrons waited to access the underground parking garage. It was noisy, too, owing to its acoustics. And something was missing.

“Where’s the restaurant?”

“It never reopened, Mike. There were delays, there was red tape, there were disagreements, and you finally just gave up.”

Mike was stunned.

“You may not own the building anymore, Mike...but you can still put in a good word.”

The spirit vanished.

Mike woke up in his bedroom in Utah. What the hell had just happened?

Why The Taix Battle Isn't Really (Just) About Taix

Dear Readers:

I know, I know. I’ve written quite a bit already about the Taix situation. I have been researching an entry on a different family, but their surviving property isn’t in any imminent danger, whereas Taix is.

Spread this entry far and wide. Share it with the people who make excuses for bad development and the people who don’t know or care about developers’ misdeeds or City Hall corruption. Enough is enough.

Although the initial Taix landmark approval, with substantial alterations, was rescinded (the city violated the Brown Act), the battle is far from over.

Due to time limits at the 12/7 meeting, the nomination will be re-heard on 1/18.

As you consider your statements for public comment, I ask that everyone consider this: the Taix battle aims to save Taix, but it isn’t solely about Taix.

PLUM, or the Planning and Land Use Management Committee, wields considerable power in Los Angeles. Whether they have too much of it is a subject for another time. 

This is the case of a unique legacy property, sold off-market to an out-of-state developer with a questionable track record in LA, slated to be replaced with a development that has changed considerably from the original renderings. The nomination, altered to the extreme by City Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell at the developer’s request, essentially turns landmarking into salvage. 

The whole thing stinks like a week-old serving of salmon dropped in the gutter on Sunset Boulevard and left to rot in the sun.

Exactly how much say should developers, especially non-local ones who aren’t invested in the community, have in Los Angeles, a city constantly losing the things that make it Los Angeles and also a city stuck with the results of irresponsible development? 

It’s not development per se that’s the problem. There’s an ocean of difference between responsible development (loft conversions, affordable buildings, designing with safety and residents’ needs in mind instead of flashy aesthetics…or the cheapest materials possible) and irresponsible development (too many luxury units, not enough windows - Charlie Munger, I’m looking at you - no security, nowhere to do laundry, in some cases no kitchen, too far away from anything to walk, no green space, tearing down affordable units with no tenant relocation plan and refusing to replace them with an equal or greater number of affordable units, etc.). 

And, of course, there is the Kafkaesque nature of appeasing a deep-pocketed developer by illegally sabotaging a landmark nomination in a way that would set a legal precedent for destroying an untold number of very important places.

Must every important place in Los Angeles be placed in potential danger of demolition because a Washington-based developer is determined to tear one of them down?

Unsure of my ability to get through on the phone (like many of you, I wasn’t called on at either of the two previous hearings), I submitted public comment via the online portal before Taix was moved to the January 18 meeting. 

In part:

“Would you tear down the Chinese Theatre and only keep the signs and forecourt? Absolutely not. Would you tear down the Avila Adobe and only keep the porch? No way. Would you tear down Central Library and only save the sphinxes and globe chandelier? You wouldn’t.”

I deliberately mentioned those three landmarks for specific reasons. The first is that two of them were nearly lost, and one would be affected by a zoning change City Council has been pushing. The Chinese Theatre would be affected by the proposed zoning change (and is uncomfortably close to the recently ruined Pig ‘n Whistle). Central Library, threatened with demolition since the 1960s, was damaged in a 1986 arson fire and could all too easily have been lost. The Avila Adobe was condemned almost a century ago and came far too close to disappearing forever, along with what survives of the Pueblo.

Can you imagine Los Angeles without any of these iconic places, all of which played a role in making the city what it is? (That would be my second reason for mentioning them.) 

They aren’t just a bunch of old buildings. They are part of our rich cultural heritage as Angelenos.

And what about Taix, a rare survivor from what was formerly Los Angeles’ biggest ethnic enclave, and one of its oldest? Does it cease to matter because the city’s French population was outnumbered by Yankees after the 1880s and the French Colony ceased to exist long ago? Shouldn’t that make its significance greater?

Is it really “just a building”? Or is the battle for Taix a microcosm of the battle for the city’s heart, its soul, its people, and its future?

Los Angeles does not belong to developers.

Los Angeles does not belong to its elected officials.

Los Angeles belongs to Angelenos.

God bless us, every one…and God help us, every one. 

(Except for the guilty parties referenced above. I’m pretty sure they’re all going directly to the Ninth Circle of Hell to face a fate worse than living in the dystopian Los Angeles they are helping to create.)

SIGNAL BOOST: 1960s-1980s Pictures of Taix Needed!

Hi Everyone,

The Historic-Cultural Monument application for Taix has been submitted. However, the Office of Historic Resources is requesting additional historic photos of the restaurant's exterior, dating from when the Taix family took it over.

Unfortunately, all my pictures of Taix on Sunset were taken in the last few years, and thus won't be too helpful for the purposes of getting Taix landmarked.

I know many of my dear readers have enjoyed Taix's hospitality over the years, and I'm hoping one or more of you might have some appropriately vintage photos of Taix's Sunset Boulevard location, taken after the Taix family took over the building in 1962.

If you have any such pictures, please contact Friends of Taix on Facebook.

If you are not on Facebook, no problem - email me (losfrangeles at gmail dot com) and I will forward them on to the right people.

Merci!

C.C.

P.S. An additional merci to Sandi of Avoiding Regret for linking my Taix entry.

It's Not Too Late to Save Taix

Regular readers (and anyone paying attention) know that Taix's longtime home, a French Country-esque building on Sunset Boulevard, is doomed.

But what if it doesn't have to be?

There are few surviving remnants of Old French Los Angeles. Of the 500 French-associated sites I've catalogued on a Google Map over the past 7 years, there are only about 25 still standing in Los Angeles County.*

Does Taix - one of those rare survivors - really have to be demolished so this revolting abomination can dwarf everything else in Echo Park?

