The National Trust for Historic Preservation this week announced the most endangered historic places in the U.S. in 2025.
About the list: This year, the list includes not only buildings, but entire communities, such as a smattering of islands off Florida's northwest coast. Cedar Key was renowned for its Old Florida charm. A historic fishing village that bears its name was devastated by Hurricane Helene in 2024.
In L.A.: Two buildings remaining on Tuna Street made the list. The street had been a vibrant main center of the Japanese American fishing village on Terminal Island before the community was forcibly removed and incarcerated during World War II.
Back in the 1930s, an untrained architect in Phoenix, Arizona, built a ramshackle structure resembling a sandcastle from found materials. The Mystery Castle, which became a funky roadside attraction, fell into disrepair over the years and is now at risk of demolition.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation announced Wednesday that the Mystery Castle is one of America's 11 most endangered historic places in 2025. "Across the United States, compelling, meaningful historic sites are at risk, whether from natural disasters, underutilization, neglect, or lack of awareness," a statement from the National Trust said. The group has been issuing an annual list of U.S. sites at risk since 1988.
"We're a nation with global roots, and our individual stories matter," the organization's CEO, Carol Quillen, told NPR. "And when you find a story about a man who — without plans, without training, without any kind of guidance or permits — built this amazing castle for his wife and daughter, you just want that story to be told."
This year, the list includes not only buildings, but entire communities, such as a smattering of islands off Florida's northwest coast. Cedar Key was renowned for its Old Florida charm. A historic fishing village that bears its name was devastated by Hurricane Helene in 2024.
Cedar Key after Hurricane Helene, October 2024
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Timothy Macy
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National Trust for Historic Preservation
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"This is one of the worst hurricanes I've ever been through," one longtime resident, Pamela Sikes, told member station WUSF earlier this year. "The total destruction. So many businesses aren't coming back, and it's just really sad."
The River Arts District in Asheville, N.C., during the flooding from Tropical Storm Helene in 2024. The French Broad River crested high enough to breach the first floor of the buildings.
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Drew Wallace
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National Trust for Historic Preservation
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"Our work invites these communities both to rebuild and develop a plan to rebuild that supports their communities and also to plan for the future," Quillen said. "These sites have brought together local residents, governments, local governments, colleges and universities to produce research and studies on how to enable resiliency and rebuilding in these communities. Those kinds of coalitions, I think, are really important for helping us remember that rebuilding a community is more than just the built environment. Rebuilding a community also means the soft social infrastructure that supports it and the cultural practices that have developed in that particular region."
Increasing storm frequency and severity also threaten the Pamunkey Indian Reservation, of King William County, Va. A federally recognized sovereign Tribal nation, the Pamunkey people and their ancestors have lived on and around the peninsula in the Pamunkey River for at least 15,000 years. But rising storm severity and sea level rise could make most of the reservation inaccessible within this century.
Pamunkey women making pottery at the Pottery School on the Reservation in the early 20th century.
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Pamunkey Indian Tribe
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National Trust for Historic Preservation
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This year's list did not include any of the hundreds of historic government buildings that President Trump had targeted for sale earlier this year — some of which do not meet the criteria for federal architecture that he outlined in a January executive order.
"I would say the process started before that," Quillen said. "It takes a long time for this process to work itself out and the criteria that we use are pretty consistent, year over year. We want a variety of sites. We want this to be locally driven. We want sites that are experiencing some kind of threat and have a plan to address that threat. And we want sites that, when preserved, can offer something to their community."
"You have to meet your needs now," she added. "The constraint of that makes us more creative. It connects to the past. It keeps alive these incredible, incredibly powerful stories."
Here are the other places on the list this year (with explanations from the National Trust):
Terminal Island Japanese American Tuna Street Buildings, Los Angeles.
A. Nakamura Co., prior to World War II, c1930-40
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Tim Yuji Yamamoto
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National Trust for Historic Preservation
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"Only two buildings remain on Tuna Street, once the vibrant main street of the Japanese American fishing village on Terminal Island, a community that was forcibly removed and incarcerated during World War II. The buildings are now owned by the Port of Los Angeles, which is considering demolition. The Japanese American community of descendants and survivors are advocating for protection and reuse of the buildings in a way that honors their ancestors and commemorates this dark chapter of American history."
Oregon Caves Chateau, Cave Junction, Oregon.
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Friends of the Oregon Caves and Chateau
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National Trust for Historic Preservation
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"The Oregon Caves Chateau, located within the Oregon Caves National Monument and Preserve, has significantly benefited the rural economy of nearby Cave Junction and surrounding communities for 91 years. Since its construction in 1934, the Chateau has offered overnight lodging and concessions, but the need for extensive repair and restoration necessitated closure in 2018. Since that time, additional unplanned structural and seismic upgrades have dramatically increased project costs. Significant funding is necessary to reopen the Oregon Caves Chateau, allowing it to once again serve visitors and support essential economic revitalization in its rural region."
