The Brief

 When thousands of homes were reduced to ash by the Eaton Fire, one of the few things left behind were the chimneys — and the kiln-fired tiles that adorned them.

“They were born of fire,” says Eric Garland, co-founder of Save The Tiles and long-time Altadena resident. The tiles were popular during Altadena’s architectural boom of the 1910s and ‘20s, “and were a defining characteristic of a handcrafted, unique home.”

But Phase 2 of the debris cleanup has begun in parts of the community, meaning the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will bulldoze burned lots down to 6 inches below topsoil.

“What will be lost is not only the very last of old Altadena, but for that homeowner, emotionally priceless artwork that surrounded the hearth,” Garland says.

“That's the countdown clock that we're racing.”

Save the tiles, save the town

I meet Eric Garland on a Saturday in a parking lot just outside the burn zone. We drive through the destroyed streets of Altadena toward a tile rescue site.

Mangled cars, a few stray planters, the occasional mailbox. And lots and lots of still-standing chimneys.

Garland tells me he and his family were out of town when fire tore through their neighborhood. His neighbors, minutes after watching their own homes burn, stamped out embers and dumped buckets of pool water onto other houses to establish a perimeter.

Garland’s home was the first they were able to save.

“Your first mission is to save your life,” Garland says. “Your next mission, save your home. And failing that, you've got to try to save what you can. You draw a line and say this is as far as the loss goes.”

Garland credits his daughter Lucy with the idea to rescue the tiles. As they walked along Holliston Street, through what remained of their neighborhood, he remembered her asking, “Is there nothing else that survived?”

Now  “we're hearing from so many homeowners that if you could save even one tile,” he says, “it would be the only thing I have left.”

Neighbors and Save the Tiles co-founders Eric Garland, left, and Stanley Zucker have cataloged more than 200 historic fireplaces in Altadena.

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‘All that’s left’

We arrive at a job site — the outline of a destroyed craftsman home on Palm Street. The once-lush courtyard of bougainvillea and lavender has given way to a blackened jumble of ash and stray nails.

It’s dead quiet, save for the occasional car and the steady beat of hammer and chisel.

Garland introduces me to his neighbor and Save the Tiles co-founder, Stanley Zucker. “My partner in tile,” he adds.

Stanley Zucker helps Mary Gandsey climb out of a burnt Altadena home on Palm Street.

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Zucker grabs empty cardboard boxes from the truck, and carefully hops over what was once a side wall into the interior of the home. “Watch out for up-turned nails,” he warns me, leading the way through the rubble to the chimney.

For a homeowner, he says, “all of their memories, everything on this lot that was important to them, is channeled into the tiles, because they’re all that’s left.”

Expertise required

The fireplace opening stands about four feet above the home’s burned foundation. A few planks of makeshift scaffolding allow access to the tiled facade.

Cliff Douglas and his daughter, Devon, take turns chiseling grout and taping off slabs of tile. “Team Douglas,” Garland calls them. “The third co-founders.”

The older Douglas specializes in masonry restoration — an important skill for a project that involves tiles prone to cracking and chimneys that could topple. Garland says Cliff has already had to ask some volunteers not to come back — they cracked too many tiles.

Cliff Douglas hands a taped-off Batchelder tile to his daughter, Devon Douglas.

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Pressing his ear to the fireplace, Douglas gently taps with the blunt end of the chisel, listening for hollow spots. Once he’s confident, he tapes off the large central tile and grabs his hammer.

"Ernest Batchelder. He’s the artist who made these tiles — in his backyard, originally, on Arroyo Boulevard and La Loma,” Douglas says. “Then they moved to downtown Los Angeles.”

Douglas believes these tiles were likely made shortly after the move, about a hundred years ago. The design is in line with Batchelder’s earlier work, but the stamp on the back says “Los Angeles.”

Similar individual tiles regularly sell for hundreds of dollars, and Batchelder’s work represents one of L.A’s biggest contributions to the American Arts and Crafts movement.

“ They're beautiful pieces of art,   and hopefully we can bring them back to life again,” Douglas says.