New owners Holland Partner Group** initially claimed they would preserve some of Taix's current features. The newer rendering indicates that isn't the case.

According to a former tenant, Holland Partner Group is also a bad developer and a bad property manager (the company is vertically integrated).

Well, what do we really expect from out-of-town developers? They're not invested in the community. They don't care about Los Angeles or its people. They see "LA" and get dollar signs in their eyes.

But what if we could landmark Taix and give the building some protection? What if it could even be incorporated into a (hopefully far less ugly) housing complex?

I'm not anti-housing. I'm against housing misuse. Apartments should never be illegally run as hotels, livable vacant homes should never sit empty and rot by the thousands while ordinary Angelenos struggle to afford inflated rents, and shiny new luxury apartments (which we have more than enough of) should never displace existing affordable housing. Successful cities have a mix of housing at a mix of pricing levels for every class of resident. That problem can't be solved by one new development. Although I dislike excessive taxation, a vacancy tax might provide landlords with a stronger long-term incentive to keep units filled with full-time renters.

Want to save Taix? Sign the petition here.

Join Friends of Taix if you're on Facebook.

And if you're close enough, help the restaurant keep going by ordering takeout or delivery.

*Not counting street names, park names, school names, memorial plaques, or cemeteries.

**To clarify: the Taix family still owns the restaurant business. Holland Partner Group owns the building, the land it's on, and Taix's overflow parking lot nearby.

J'Accuse

Dear Readers:

I tried. Many of you tried. The Friends of Taix tried.

Taix has been "landmarked", but it has also been marked for annihilation. Go while you still can.

And never, ever, ever stop fighting like hell for what we do still have. 

C.C.

Now that I've said that...time to make like my peasant ancestors and bring on the proverbial beheadings. (Who needs a guillotine when words will do?)

J'accuse, Mike Taix.

I know certain things about you that come from reliable sources. But I don't want those sources to get blackballed from the restaurant industry. So while I won't be listing them here...know that I know. And I am not the only one who knows. 

I know you wanted to sell the restaurant previously, in the '80s. I'm well aware that demolishing and redeveloping is part of your family's long history in LA along with that famous bread. 

But if all of this were really about the building being too big, the building could be adapted. Alternately, there are plenty of other commercial restaurant spaces in LA that are smaller than Taix.

Can you really blame anyone who thinks you only care about what money you can make off of Taix? You haven't lived in LA in years. Your continued involvement with HPG looks suspicious to anyone with common sense. You sold out your own family's legacy. I won't speculate on whether your grandfather would be proud of you.

You got your $12 million. I suggest you sell the business end of the restaurant to someone who DOES give a damn and butt out of Echo Park's future.

J'accuse, Holland Partner Group.

I know you asked Mitch O'Farrell to modify the landmark nomination. It's quite literally on the public record, so don't even think about trying to gaslight me.

You people don't live in LA - you don't even live in California. Your contributions to the city consist of luxury apartments (we have had more than enough since the 1970s, thanks) and illegal short-term rentals. You are not part of the community, you are carpetbaggers.

Making money, in and of itself, isn't wrong. Making money at someone else's expense is. And your short-term rentals drive down occupancy and drive up demand in LA. Ultimately, that's harmful.

You have baited-and-switched us with different renderings. The most recent plan for the Taix site bears little resemblance to the first one. Was the revised (and frankly uglier) design the plan all along?

Two signs and a bar top are salvage, NOT preservation. You and Mitch have effectively gutted LA's historic preservation ordinance, all for profit. That takes away meaningful protection and opens the door for wrecking more of what makes Los Angeles, Los Angeles.

If you insist upon gutting a city for profit, I ask that you confine it to your own hometown. LA does not belong to you. It belongs to Angelenos.

You, and Mike, have also based your argument for the proposed development upon a lie: that Taix can't be incorporated. Fairfield Residential is doing just that with Dinah's in Westchester. If they can do it, so can you. (Fairfield's design looks nicer than yours, too.)

J'accuse, Mitch O'Farrell.

I know Holland Partner Group spent six figures buying your influence. Don't bother trying to deny it.

You promised not to seek re-election. You broke that promise after the Taix vote.

Silverlake Heritage was mysteriously not able to get a meeting with you. Were you busy, or were you too cowardly to face them?

You have been caught on video running away from a constituent who intends to run against you. You locked the bathrooms at Echo Park Lake during a pandemic. The lake is now nearly inaccessible, with even the wheelchair ramp blocked off - surely you've heard of the Americans with Disabilities Act? Or do you just not care?

Your actions indicate that you don't care about the homeless. While I realize the encampment had serious issues (although the sanitation issue could have mitigated at least somewhat by, oh, unlocking the damn bathrooms), I have concerns about how it was handled and I have concerns about how inhumane and dangerous shelters can be. I am also concerned about food vendors getting cited in the area, despite their long tenure in Echo Park.

You are hurting your own district, and you are hurting Los Angeles. I can swear in English, French, Spanish, and Italian, and there are not enough curse words in all of those languages combined to fully express my disgust for you.

J'accuse, everyone else on the Los Angeles City Council.

You played along with Mitch and HPG's little plan. Or was it playing? You're politicians, after all. Scratch his back and he'll scratch yours, right?

You violate the Brown Act on a regular basis. Specifically, you violated the Brown Act at the landmarking hearings and landmarking vote regarding Taix. Multiple people, myself included, were mysteriously never called upon. That's illegal and you all know it.

You have now set a precedent gutting historic preservation in LA, effectively marking everything special about the city with an X. Do you really think that will endear you to fed-up voters?

I have news for you - voters ARE fed up. It's why Nithya Raman beat incumbent David Ryu.

Some of you seem to think you will never face a consequence. While that might be true under Garcetti's watch (my ire for Garcetti is a much longer topic for another time)...you are still being watched by the Feds.

Remember your colleague Jose Huizar? He played a little too nicely with greedy developers too. He's facing RICO charges. The DOJ is still actively watching some, if not most, of you.