The Wellington, Pine Hill, New York
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Shandaken Historical Museum; Shelley Smith
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National Trust for Historic Preservation
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"The Wellington Hotel is one of few surviving examples of the large-scale wood-frame resorts built in the Catskills region of New York in the late 1800s. After years of deterioration, the Wellington's foundation was in danger of collapse. However, a group of community members have purchased the building to save and reactivate it to serve the historic Pine Hill community as a food market, cafe, and affordable housing, but additional partnerships and funding are needed to realize this vision."
San Juan Hotel, San Juan, Texas
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Gabriel Ozuna
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National Trust for Historic Preservation
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"The San Juan Hotel, built in 1920, has a long and complicated history in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas and is one of the area's most recognizable landmarks. Local advocates hope to work with the City of San Juan to rehabilitate the building to serve the community."
The Turtle, Niagara Falls, N.Y.
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Cherrish Beals
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National Trust for Historic Preservation
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Ronella McGregory
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National Trust for Historic Preservation
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"The Turtle, also known as the Native American Center for the Living Arts, was completed in 1981 and designed by Arapaho architect Dennis Sun Rhodes as a powerful symbol of Indigenous heritage. Unfortunately, the building has been vacant for almost 30 years, and the owner previously shared plans for demolition. A coalition has formed in hopes of 'reawakening' the Turtle once again."
Hotel Casa Blanca, Idlewild, Michigan.
"Located in the historic Black resort community of Idlewild, Michigan, Hotel Casa Blanca served as a premier lodging site for African American travelers, entertainers, and thought leaders during segregation. However, after integration, like many formerly segregated Black resorts, Idlewild experienced lower visitation and economic disinvestment, and Hotel Casa Blanca has now been vacant for over 30 years. Support and funding are needed to rehabilitate the hotel so it can once again serve the Idlewild community."
May Hicks Curtis House, Flagstaff, Arizona.
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Joshua S. Edwards, Cornerstone Environmental Consulting, LLC
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National Trust for Historic Preservation
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"Known as the 'Betsy Ross' of Arizona, May Hicks Curtis sewed the first Arizona state flag in 1911. The May Hicks Curtis House where she lived and worked for decades must be moved from its current location due to new construction, but the City of Flagstaff is working to save, relocate, and rehabilitate the house for community use while commemorating the important women's history story of this site, which is located less than one block from the earliest alignment of Route 66."
Copyright 2025 NPR
Makenna Cramer
covers the daily drumbeat of Southern California — events, processes and nuances making it a unique place to call home.
Published April 29, 2026 5:01 PM
Workers repair potholes and skim a large portion of street in Los Angeles on Jan. 13.
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Genaro Molina
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Getty Images
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Topline:
MyLA311, the system designed to help residents access city services for graffiti removal or streetlight outages, had a makeover last year, but since then, some Angelenos and Los Angeles city staff have reported it has been plagued by problems. City officials say they're working to make fixes.
Why now: Councilmembers Imelda Padilla and Monica Rodriguez led a motion aimed at addressing the issues concerning the system’s overall functionality and accountability. The City Council approved that motion Wednesday.
Why it matters: “Reports and individuals are telling us that because of this broken 311 app, folks are once again going back to using Excel sheets, phone calls, paper and pen in order to engage in service delivery, and I think that that's a problem,” Padilla said during the council meeting.
The backstory: MyLA311 is set up so residents can report non-emergency issues and track requests for tree inspections, homeless encampment services and illegal dumping, to name a few. There are 86 options in neighborhoods, according to Mayor Karen Bass’ office, which helped launch the new system.
What's next: The motion instructs Public Works to make a formal report of any problems with the system, including how they may be affecting service timelines and completion rates, and asks the city’s IT agency to come up with potential solutions.
MyLA311, the system designed to help residents access city services for graffiti removal or streetlight outages, got a makeover last year, but since then some Angelenos and Los Angeles city staff have reported it has been plagued by problems.
The city has received “numerous complaints” about the updated website and app, including issues with GPS and logging work, according to officials.
MyLA311 is set up so residents can report non-emergency issues and track requests for tree inspections, homeless encampment services and illegal dumping, to name a few. There are 86 options in neighborhoods, according to Mayor Karen Bass’ office, which helped launch the new system.
Staffers within the city’s Department of Public Works have said they’ve been frustrated by the rollout, according to city officials. They say it now takes longer to add their responses to service requests, and the city can’t record completed work that doesn’t have a service request connected to it.