“Maybe a fireplace when they rebuild, or maybe a little memorial area.”

Devon Douglas, left, Cliff Douglas, and Mary Gandsey take a break from recovering fireplace tiles.

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Painstaking work

It can take several hours to recover tile from a single fireplace, and with more than 200 houses on the list, Team Douglas needed to expand. So Zucker connected them with an old friend, one of the best in the business.

Mary Gandsey is an expert restorer of wood whose resume includes the Gamble House and Castle Green. Today she’s training under Douglas so she can lead the recovery at other sites.

Gandsey says she came out of retirement because she loves these homes and has worked on many of them. “Now that they're all gone," she says, "I want to save some piece of what was here for the future.”

Boxes of recovered tiles will be cataloged and stored so that they can be returned to homeowners later.

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200 chimneys, 200 stories

As Douglas swaps his hammer and chisel for an angle grinder, Garland gets a call from another homeowner — she has signed the consent form that allows the team to enter her home. It’s a five-minute walk away.

On our way out of the gate, we run into Myungeun and Dan Strickland, who are back to visit the remnants of their home and check in on the neighborhood.

The Stricklands are an elderly couple who lived on Palm Street for more than 20 years. They lost everything: antique Korean furniture, historic family documents from Massachusetts and old family photographs.

But remarkably, her orchids are growing back, Strickland says, and she’s hoping her charred pomegranate tree survives too.

On our walk, we pass block after block of empty lots — extending our line of sight for miles in every direction.

The Eaton Fire burned through nearly 22 square miles, leveling entire neighborhoods of Altadena. But many fireplaces and chimneys survived.

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Elizabeth Richie meets us on the concrete steps of her home.

Richie was the first person Garland met after the fires. The intense heat had changed the tiles on her fireplace from “tans and browns to turquoise, with pinks and whites in it,” she says. “The original colors.”

The devastation had scoured clean a century’s worth of smoke, soot and everything else.

“This over here was the original rose garden that my friend’s grandmother had when she lived here,” Richie says. “And we had big grapevines over here.”

She pauses, and points beyond a few burned cars. “That was the back house, where Ozzie lived with his dogs,” she says.

“The police tried to get him out but he wouldn’t leave, he’d been here since he was 7 years old. At the very end, he just ran out of time.”

Oswald Altmetz, Richie’s long-time family friend, died along with his dogs that night. He was 75.

The magnitude of loss will always be with her, Richie says. But she’s finding ways to preserve what remains. She plans to use the aluminum slag from the burned cars in an art project, and a stone Buddha in the garden survived unscathed.

And she’s grateful to still have her fireplace tiles.

“ There's still beauty and hope here,” she adds.

A community determined to rebuild

Back on Palm Street, Gandsey and the Douglases are loading the truck with boxes of tile. Zucker is talking to a new recruit, a librarian who will help to track and catalog the growing tile archive.

Garland says it could be years before people are ready to reclaim their tiles — and the team is preparing to store them for as long as it takes. 

Homeowners Carie Lewis and Christophe Basset arrive, and tell Garland they plan to rebuild. They already have the blueprints for their original craftsman, the couple says.

“We're probably going to talk to Cliff to restore a fireplace in the new building. With the same tiles, of course,” says Basset.

Like Richie, they were surprised to see the surviving tiles become so much more vibrant and colorful. “So maybe it'll be a bit of new and a bit of really ancient coming back together,” Basset says.

“Which is what all of Altadena is going to be,” Zucker adds.

Save The Tiles is running a GoFundMe campaign, with proceeds going to the Altadena Historical Society.

Watch the Video

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Since 1977, Richard Santillan has been to every Opening Day game at Dodger Stadium. 

“The tradition goes from my father, to me, to my children and grandchildren. Some of my best memories are with my father and children here at Dodger Stadium,” Santillan told The LA Local, smiling under the shade of palm trees near the entrance to the ballpark Wednesday morning. He was there to protest the team less than 24 hours before Opening Day.

