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Adrian Scott Fine

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capturing everyday but overlooked places of design, architecture, cities and people...visible, fearless and confident leader...LA Conservancy

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A frightfully good time was had at our second annual LAST...REMAINS this weekend 💀🎬

Our spooky edition of Last Remaining Seats brought the tricks and the treats to the 108-year-old Million Dollar Theatre for screenings of CLUE and THE SHINING! Audiences packed this historic venue to celebrate the magic of Los Angeles movie palaces and catch these Halloween classics on the big screen ✨

Thank you to everyone who came out, and a huge thank you to our spooktastic team of volunteers, community partners, and incredible sponsors who help make this special series possible!

“Fright Day” Sponsors:
Fox Future
L.A. County Supervisor @lindseyphorvath, Third District

Series Supporting Sponsors:
@goldenglobefoundation
The Walter J. and Holly O. Thomson Foundation

Producer Series Sponsors:
@comcastuniversal
@grandcentralmarketla
@paramountco

Series Patron Sponsors:
Richard de Lorimier and Lisa Rawlins
Faring

Media Partners:
@laemmletheatres
@lamag

Community Partners:
@downtown_la
@historiccore

📸: Photos by Mike Hume (@historictheatrephotos).

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At the Million Dollar Theatre with 1500 others for @laconsevancy @Lastremains Last Remaining Seats screening The Shining. Not as scary the 3rd time around but got to appreciate all the cinematic genius! Thank you Adrian Scott Fine for your Conservancy leadership!

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Here are a few more photos of the wonderful 1918 Million Dollar Theatre ❣️
The first is actually a vintage postcard from my collection and the next photo is my attempt to recreate it. The rest are details outside and inside, plus a great VW Bug out front as a tribute to the movie The Shining 🍿
@laconservancy
#lastremains
#laconservancy
#milliondollartheater
#milliondollartheatre
@milliondollartheater

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Last week, we joined the @laconservancy for A Revered Residence: Exploring Paul Revere Williams’s Paley House. The afternoon offered a closer look at the remarkable 1936 residence and the architectural legacy of one of Los Angeles’s most influential architects. We’re proud to celebrate the craftsmanship, history, and preservation of extraordinary spaces that continue to shape our built environment.

Thank you to the Los Angeles Conservancy for hosting this special event.

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It’s International Dog Day, and Los Angeles is paws-itively the best place for our furry friends! The Conservancy’s pups have been hard at work sniffing out historic and cultural sites across the county in honor of this special day 🐾 Please enjoy this roundup of beloved L.A. landmarks from our best bark-eting assistants!

🐶: 1. Roxy celebrates the return of the iconic Cinerama Dome in Hollywood 🌟
2. Mackie admires Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece and Aline Barnsdall’s legacy at Hollyhock House 🌸
3. Atlas explores the Modern homes of the Gregory Ain Mar Vista Tract Historic Preservation Overlay Zone 🌴
4. Nougat takes a trip to Pasadena City Hall, a 1927 Beaux Arts building and past Preservation Award recipient 🏛️
5. Mars hikes the trails at historic Griffith Park 🌳
6. Mid-Century Modern pup Shelby soaks up the sun in Ladera Heights ☀️
7. Django enjoys sweeping views of historic downtown and the Griffith Observatory 🌇
8. Hudson tours the Ford Place Historic District in Pasadena 🏡
9. And of course, Roxy is all smiles at her namesake, the Roxy Theatre ✨

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What a night for Leimert Park and South Los Angeles! The historic 1932 Vision Theatre is officially back, and its Art Deco marquee and sign are shining once again as a beacon for creativity, community, and Black cultural heritage.

Last night’s celebration was electric and full of music, joy, pride, and a packed house welcoming this historic landmark into its next act. For nearly a century, the Vision has stood at the heart of Leimert Park. Now, beautifully rehabilitated and ready for new generations, it will once again be a home for performances, storytelling, gathering, and artistic expression.