City Council members Imelda Padilla and Monica Rodriguez led a motion aimed at addressing the issues, saying they’ve caused concerns about the system’s overall functionality and accountability.
“Reports and individuals are telling us that because of this broken 311 app, folks are once again going back to using Excel sheets, phone calls, paper and pen in order to engage in service delivery, and I think that that's a problem,” Padilla said during Wednesday’s council meeting.
The motion instructs Public Works to make a formal report of any problems with the system, including how they may be affecting service timelines and completion rates, and asks the city’s IT agency to come up with potential solutions.
It was approved in a 12-0 vote Wednesday. Councilmembers Bob Blumenfield, Eunisses Hernandez and Adrin Nazarian were absent.
How we got here
Bass announced the launch of the new MyLA311 last year, saying the previous website and app were outdated and had lasted years past their lifecycle.
In a 2023 directive, she’d called for the system to be modernized with the goal of providing better customer service and communication about the status of residents’ requests.
“This new and improved way to request and receive city services is another example of how we are breaking away from the old way of doing things to make our neighborhoods cleaner and safer,” Bass said in a March 2025 statement.
But some people say the new system is falling short.
The Sylmar Neighborhood Council agreed the system needs improvements, writing in a community impact statement that MyLA311 fails to serve L.A. taxpayers effectively if it’s difficult to use or inaccurate.
In public comments, some residents cited “major issues” with the system, including GPS and location accuracy, invalid addresses and missing or incomplete service categories. One commenter wrote that addresses were being routed to other areas, some of them outside the city.
“As a result, they frequently lead to confusion in the field, delays in response and, in some cases, requests going unaddressed due to the difficulty in locating the reported issue or misdirection caused by inaccurate data,” the commenter said.
What’s ahead
The City Council approved several instructions aimed at improving MyLA311, including the following:
Public Works is expected to report back on its issues with the system.
The city’s Information Technology Agency is expected to report on system performance, including operational issues, and provide solutions as needed.
Public Works and IT are expected to provide quarterly reports on service request data, including backlogs, average response times and requests received and closed.
The Supreme Court's conservative majority seemed ready Wednesday to allow the Trump administration to potentially proceed with mass deportations of more than a million foreign nationals, including those from Haiti and Syria, who live and work legally in the United States.
How we got here: Until now these individuals have been accorded temporary legal status because their safety is imperiled by war or natural disasters in their home countries. Congress enacted the Temporary Protected Status program in 1990, and every president since then — Republican and Democrat — has embraced TPS. President Trump, however, is trying to end it. On Wednesday his solicitor general, D. John Sauer, told the justices that the statute clearly bars any court review of the administration's decisions. And he dismissed the idea that a separate law established to provide procedural fairness does not allow the courts to review the Homeland Security agency's decision-making either.
Read on . . . for more on today's court proceedings.
The Supreme Court's conservative majority seemed ready Wednesday to allow the Trump administration to potentially proceed with mass deportations of more than a million foreign nationals, including those from Haiti and Syria, who live and work legally in the United States.
Congress enacted the Temporary Protected Status program in 1990, and every president since then — Republican and Democrat — has embraced TPS. President Donald Trump, however, is trying to end it.
On Wednesday his solicitor general, D. John Sauer, told the justices that the statute clearly bars any court review of the administration's decisions. And he dismissed the idea that a separate law established to provide procedural fairness does not allow the courts to review the Homeland Security agency's decision-making either. Pressed by the court's three liberal justices, Sauer insisted that the courts cannot review anything.
"None of those procedural steps required by the statue are reviewable. That's your position?" asked Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
"Correct," responded Sauer.
"What you're basically saying is that Congress wrote a statute for no purpose," Sotomayor said.
Justice Elena Kagan noted that under the statute the secretary of Homeland Security is supposed to consult with the U.S. State Department about what the conditions are in those countries that people have been forced to flee. What if she didn't do that at all, Kagan asked. Or what if she asked, but the response from the State Department came back: "Wasn't that baseball game last night great!"
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked what would happen if the secretary used a Ouija board to make decisions?
To all these hypotheticals, Solicitor General Sauer stood firm. That prompted this from Sotomayor: "Now, we have a president saying at one point that Haiti is a 'filthy, dirty, and disgusting s--thole country.' I'm quoting him. He declared illegal immigrants, which he associated with TPS, as poisoning the blood of America. I don't see how that one statement is not a prime example … showing that a discriminatory purpose may have played a part in this decision."
Sauer pushed back, noting that Kristi Noem, the then-DHS secretary, had not mentioned race at all. That prompted this response from Justice Jackson, the only Black woman on the court, "So the position of the United States is that we have an actual racial epithet that we aren't allowed to look at all the context."