I won't be the one who cuts the thread holding up Damocles' sword. I really am just a pissed-off Valley Girl who blogs about dead French people. But the sword is there. It's only a matter of time before someone cuts the thread. 

You have all sold out LA's heritage. You are all, arguably, doing more harm than good. Los Angeles deserves better than this, and Los Angeles deserves better than all of you.

Remembering the Original Taix

Dear Readers,

Recently I was fortunate to be introduced to Jan Gabrielson, who visited the original Taix as a child and generously gave me permission to share some vintage photos.

Born in San Francisco, Jan has lived in LA since the tender age of 18 months. Jan grew up in South San Gabriel/Rosemead, currently resides in Cheviot Hills, and is a retired family lawyer and legal consultant who practiced downtown.

Jan started going to Taix in the early 50s as a child and went two or three times. Jan states “I remember going there and knowing I had been there before.” 

This 1961 photo, which Jan took from the City Hall observation deck, shows Taix in the very bottom center.

Jan describes the lost building at 321 Commercial Street as "a shabby old industrial building with more than 1 floor" and remembers sitting with family at a long table (communal seating was the norm, although private booths were available for a little extra). 

Jan's mother, a Home Economics teacher who had taken a college French class, insisted on the incorrect “tay” pronunciation and was unimpressed. Jan notes “she had no language talent whatsoever, but that didn’t stop her” from teaching Spanish at the family's dinner table.

In fact, there was a running battle with Jan's mother over how to pronounce Taix. Jan opines “it’s the family name and that’s how they pronounce it, end of story”. Jan also ran through a list of place names that ignore the X rule. (In French, pronunciation rules don't necessarily apply to names - of people or of places.)

Jan recalls coffee being served at the very end of the meal. The waiter would say “put your spoon in your glass” - to prevent the glass from shattering when the hot coffee was poured in. (Metal is an excellent conductor of heat, so this makes sense. That said, I studied art, not science.)

Jan went on to UCLA, majored in French (despite never having spoken French before!), and spent a year abroad in Bordeaux. By this time, due to UCLA's excellent language program, Jan was already fully fluent in French. 

Jan also worked as a passenger service agent for Air France. At the time, according to Jan, French visitors didn't spend much time in LA. They would visit Disneyland and Marineland, then go to San Francisco. 

This photo showing the 101 Freeway also shows the former Brew 102 brewery. Which was formerly the Maier Brewing Company and the Philadelphia Brewery before that... and the El Aliso vineyard and winery before that.

In the late 1970s or early 1980s, Jan became aware that there was a newer Taix location on Sunset Boulevard and began going there. Undeterred by the higher crime rate in Echo Park, Jan would sometimes go frequently (and sometimes less so), and often met friends with season tickets at the restaurant.

Jan recalls cheese grinders cranking fresh Parmesan into the restaurant's famous tureens of soup and calls the potato leek soup with Parmesan and pepper “one of the great joys of life”.

Jan may have been Sunset Taix’s last dine-in customer, since Mayor Garcetti shut down restaurants during Jan's last visit. (Guests already dining in were permitted to finish their meals.)

Here's hoping there will be many. many more evenings at Taix when the pandemic ends. 

Merci, Jan.

What's REALLY Going On With Taix?

I won't rehash the entire lengthy saga of the battle for Taix French Restaurant. That would take far too long. Here's the Cliffs Notes version, with links. TL;DR: the whole thing is about as sketchy as it gets.

Last week, photographer Gary Leonard posted a picture of a freshly-desecrated Taix. The mature plants in the brick planters are gone, "TAIX" has been (badly) painted on the side of the building (right over the decorative half-timbering), and both the roof and the planters appear to be falling into disrepair. 

I suspect this is a deliberate move to drum up support for demolishing the building by making it look as bad as possible while still keeping the restaurant open - for now.

No permit was filed for the sloppy "mural", and there is something very strange (and concerning) about the demolition permit that the developer, Holland Partner Group, filed three months ago. (No permit has been issued - YET.)

From the permit: 

DEMO AN (E) 1 STORY BUILDING OF APPROX 15,167 SF SINGLE STORY RESTAURANT WITH 2,554 SF BASEMENT. CLEAR LOT OF CURBS, PLANTERS, LIGHT POLES, ASPHAULT, SHRUBS ETC. NOTE: INTEND TO KEEP THE BASEMENT IN PLACE, AS IS. THE BASEMEN WILL BE ADDRESSED IN THE SHORING PLANS

Take special notice of that last bit: leaving the basement.

Basements are RARE in Los Angeles, and California has very stringent building codes due to earthquakes. Leaving an old basement in place when a new development is planned makes little sense.

There is also the matter of precedent. 

According to my friends at Esotouric, "We're not builders, but we are historians of redevelopment. And we know that in the past, when L.A. property owners wanted to cheaply get rid of an inconvenient building, they would leave the basement untouched, and often fill it with rubble from the building above, then pave over the parcel and have a lucrative surface parking lot until they got around to developing the land - sometimes decades later, sometimes never."

No one knows LA history better than Kim and Richard, and this does have the hallmarks of a potential cheap demolition. Filling the basement with debris and paving it would make entirely too much sense here, and it tracks with the worsening condition of the building. HPG could make money renting out parking spaces while waiting on permits, and the flea market already held on site could expand.

Assuming the planned project does get built, there would be underground parking, and the filled-in basement would presumably have to be excavated along with much of the lot. In the meantime, it's possible that the property (which already has a massive parking lot for Echo Park) could sit empty for years. (On a related note, I'm going to be furious if Taix is lost to an even bigger parking lot than the existing one.)

And it just might.

It's well known that Holland Partner Group paid $12 million for the Taix parcel and the adjoining overflow parking lot. Even in gentrified Echo Park, that's overpaying. HPG also spent six figures buying Mitch O'Farrell's support (this is on the public record). It begs the question of how much money HPG may have spent, in total, on the proposed redevelopment already (I suspect there might possibly have been other arrangements with other people) - and how much more they can justify paying for it.