Santillan, like countless other loyal Dodgers fans, is grappling with his fan identity over the team’s decision to accept an invitation to the White House and owner Mark Walter’s ties to ICE detention facilities.

More than 30 people joined Santillan on Wednesday morning for a press conference held near 1000 Vin Scully Drive to convey a message directly to the team. 

“We are demanding the Dodgers stop participating in funding of inhumane treatment of families and do not go to the White House to celebrate with the criminal in chief,” Evelyn Escatiola told the crowd. “Together, we have the power to make a change.”

Escatiola, a former dean of East Los Angeles College and longtime community organizer, urged fans to flex their economic power by “letting the Dodgers know that we do not support repression.”

Jorge “Coqui” Rodriguez, a lifelong Dodgers fan, spoke to the crowd and called on Dodgers ownership to divest from immigration detention centers owned and operated by GEO Group and CoreCivic.

Jorge Coqui H Rodriguez speaks at a press conference outside Dodger Stadium on March 25, 2026, to demand the Dodgers not to visit the White House following their 2025 World Series win.

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In a phone interview a day before the protest, Rodriguez told The LA Local he did not want the Dodgers using his “cheve” or beer money to fund detention centers. 

“They can’t take our parking money, our cacahuate money, our cheve money, our Dodger Dog money and invest those funds into corporations that are imprisoning people. It’s wrong,” Rodriguez said. 

Rodriguez considers the Dodgers one of the most racially diverse teams and said the players need to support fans at a time when heightened immigration enforcement has become more common across L.A.

The team’s 2025’s visit to the White House drew ire from the largely Latino fan base, citing the Trump administration’s ongoing attacks on immigrants. 

In June, the team came under further scrutiny when rumors swirled online that federal immigration agents were using the stadium’s parking, which immigration authorities later denied in statements posted on social media accounts.

The team again came under fire after not releasing a statement on the impacts of ICE raids on its mostly Latino fan base at the height of immigration enforcement last summer. The team later agreed to invest $1 million to support families affected by immigration enforcement.

When he learned the Dodgers were pledging only $1 million to families in need, Rodriguez called the amount a  “slap in the face.” 

“These guys just bought the Lakers for billions of dollars and they give a million dollars to fight for legal services? That’s a joke,” Rodriguez said. “They need to have a moral backbone and not be investing in those companies.”

According to reporting from the Los Angeles Times, former Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershawsaid last week that he is looking forward to the trip.

“I went when President [Joe] Biden was in office. I’m going to go when President [Donald] Trump is in office,” Kershaw said. “To me, it’s just about getting to go to the White House. You don’t get that opportunity every day, so I’m excited to go.”

The Dodgers have yet to announce when their planned visit will take place. 

Santillan sometimes laments his decision to give up his season tickets in protest of the team. His connection to the stadium and the memories he has made there with family and friends will last a lifetime, he said. On Thursday, he will uphold his tradition and be there for the first pitch of the season, but with a heavy heart.

“It’s a family tradition, but the Dodgers have a lot of work to do,” he said.

A local favorite mom-and-pop bookshop in Eagle Rock is facing displacement due to a steep rent hike. The owners say theirs is just one of several small businesses along Eagle Rock Boulevard struggling to keep up with lease increases.

Over the past 19 years, many in the neighborhood have come to love READ Books for its eclectic collection of used titles and shop dog Florence.

Co-owner Jeremy Kaplan said it’s been a delight to grow with the community over the years.

“Like seeing kids come back in, who were in grade school and now they’re in college,” Kaplan said.

But the building where Kaplan and wife Debbie rent was recently sold, and the rent increased by more than 130% to $2,805 a month, Kaplan said. He told LAist it was an increase his small business simply could not absorb.

Kaplan said he originally was given 30 days notice of the rent increase. After some research, assistance from Councilmember Ysabel Jurado’s office and some pro-bono legal help, Kaplan said he pushed back and got the 90-day notice he’s afforded by state law.

California Senate Bill 1103 requires landlords to give businesses with five or less employees 90 days’ notice for rent increases exceeding 10%, among other protections.

