Iglesia de Nuestra Señora Reina next to Olvera Street. Photo by Elise Thompson.
If you love to explore the unusual, hidden and mysterious, you might already be familiar with the Atlas Obscura website, which contains articles about fascinating foods as well as travel guides for international attractions like strange public art, abandoned amusement parks and churches built out of bones.
Atlas Obscura also hosts regular events and activities. Locally, Los Angeles has been leading tours of weird and whimsical places around Los Angeles since 2012.
This Sunday morning you can join their 2.5-mile walking tour of forgotten and abandoned cemeteries around Downtown LA. As stated in the invitation, you will learn about “…life, death, demographics, and geographical expansion in early Los Angeles…”
You have probably walked right past many of these early burial sites without even being aware of it. Did you know that the vacant weed-ridden lot right next to the Iglesia de Nuestra Señora Reina at Olvera Street was formerly the Los Angeles Plaza Church Cemetery?
Additional internment sites like the Catholic Cemetery, Fort Moore Hill Cemetery, and the City Cemetery will be explored as you learn about their use as public parks, people formerly interred there, and “the city’s slapdash efforts to disinter the bodies of thousands of pioneering Angelenos in the name of progress.”
Sunday, July 22, 2018, 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon. Tickets: $25.00. Order your tickets soon because the tour maxes out at 20 people. The meeting location will be disclosed upon ticket purchase. The LA Beat has inside info, so we recommend you bring cash and park in the pay lot.
Street parking is available, but trust me, it’s worth the 10 bucks. Wear comfortable walking shoes and be prepared for hot weather (hats, sunscreen and bottled water). “Advance tickets only. All sales final. No refunds or exchanges. This is a tour of lost cemetery sites, so we will not be viewing any active cemeteries.” Also, no whistling.