Clyde Holland has an estimated net worth in the billions. You don't get rich and stay rich by holding onto an investment that isn't making the returns you'd expected. Most investors will dump an asset that isn't performing well enough.

Could HPG possibly be looking to offload the Taix parcels to another developer? Empty lots are far more appealing to developers than built-up ones - no pesky tenants to remove and no pesky demolition permits to secure.

Developers sometimes tell lies to get what they want - especially in LA. That's fact, not fiction.

Consider Lytton Savings, a "protected" landmark demolished for a Frank Gehry project that is probably never going to be built.

Consider the Chili Bowl, torn down because of vague mumblings about an affordable housing project that wasn't even planned. To the best of my knowledge, there hasn't been a whisper about it since, and I suspect there never will be.

While HPG's stated plan is to build on the site, I can't be 100 percent sure of that anymore.

In any case, go to Taix while it's still standing. If it is torn down, there might not be a new building for quite some time.

LAST CALL to Save Taix!

The City Council is meeting today (Wednesday, June 2) to vote on the Taix HCM nomination.

Here's the problem: Mitch O'Farrell and his ilk have amended the nomination to make it essentially useless.

The amended HCM nomination wouldn't preserve the building at all - only two of the restaurant's signs and its bar top. That is not preservation at all.

If accepted by the City Council, this bastardized nomination would set a dangerous precedent for future preservation efforts.

But we can fight back. We can say no. There is no real reason Taix can't be repurposed or incorporated into a mixed-use development (Acres of Books' facade is being incorporated into a new development in Long Beach, although Onni Group chopped off quite a bit more than everyone expected).

The LA Conservancy has compiled a list of what to do. 

At the last hearing re: Taix, an untold number of would-be public commenters (myself included) were never called upon - indeed, very few calls were taken in regard to Taix. That's a violation of the Brown Act, but as per usual, no one has had to answer for that. (I have my suspicions about Mitch's role in all of this, but first things first.)

This is it. We lost the original Taix in 1964. We need to speak up NOW if we're going to have any chance of saving the Taix we still have.

(Mike, if you're reading this: you've been an absentee owner for years and I know you tried to get the city to buy the place for a freeway extension years ago. Do you even still want to run the restaurant? It's okay to sell the family business and retire - Philippe Mathieu did. If your heart's not in it, what are you even doing? You got a great price for the property. If you don't want to deal with the restaurant, passing the reins is an option.)

Why Losing Taix WON'T Fix Echo Park's Housing Crisis

Last Christmas, my brother and his new wife flew out from Florida to visit the rest of us.

My sister-in-law and I had a "girls' day out" - full day at the Huntington Library, side trip to the Plaza, and finally dinner at the Formosa.

The Huntington Library is, of course, tucked away in spotless, well-manicured San Marino. The Plaza is wedged between the Civic Center and Chinatown. The Formosa Café is in West Hollywood. In between those three locations, there's a whole lot of dirty, trash-strewn, maintenance-deferred LA - and believe me, it pains me to type that.

It also pains me to see human beings sleeping in tents while vacancy signs are posted all over town, even though I'm used to it.

My sister-in-law, who grew up in Florida, was horrified. Los Angeles County has a healthier economy than some countries - how was this possible? 

She'd seen homeless people before, but not living in tents. And she was shocked and dismayed by the sheer number of signs advertising vacant buildings (both commercial and residential), quite a few of them on blocks with homeless residents.

"Why is that building empty?...Why is THAT building empty?...Why isn't that a homeless shelter?" (This conversation ran from Highland Park to downtown to Hollywood.)

"Greed," I explained. 

I know I was oversimplifying, but it's largely true.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: developers (and many real estate investors) see "Los Angeles" and get dollar signs in their eyes. The vast majority don't build (or buy buildings) to better their communities, they build (or invest) to make money. And in Los Angeles, many of them build (or invest) to make LOTS of money.

Consider the fact that Holland Partner Group paid a whopping $12 million for the Taix property and its overflow parking lot nearby. They plan to make a lot more than $12 million by building on the site.

The few people arguing against preserving Taix in any way, shape, or form always fall back on "oh, we need the housing". 

Here's why that's not a logically sound argument:

• Preservation and housing are NOT opposites. They can, and MUST, coexist for the good of the community. 
• Preservation of historic buildings does NOT, as is commonly assumed, make neighborhoods more expensive. In fact, historic preservation overlay zones tend to be far more affordable than non-preserved neighborhoods (and tend to be more diverse).
• Neighborhoods with a mix of older and newer buildings offer a wide range of rents (generally speaking, newer buildings are more expensive and older ones are cheaper). That allows a wider variety of businesses, and a wider variety of renters, to thrive. Jane Jacobs explained this better than I can in The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Also, the Preservation Positive Los Angeles study disproves a lot of myths (I watched the webinar, and if you care about Los Angeles, you should too). 
• Adaptive reuse can and should be considered.
• Many older buildings in and around Los Angeles have been adaptively reused (consider all the older buildings downtown that now have loft apartments on the once-empty upper floors - my best friend's sister lives in one). This has provided thousands of new housing units without the delays, disruption, and sheer wastefulness of demolition and new construction.
• Think of all the municipal waste generated every day in Los Angeles alone. Very few people realize that construction and demolition account for MORE THAN TWICE the amount of municipal waste created each year. And of that, demolition accounts for a whopping 90 percent. 
• The existing Taix building could be wholly or partially adapted to suit another purpose. Mike Taix says the building is now too big (fewer groups booking the banquet rooms, etc.)...but why not downsize the restaurant to part of the building and adapt the rest for other uses? Hell, adapt one of those banquet rooms into an apartment and I just might move in myself. 
• Taix's parking lot is HUGE (for Los Angeles). It is possible to build housing units on the parking lot without losing the Taix building itself.

Still not convinced? Too bad, I'm not done.