Systems Real Estate, the property management company, did not immediately respond to LAist’s request for comment.

What can small businesses do? 

Nadia Segura, directing attorney of the Small Business Program at pro bono legal aid non-profit Bet Tzedek said California law does not currently allow for rent control for commercial tenancies.

Outside of the protections under SB 1103, Segura said small businesses like READ Books don’t have much other recourse. And even then, commercial landlords are not required to inform their tenants of their protections under the law.

“There’s still a lot of people that don’t know about SB 1103. And then it’s very sad that they tell them they have these rent increases and within a month they have to leave,” Segura said.

She said her group is seeing steep rent hikes like this for commercial tenants across the city.

“We are seeing this even more with the World Cup coming up, the Olympics coming up. And I will say it was very sad to see that also after the wildfires,” Segura said.

Part of Bet Tzedek’s ongoing work is to advocate for small businesses, working with landlords who are increasing rents to see if they are willing to give business owners longer leases that lock in rents.

What’s next 

After READ Books posted about their situation on social media, commenters chimed in to express their outrage and love for the little shop.

While he looks for a new spot, Kaplan says he’s forming a coalition of local businesses and activist groups to see what can be done to help other small businesses facing similar displacement. He wants to address the displacement issue for businesses like his, which have made Eagle Rock the distinctive neighborhood that it is today.

Owl Talk, a longtime Eagle Rock staple selling clothing and accessories in a unit in the same building as READ Books, is facing a “more than double” rent increase, according to a post on their Instagram account.

Kaplan said he’s been in touch with the office of state Assemblywoman Jessica Caloza and wants to explore the possibility of introducing legislation to set up protections for small businesses like his, including rent-control measures or a vacancy tax for landlords. Kaplan said he also reached out to the office of state Sen. Maria Durazo.

By his count, Kaplan said there are about a dozen businesses within surrounding blocks that are at risk of closing their doors or have shuttered due to rent increases or other struggles.

When READ Books was founded during the Great Recession, Kaplan said he knew it was a longshot to open a bookstore at the same time so many were struggling to stay in business.

“It was kind of interesting to be doing something that neighborhoods needed. That was important to me growing up, that was important to my children, that was important to my wife growing up,” Kaplan said.

“And then somebody comes in and says, ‘We’re gonna over double your rent.”

Topline:

Frozen budget: Most of the city’s Bureau of Street Lighting budget comes from an assessment that people who own property illuminated by lights pay on their county property tax bill. The amount people pay depends on the kind of property they own and how much they benefit from lighting. A typical single-family home currently pays $53 annually, and in total, the assessments bring in about $45 million annually for the city to repair and maintain streetlights. Changing the amount the Bureau of Street Lighting gets from the assessment requires a vote among property owners who benefit from the lights.

Ballots: L.A. City Council’s vote gives city staff the green light to prepare and send out those ballots. Miguel Sangalang, who oversees the bureau, said at a committee meeting earlier this month that he expects to send out ballots by April 17. Notices about the ballots will be sent out prior to the ballots themselves.

Near unanimous vote: L.A. City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez was the only “No” vote Tuesday, saying she wanted to see a more current strategic plan for the bureau. Sangalang said the bureau developed a plan in 2022 that lays out how money will be spent. Councilmember Imelda Padilla was absent for the vote.

Vote count: Votes will be weighted according to the assessment amount. Basically, the more you’re asked to pay yearly to maintain streetlights, the more your vote will count. Ballots received before June 2 will be tabulated by the L.A. City Clerk.

How much more money: According to a report, the amount needed in assessments from property owners to meet the repair and maintenance needs of the city’s streetlighting in the next fiscal year is nearly $112 million.

Use of the money: Sangalang said at a March 11 committee meeting that the extra funds would be used to double the number of staff to handle repairs and procure solar streetlights, which don’t face the threat of copper wire theft. That would all potentially reduce the time it takes to repair simple fixes down to a week. Currently, city residents wait for months to see broken streetlights repaired. The assessment would come with a three-year auditing mechanism.