This is preservation at its most powerful, as it’s not simply about reopening a historic building, but celebrating the living culture, imagination, and leadership that make Leimert Park and all of South L.A. special.

Cheers to every community member, artist, advocate, preservationist, public partner, and supporter who helped make this moment possible, especially the City’s Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) who led the effort!

📸: Photos and video by Adrian Scott Fine/L.A. Conservancy.

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A fox in the hen house does not announce itself as a threat; it arrives as if it belongs there. That is what makes the current assault on history and historic places—and now Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act—so dangerous. Proposed amendments by the administration are being sold as efficiency and streamlining, but in reality they will eviscerate and dismantle 60 years of safeguards that keep historic places, tribal resources, and community voice from being sacrificed in the name of speed.

Most Angelenos have never heard of Section 106, yet this process has helped keep historic places standing across L.A. and beyond. As the public’s early warning system, Section 106 does not prevent change, but it requires federal agencies to stop, look, and listen before they damage or destroy places that can never be replaced. For Los Angeles, that means real consultation before historic theatres are altered beyond recognition, before neighborhoods lose the buildings and people that tell their story, and before culturally significant places are treated as expendable.

Without Section 106, the fox is no longer at the gate; it is in the coop, deciding what gets protected and what gets lost. Once again this latest action feels like another rug being pulled out from under a system that has worked to protect our historic places for generations. That is why this moment demands more than concern. It demands action, urgency, and a clear defense of the process that has long given the public a seat at the table.

When the rules meant to protect our heritage are rewritten by those intent on weakening them, preservation is not being streamlined, it is being raided. On this 250th anniversary of our nation, we need 250,000 letters to make clear that Angelenos and advocates across the country will not stand by while our shared history is put at risk.

What’s at stake is not efficiency—it’s survival.

Visit our website now to take action & help advocate for the retention of Section 106 - link in bio 🔗

*This is #LAPlaceKeeping, an ongoing series that explores L.A. through the people and places that matter—written by Adrian Scott Fine, President & CEO of @laconservancy.

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There’s an assumption many of us carry about the places that shape our lives—that they’ll always be there. This especially hit home with the 2025 L.A. Wildfires. The buildings we pass every day, our personal homes, the landmarks that help define Los Angeles, and the spaces that hold our collective memory can feel permanent. But they aren’t. They exist because people chose to fight and advocate for them.

It’s easy to forget that the 1939 May Company Department Store on Wilshire Boulevard came close to demolition in the early 1990s. Today, it lives on as the Academy Museum. Or that the 1931 Wiltern Theatre and Pellissier Building, now an Art Deco icon and fan-favorite performance venue, once stood on the brink of demolition in the early 1980s. Or that the 1926 L.A. Central Library, now beloved and celebrating its 100th anniversary, survived neglect, fire, and a serious threat of demolition in the late 1970s.

These places feel solidly permanent and thoroughly embedded in the DNA of our city, but they weren’t always seen that way.

I often say preservationists play the long game better than anyone and we’re great problem solvers, pushing for “win-win” alternatives to demolition and staying persistent when it matters most. For nearly five decades, the L.A. Conservancy and many partners have been part of that effort. Advocacy, education, and persistence have turned “almost lost” into “still here,” often waiting years for the end use to emerge that reactivates a historic place. These successes can be easy to overlook precisely because they succeeded and we forget about the struggle.

But preservation is never finished. Each generation inherits both the benefits of past efforts and the responsibility to carry them forward.

So when we walk into the Central Library, attend a show at the Wiltern, or stand beneath the Streamline Moderne curves of the former May Company, it’s worth remembering these places are here because people, and the L.A. Conservancy, chose to do something.

And that work continues.

*This is #LAPlaceKeeping, an ongoing series that explore L.A. through the people and places that matter—written by Adrian Scott Fine, President & CEO of @laconservancy.