• The developer, Holland Partner Group, has been building LUXURY units around town (look them up). LA already has too much luxury housing.
• Since the 1970s, Angelenos have been grousing - rightly - that there are too many high-end apartments and not enough affordable units. This situation shows no sign of improving because virtually no one in modern-day Los Angeles wants to spend the money to build inexpensive housing. Developers want a high return on their investment, not a low one (consider this case study). There was only one Prudent Beaudry, and we lost him in 1893. 
• The proposed development for the Taix site will be 86% market rate. 
• With 170 units planned, that means 146 will be market rate, leaving only 24 lower-priced units. Echo Park alone needs hundreds. And here's something most people don't know: in Los Angeles "affordable" units are typically only required to stay below market rate for 20 years. That means in the early 2040s, those 24 units would most likely rise to market rate, displacing 24 low-income households and making Echo Park even less affordable (if it's even still semi-affordable in 2040). And consider how expensive "market rate" is for luxury units (including HPG's) in the first place.
• Since the proposed development includes apartment sizes ranging from studios up to 3-bedroom units, I would very much like to know if the low-income units would all be studios, or if any of them would be larger units that can accommodate lower-income families. 
• This is ESPECIALLY important in Echo Park, where gentrification has been driving out lower-income (and mostly Latinx) families for years.
• And speaking of gentrification (the elephant in the room)...adding new housing to a gentrified (or gentrifying) neighborhood can encourage existing landlords to raise rents. Which tends to push out longtime residents who simply cannot afford a pricey new-construction apartment.
• If enough landlords raise rents so that more than 24 households are displaced, the proposed development could ultimately end up harming the lower-income households that need housing the most.

But wait, it gets worse:

• HPG uses the "housing" excuse to request modifications and exceptions for extra density...then allows an illegal hotel in their own buildings (see below). That ultimately doesn't help. There's a reason the city has had to crack down on short-term rentals...namely, housing!
• Former tenants have nothing nice to say about Holland Partner Group, which is vertically integrated (meaning they build and own properties and also manage them).
• On a personal note, I used to manage two apartment buildings. Bad landlords disgust me.
• Specifically, HPG has allowed illegal short-term rentals in their buildings.
• Two people I know worked with a production company that rented a one-bedroom apartment in HPG's STOA building...for one day.
• The Be LA building, formerly the Sofia, was being used for short-term rentals (according to  Yelp reviews, former tenants, etc.) when HPG was managing the building (one reviewer states that some tenants were subletting their units on Airbnb and implies the tenants were not actually living there). This seems to have stopped after HPG ceased to be the property manager.
• Illegal hotels in general contribute to lower occupancy rates. Every short-term rental is a unit that isn't being rented to a long-term tenant. 
• This has long-term implications for neighborhoods, since long-term tenants are more likely to contribute in some way to their communities. People who rent a space for, say, three days are unlikely to do very much for the surrounding area.
• HPG likes to blame this on corporate tenants. So...rent to real human beings and don't rent to corporations without checking them out first? Or at least don't allow tenants to run illegal short-term rentals and cancel their leases if they don't comply? (Again, I used to manage apartments myself, so I just might know a thing or two about this.)
• Should HPG someday allow illegal short-term rentals on the Taix site (and although I sincerely hope they never do such a thing, I cannot put it past them), it will drive occupancy rates DOWN in Echo Park. 

Bottom line? If you truly want to make more housing available to Angelenos of ALL social classes (not just the wealthy), don't blindly allow developers like HPG to do as they please. Push hard for adaptive reuse, preservation of existing affordable housing (i.e. older apartment buildings, bungalow courts, etc.), and more emergency and transitional housing for the homeless. 

And if you REALLY want to help the growing number of homeless people living in Echo Park, set up a homeless shelter on Taix's overflow parking lot. Even cheap portable buildings are better than sleeping in a tent (especially now that cooler/wetter weather has set in).

P.S. A few months ago, this project - which would preserve a 109-year-old house AND create 128 new apartments (100 percent of them affordable) - was announced. THIS is the kind of development LA needs. (Tellingly, the backer is a local firm, not some out-of-state carpetbagger.) 

A Very Brief History of French Bakeries in Old Los Angeles

Once upon a time, a long long time ago by Los Angeles standards, the city was just a tiny pueblo that lacked a proper bakery.

You might assume that the first bakeries in Los Angeles specialized in Mexican baked goods. You would, however, be mistaken. For LA's first 72 years of existence, the ONLY bread baked in the city was French bread.

In those very early days, Andre Mano and Pierre Domegue set up shop in the Plaza area, baking French sourdough around the corner from the Plaza Church. 

Andre Mano was born in France around 1809, is listed in the 1850 Federal census as a baker, and shared a house with 28-year-old Pedro Dornes (or Domec), a cooper who was also from France. Ten years later, the 1860 census still listed Andre as a baker, with another French housemate, laborer Martin Echepare.

Little seems to be known about Pierre Domegue, except that he was married to, and also baked bread with, a Native American woman whose name and nation aren't mentioned in the few sources I've found. 

Joseph Lelong, who set up shop in 1851, inexplicably named his French bakery after Swedish opera superstar Jenny Lind. There was a Lelong Block on Spring, south of Fifth, at least as late as 1890. If Lelong did indeed own property on that block (tax assessments suggest he had assets), he would have counted two other French bakers (Augustus Ulyard and Louis Mesmer) and a French grocer (Auguste Chauvin) as his neighbors. 

Lelong was the busiest baker in town...for a couple of years, anyway. He faced strong competition when Augustus Ulyard arrived in 1853. Ulyard, born in Philadelphia to French parents, started out with French bread, but soon added German and American breads and pastries, appealing to the growing Yankee and German communities. Ulyard added fresh crackers in 1860, filling another market gap (crackers shipped from San Bernardino or San Francisco tended to arrive stale). The former site of his bakery is now home to the Alexandria Hotel.

Ulyard eventually retired from baking, selling his bakery to Louis Mesmer. 

As Louis Mesmer merits his own entry, I'll restrict this to his activities as a baker. 

Besides the former Ulyard bakery, Louis Mesmer owned the New York Bakery at Sixth and Spring (the very first Ralphs Bros. Grocery stood next door). Mesmer, a devout Catholic, was the first baker in Los Angeles to bake matzo for the local Jewish community.

Los Angeles gained an army camp in 1861 in case local Confederate sympathizers revolted (Southern California had a lot of ex-Southern residents, and Los Angeles in particular leaned Confederate during the Civil War). An army marches on its stomach, and Camp Latham needed baked goods. Louis Mesmer got the contract, and erected a bakery at the camp along Ballona Creek (he also sold baked goods to neighboring rancheros). He was still operating the New York Bakery downtown. When Camp Latham moved to Highland Park, he supplied baked goods from the New York Bakery instead of building another bakery location.

Sometime around 1870, the Taix family arrived in Los Angeles. The Taix French Bread Bakery opened its doors in 1882 at 321 Commercial Street. Later, Adrian and Joaquin Taix owned The French Bakery at 1550 West Pico Boulevard. When the family tore down their bakery in 1912 to build the Champ d'Or Hotel (which would house the original Taix restaurant beginning in 1927), the Taix bakery moved, ending up in Northeast Los Angeles.

Dominique Foix, born in Haut-Garonne, arrived in 1882. He established a tannery and saddlery in his Macy Street home, later founding Foix French Baking Company downtown in 1886 and delivering bread door to door with a horse-drawn wagon. Foix often traded goods with customers who were short on cash, and received so many live frogs as payments that he was able to start a frog farm and sell frogs' legs to the many French restaurants in town. This led to Foix supplying bread to restaurants, which necessitated moving the bakery into a bigger facility in Highland Park. The bakery's flour came from Capitol Mills, housed in the oldest industrial building in the city - a three-story brick flour mill erected by Abel Stearns in 1831.

Foix turned over the bakery to his son in his later years, and Foix's grandsons were running the bakery at least as late as 1941. That same year, a broken water main below Elysian Park's reservoir flooded the bakery. Louis Foix evacuated all 15 employees, but the water and mud ruined 6000 pounds of flour. The bakery unfortunately seems to have closed down in the 1990s.

French Basque immigrant Jean-Baptiste Garacochea founded the National French Bakery in 1908, later changing the name to Pioneer French Baking Company. Pioneer operated in Venice from 1920 to 2006, operated by several generations of the Garacochea family. Great-grandsons John Baptiste and Charlie Garacochea co-own the Etxea Basque Bakery, which supplies bread to restaurants.

To hell with counting carbs - good French bread is an LA tradition! Pass the sourdough.

Save Taix! Fundraiser THIS SATURDAY!

 Dear Readers,

If you’re reading this blog, you probably already know Taix is in danger. The site is large enough to develop without demolishing Taix (case in point: Dinah’s in Westchester or Santa Monica’s last Quonset hut). 

The Silver Lake Heritage Trust is kicking off a fundraiser for legal representation this Saturday, December 18. All donations are tax deductible. (Images and info courtesy of Carol Cetrone and the Silver Lake Heritage Trust.)

The fundraiser begins at 8pm Saturday at Luxe de Ville (no website), Pazzo Gelato, Spacedust, and Cosmic Vinyl.

No donation amount is too small - every little bit helps.

Do you know a good attorney who can help save Taix? Reach out to the Silver Lake Heritage Trust, or email me and I’ll relay your message.

Last Call to Save Taix: Tuesday, December 7, 2 PM

Regular readers already know that Taix French Restaurant is one of the final surviving links to the French Colony.

And that it was sold to a developer with a well-earned bad reputation. 

And that Mitch O'Farrell colluded with the developer to effectively gut preservation in LA. Said developer spent six figures on Mitch (this is a matter of public record, not mere rumor). The City Council blatantly ignored the Brown Act, too (granted, they do this more often than not...).

And that the LA Conservancy filed suit (along with Silverlake Heritage).

But there's still hope: the city has rescinded its previous vote, and will rehear the nomination next Tuesday, 12/7, at 2pm. (The Chili Bowl will also be on the agenda.)

As I've mentioned, I was not called on at either of the two previous meetings, and quite a few other people reported that they were also never called on in reference to Taix. 

So yes, flood the phone lines at 2pm on Tuesday. But don't JUST call in. 

Flood those inboxes, too. You can't make PLUM take your call, but they can't stop you from sending emails. Follow the LA Conservancy's list here. If you live in the City of Los Angeles proper, be sure to contact your Councilmember.

I'm not giving up. I hope you'll join me, and many others, by calling in on Tuesday and sending emails in the meantime. Echo Park CAN gain new housing WITHOUT losing Taix - or destroying legal protections for landmarks.

FOUND: Vintage Pictures of Taix

Recently, I asked for any vintage pictures of Taix that might be out there - it's an old restaurant; there had to be some. But they still proved maddeningly elusive.

More recently, the Getty shared a massive archive of photographer Ed Ruscha's pictures of buildings in Los Angeles.

The Sunset Boulevard series from 1974 includes several pictures of Taix.

This picture of the pharmacy that stood next door shows the porte-cochere creeping into the frame.

Keep clicking through the pictures - this view shows that the facade is pretty much unchanged, apart from one of the signs. 

Keep going until you get to this picture - when did that rooftop sign disappear?!

Thank heaven for Ed Ruscha, for the Getty, and for the friends who shared these (hi guys). I'm told the pictures will help with the landmarking process, as they prove the building hasn't changed.

They Paved Frenchtown and Put Up a Parking Lot

One of the most frustrating things about digging through Los Angeles history is finding out something with character, charm, historical significance, or cultural significance was lost long ago...to build a parking lot. Yeah, THAT's a fair trade-off.

Obviously, Los Angeles needs parking facilities. I just wish developers would tear down something ugly for once.

I've been mapping historically French sites in Southern California for six years. I've inventoried almost 500. Many more have been torn down for other reasons. These historic locations, associated with Los Angeles' lost French community, have all been partially or completely replaced by parking lots (and, in some cases, parking garages).