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Six classic films. Three historic theatres. One unforgettable series. That’s a wrap on our 2026 season of Last Remaining Seats! 🎬🌟

THANK YOU to everyone who made this season one to remember. You showed up, showed out, and filled these majestic movie palaces with laughter and gasps, oohs and aahs, and a collective effervescence that make these screenings so special ✨

A huge thank you to our incredible team of volunteers who make these weekends possible and to our series supporting sponsors, @goldenglobefoundation and the Walter J. and Holly O. Thomson Foundation, for your continuous support of Last Remaining Seats.

We can’t wait to do it again next summer! But first, Last...Remains 🎥

📸: Photos by Mike Hume and Dalton Fisher/L.A. Conservancy.

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The Barry Building and the Sturges House make one thing painfully clear: Los Angeles still treats historic preservation as an elective, not a requirement.

On one side is the 1951 Barry Building—a designated Historic-Cultural Monument (HCM) the City nevertheless recently voted to demolish after years of vacancy and deterioration by its longtime owner. The lawsuit filed by the Los Angeles Conservancy and Angelenos for Historic Preservation isn’t just about saving one midcentury landmark; it’s a response to a system that rewards neglect. Let a historic building rot long enough, return with inflated cost estimates, and you can suddenly cast rehabilitation as “infeasible” and demolition “responsible.” This isn’t fate, though it is becoming de facto policy, and something the Conservancy is working to prevent.

On the other side is the 1939 Sturges House, a Frank Lloyd Wright masterpiece now on the Conservancy’s L.A. Watch List because it, too, is edging toward crisis. A watch list is a siren, not a life raft. It can raise awareness, generate outrage, even galvanize community action, but it cannot force an owner to patch the roof, secure the site, or treat the house as anything more than a speculative asset.

Beyond their shared Brentwood address, Barry and Sturges are linked by a growing citywide trend: intentional neglect and vacancy works when there are no real deterrents, and the burden and nuisance falls on the public, especially nearby neighbors. Yesterday’s decision by the City’s Cultural Heritage Commission issuing a 180-day stay on demolition of the Barry Building provides a critical window to press for alternatives—though the owner is under no obligation to pursue a collaborative solution. If Los Angeles is serious about calling itself a global city of culture, and ready to welcome the ’28 Olympics, it needs tools that make maintenance non-negotiable and demolition by neglect legally and financially indefensible.

*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.

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The new issue of LAndmark is here! 🗞️

On the cover: Meet Kate and Krisy, married preservation consultants, who rallied the community to preserve LGBTQ activist Morris Kight’s legacy and landmark his home, before they ultimately purchased the Westlake property and prepare to restore it.

Also in this quarter’s issue:
• Stewardship of historic places and carrying them into the future, including Chaplin Studios, the “Lost Lautner”, and the Bollman House
• Updates on Altadena Asset Mapping and the L.A. Women’s Landmarks Project
• Two students from the Conservancy’s Student Programs share their experiences
• A day trip to Santa Monica’s Ocean Park & Sunset Park, and more!

All members of the Los Angeles Conservancy receive a digital or print subscription to our quarterly magazine #LAndmark, and access to past publications!

Not a member? Check out the link in bio to join! 🔗

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Last week I finished the summer course in Heritage Conservation at @uscmhc, a two-week intensive in all things preservation, from our POV here in greater Los Angeles. 🌞 As someone who’s been invested in cultural heritage conservation and the built environment for a long time, particularly via my work with art environments, it was the perfect opportunity to go deeper and learn more about all the ways to “do” preservation more actively as I weave that knowledge into my own practice as a public folklorist and heritage consultant.

A byproduct of the course was feeling a renewed love and admiration for Los Angeles, as I push toward a decade here. 💗 It’s apparent through the USC course and my own engagement in the preservation field this year that we have a pretty remarkable history of impactful, community-based preservation in this region, an embarrassment of riches in terms of cultural resources, and a lot of interesting possibility and responsibility ahead as climates, economies, and demographics continue to shift. I’m still finding my place in preservation work, but am excited for what’s to come. 🌻 Captions in comments!

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