Consider this list a "work in progress." I've been meaning to write it for a few years now...but I keep finding parking lots (and every time I do, a little piece of me dies). I'll be adding them to the list as I continue to dig. If you know of a site I should add, please comment below.

Cue "Big Yellow Taxi"...

Plaza/Chinatown

• Mayor Joseph Mascarel's adobe house. The Talamontes-Mascarel adobe, built in 1834, was torn down in 1957. The Huntington Library has the only surviving picture of which I'm aware, and I am eternally grateful to them for letting me see it in person. Now it's Olvera Street parking.
• L'Union Nouvelle offices. Los Angeles' most popular French-language newspaper (which was still being published when the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner ran its last edition) had offices at Arcadia and Main Streets for many years. Now Plaza employees park there. 
• Viole-Lopizich Pharmacy site. The Viole family served Los Angeles as pharmacists and physicians for many years. Their pharmacy is now a Plaza parking lot.
• Signoret Block. This classy mansard-roofed brick building also housed Chevalier's pharmacy. Part of the same parking lot as the Viole-Lopizich pharmacy site. 
• Another Viole-Lopizich Pharmacy site (and residence). Stood several doors down from the previous Viole-Lopizich pharmacy. Part of the same parking lot.
• Oriental Café. Co-owned by Benjamin Flotte, Victor Dol's uncle. Dol later ran the Restaurant Française in the same building. Part of the same parking lot as the Viole-Lopizich pharmacies and Signoret Block.
• Brunswig Annex. Formerly adjoined the Vickrey-Brunswig Building, which survived and houses La Plaza de Cultura y Artes. Again, same parking lot as the Oriental Café building and Viole-Lopizich pharmacies.
• Le Progrés offices. This politically independent weekly French-language newspaper stood on New High Street in the late 19th century...and its offices disappeared for the same Olvera Street parking lot as the Talamontes-Mascarel adobe. 
• Sentous Block. Christine Sterling dressed in widow's weeds and hung a black wreath on the main door when this building was condemned. Pio Pico lived in one of the upstairs apartments after losing everything. Like Mayor Mascarel's house a few doors down, it was demolished in 1957 for Olvera Street parking.
• Jean Bernard's brickyard. A motel and private parking facility stand on the site today.
• Former site of Naud's warehouse. Yes, it burned down. But it also gave the neighborhood (Naud Junction) its name. And now it's parking spaces.
• Prudent Beaudry's house/real estate office. Southern California's first large-scale developer (and builder, two-term mayor, and investor) was working from home way back in the 1880s, owning a house/office on New High Street, behind the Brunswig Building. Now the site is part of a Plaza parking lot. (The Beaudry brothers predicted that people would flood into Southern California once the railroad came to town. They were correct...beyond anyone's wildest dreams. Now LA is overcrowded. Oh, the irony.)
• At least one plot owned by Georges Le Mesnager. 1660 N. Main Street, owned by George before he got into wine and liquor production, is now a parking lot for a DWP facility.
• Georges Le Mesnager's Hermitage Winery. 207-209 N. Los Angeles Street, formerly Georges' walled vineyard (Harris Newmark compared it to a European chateau) is now part of the Los Angeles Mall...and its underground parking garage. Doesn't seem like a fair tradeoff, does it?
• The Amestoy Building. Built in 1888 in the same block that is home to City Hall, the three-story building was dubbed the city's "first skyscraper" (even though the Nadeau Hotel was taller) and formerly housed the Los Angeles Supreme Court. The Amestoy building survived the Civic Center's redevelopment in the 1920s/1930s...only to be demolished in 1958 for a City Hall parking lot. 

Downtown/Little Tokyo

• Original site of Philippe's. The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, including its adjoining parking lot, stands on the approximate location of Philippe's original (1908-1918) sandwich shop. (It could be worse...the site of Philippe and Arbin Mathieu's previous restaurant currently hosts the city jail.) 
• Michel Lachenais' ranch. Okay, Lachenais was a violent convicted murderer. But his former homestead now boasts a Paragon Parking location, so it still makes this list. 
• Ducommun Yard. This site has had quite a history of its own! Well within the original boundaries of Frenchtown, it housed Los Angeles' first passenger depot and locomotive roundhouse, and by the 1920s it was a DWP facility (fittingly, Charles Ducommun was one of the DWP's original stockholders). Ducommun Industries operated on the site before moving to South Los Angeles in 1941. The property is currently a large depot and parking facility for buses.
• One of Louis Mesmer's New York Bakery sites. Part of the Ducommun Yard property, on Alameda Street.
• Hotel de Strasbourg. Ducommun Yard on Alameda Street, again.
• M. Sainsevain's feed store. Also part of the Ducommun Yard property.
• Much of El Aliso/Sainsevain Brothers Vineyard. Jean-Louis Vignes' 104-acre property has been divided over and over, so multiple parking lots/garages are on this chunk of land roughly bordered by the Los Angeles River to the west and the 101 Freeway to the north. 
• Former Larronde-Etchemendy mansion. The beautiful Victorian mansion at 237 N. Hope St., home to the blended Larronde-Etchemendy family for nearly 80 years, was torn down along with the rest of Old Bunker Hill. The house stood about where the DWP parking lot is today. 
• Raymond Alexandre's Roundhouse. LA's earliest known example of fantasy architecture, LA's earliest amusement park, LA's earliest kindergarten...and within the former grounds is a large Paragon Parking lot.
• Ponet Square Hotel. Formerly the largest apartment building in Los Angeles (built 1906), this hotel was torn down in the days immediately following a deadly arson fire in 1970 (which led to a badly needed update to the 1943 fire code) and promptly turned into (what else...) a parking lot. It's been a parking lot ever since.
• Two other portions of Ponet Square itself. Ponet Square includes two additional parking lots, albeit smaller ones.
• Pershing Square. Technically still there, but mostly paved over and altered beyond recognition. This is the worst public park in Southern California, partly because building an underground parking garage and elevating the park to allow for said garage has led to too much concrete and not enough tree shade. Pershing Square can be scorching hot on 60-degree days. The previous design should have been left the hell alone (if it isn't broken, don't "fix" it!). Oh well, at least the Doughboy isn't going anywhere.
• Mesmer Building. Louis Mesmer built a two-story building at the corner of Los Angeles and Requeña Streets, later opening Requeña to Alameda Street. Requeña Street was renamed Market Street and no longer exists. Mesmer's building was replaced by a City Hall parking garage.
• The entire Sentous tract, including the Sentous Street School. Razed in 1969 to build a massive parking lot for the Los Angeles Convention Center. The Staples Center (and its parking garages) now take up much of the land. Sentous Street was renamed L.A. Live Way.
• First Methodist Church. While most French Angelenos were Catholic, Melvina Lapointe Lott - niece of Remi Nadeau - belonged to this church and donated three Tiffany mosaic panels said to be Tiffany's very finest work. The church was razed (for a parking lot, what else) in the 1980s (thankfully, the Tiffany panels now belong to the Lake Merritt United Methodist Church in Oakland). On a personal note, I have used that parking lot many times...and I became very nauseous when I realized I'd repeatedly parked on the former site of a Tiffany masterpiece.
• Germain Pellissier's house. Entire block is now occupied by a hideous multi-level parking facility across the street from the Walt Disney Concert Hall. 
• Jean Sentous' dairy farm. The farm, bordered by Grand, Washington, Main, and 21st Streets, changed hands a few times, becoming Chutes Park in 1900. There are now several parking lots and a courthouse parking structure on the land.
• One of Pascale Ballade's saloons. Ballade had a few drinking establishments to his name, and the one at 742 S. Main Street is now a parking lot!
• Remi Nadeau's city block. Nadeau's land holdings included most of the block bordered by Hill, 4th, Broadway, and 5th Streets. His freighting business was headquartered here - corrals, stables, blacksmiths, and a wagon repair shop stood on the land. Today, there are multiple commercial properties, a government office...and two parking lots. 
• Louis Mesmer's house. The approximate location of 127 S. Broadway is now the entrance to a courthouse parking garage.
• André Briswalter's home (possibly). Briswalter lived at the corner of Washington Boulevard and Main Street. One of the four corners of the intersection is now a large parking lot. 
• Dehail House Hotel. Like all the other French-owned boarding houses in the area, it's long gone. Most would have been too close to the 101 Freeway to survive the 1950s, but this one is - you guessed it - a Little Tokyo parking lot. 
• Charles Ducommun's mansion. By 1892, the Ducommuns had moved out, and the house became a boarding house for newsies and other young working boys. It later became a men's boarding house, and finally a boarding house for Japanese tenants. And now the site is a parking facility.
• Victor Dol's house. There's ONE parking lot on this block...and its location corresponds to the talented chef's address. 
• Old Calvary Catholic Cemetery. The Diocese of Los Angeles decided the cemetery would better serve its needs as Cathedral High School's parking lot and athletic fields. Numerous Catholic Angelenos, many of them French, had to be re-interred at New Calvary. (Marcelina Leonis' original headstone is installed in the field fence like it's an art piece...as if dying of smallpox at age 20 wasn't bad enough. I, personally, find it disrespectful.)
• City Cemetery. The French Benevolent Society had its own parcel at the cemetery for members. Now it's a parking lot for the Board of Education.
• Champ d'Or Hotel/Taix Restaurant. The Taix family tore down their circa-1882 bakery to build the hotel in 1912. In 1927, Marius Taix Jr. took over the ground-floor restaurant from a tenant. Taix opened its current location in Echo Park in 1962. The 1912 building was torn down in 1964...for a very large parking structure across Alameda Street from the Justice Department and the Metropolitan Detention Center.

Koreatown

• Portions of Germain Pellissier's sheep ranch. It's unclear how much land Pellissier actually owned (sources disagree wildly). However, there are parking facilities adjacent to the Wiltern Theatre, which was built by Pellissier's grandson on land Pellissier had owned (and now my newer readers know why the entire 12-story structure is called the Pellissier Building).
• The Godissart home. Cosmetics mogul Joseph Godissart and his family moved to 810 S. Harvard Boulevard, which has been replaced by an apartment block...with a parking garage.

Mid-City

• Léon Bary's home. French actor/director Léon Bary's home is now an auto body shop...and its parking lot.

South Los Angeles

• Firmin "Frank" Toulet's house. Frank Toulet, founder of Musso and Frank Grill, was living at 1813 W. 79th Street at the time of his death. Now it's a fenced parking lot behind a commercial property.

The Hollywoods

• Paul de Longpré's home and gardens. The great painter's roses are long gone, with a parking garage occupying part of the site. 
• Various swaths of Victor Ponet's farm. Ponet owned much of modern-day West Hollywood. There are too many parking facilities, public and private, to list.

Santa Monica

• L. Giroux's grocery and home. Monsieur Giroux spotted Santa Monica, fell in love with it, and built a combination home/grocery store (Santa Monica's second house, supposedly, after Eugene Aune's). The house is long gone and the land is occupied by Parking Structure 6. (And I thought I'd run out of reasons to hate the Third Street Promenade!)

Glendale

• Le Mesnager vineyard. As glad as I am that the Le Mesnager family's barn survived (and reopened to the public in 2022), Deukmejian Wilderness Park's parking lot IS uncomfortably close to the buildings. I'm just saying, it *could* have been placed closer to the park's entrance.

And one "near miss" that was saved...

In 1962, the Leonis Adobe was very nearly torn down to make way for a grocery store parking lot (are you #$%@ing kidding me?!). For the second time in its existence, the adobe had been abandoned for years and left to rot. Thankfully, the newly established Cultural Heritage Board intervened...and the Leonis Adobe became Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #1.

Honorable Mention: the original intersection of Alameda and Aliso - the core of the French Colony - was erased and paved in the 1950s. When you drive under the Alameda Street overpass on the 101, you’re driving through Frenchtown. In theory, the 101 is a freeway. In practice, it becomes a sort of parking lot when traffic is heavy enough.