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the mother of two adopted Haitian children, interjected at that point to clarify the administration's position. Are you conceding that individuals with TPS status could bring a challenge based on race discrimination? she asked.
Sauer appeared to concede the point.
Representing the Haitians, lawyer Geoffrey Pipoly described the administration's review as "a sham."
"The true reason for the termination [of TPS status] is the president's racial animus toward non-white immigrants and bare dislike of Haitians in particular," Pipoly said. "The secretary herself described people from Haiti" and from other non-white countries as "killers, leeches, saying, 'We don't want them, not one,'" while "simultaneously enacting another humanitarian form of relief for white and only white South Africans."
That was too much for Justice Samuel Alito who asked Pipoly, "Do you think that if you put Syrians, Turks, Greeks and other people who live around the Mediterranean in a line-up, do you think you could say those people are … non-white?"
An uncomfortable Pipoly resisted categorizing each group until Alito got to his own roots.
"How about southern Italians?" Alito inquired, prompting laughter in the courtroom.
Responded Pipoly: "Certainly 120 years ago when we had our last wave of European immigration, southern Italians were not considered white. … Our concept of these things evolves over time."
At the end of Wednesday's court session, one thing was clear: President Trump may be furious at some of the conservative justices he appointed for invalidating his tariffs, but for the most part, he is getting his way. Especially in light of the court's 6-to-3 decision, announced Wednesday, which effectively guts what remains of the landmark Voting Rights Act, once celebrated as a signature achievement of American Democracy.
Copyright 2026 NPR
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Fiona Ng
is LAist's deputy managing editor and leads a team of reporters who explore food, culture, history, events and more.
Published April 29, 2026 4:14 PM
Artemis the German Shepherd is the last dog from Eaton Fire at Pasadena Humane to get adopted.
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Courtesy Pasadena Humane
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Topline:
The last dog from the Eaton Fire taken in by Pasadena Humane has now been adopted.
Why it matters: The Eaton Fire destroyed nearly 9,500 structures, including about 6,000 homes. Two days after the first broke out, Pasadena Humane reported receiving more than 350 pets from displaced residents.
The backstory: Artemis the German shepherd was originally taken to the Pasadena animal shelter for emergency boarding. His family, which lost its home in the January fire, ultimately decided to put him up for adoption.
The last dog from the Eaton Fire taken in by Pasadena Humane has now been adopted.
Artemis the German shepherd was originally taken to the Pasadena animal shelter for emergency boarding. His family, which lost its home in the January fire, ultimately decided to put him up for adoption.
"The silver lining to all of that is — with all this tragedy — this incredible story of hope where we were able to help foster these animals we’re returning home," said Sarie Hooker, communications manager at Pasadena Humane.
During his stay at Pasadena Humane, the cream-color pup won over many hearts.
"He's just such a striking boy. He's got this really fun, loving personality. He's very regal," Hooker said.
Hooker said Artemis was adopted by a family through the shelter's foster-to-adopt program.
"He just did amazingly. And the next thing we knew, he was adopted," Hooker said. "So it's a happy story."
Artemis says hello to a new family.
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Courtesy Pasadena Humane
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The Eaton Fire destroyed nearly 9,500 structures, including about 6,000 homes. Two days after the fire broke out, Pasadena Humane reported receiving more than 350 pets from displaced residents.
By the second week of the fire, the shelter had taken in some 600 pets, Hooker said.
" In totality, we were able to help with thousands of animals specifically for emergency boarding," Hooker said, including every kind of pet you can think of, as well as wild animals.
" We were seeing skunks, squirrels, hawks, owls, peacocks, raccoons, possums," she said.
Artemis isn't just the last dog to find a home — or return home — from the Eaton Fire.
He is the last animal.
" Artemis was our final, final animal — like dog, cat, critter. Anything else under the sun. He was the last boy. So we're very happy," she said.
Mariana Dale
reports on K-12 education, including how students exercise their civic power.
Published April 29, 2026 2:31 PM
People gathered in downtown L.A. for May Day in 2025.
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Frank Stoltze
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LAist
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Topline:
Southern California and national organizers are calling on communities to abstain from work, school and shopping Friday in recognition of May Day.
The backstory: May Day started after an 1886 strike tied to the fight for an eight-hour work day. The protest turned violent after police attacked workers. In the 1990s, L.A. organizers started to connect the labor movement with advocacy for immigrant rights.
What's new: This year’s “economic blackout” is modeled after January protests in Minnesota following the surge of immigration enforcement and shooting deaths of two U.S. citizens. “ Our vision includes an economy that works for everyone with a living wage, strong labor protections and programs that keep families housed, fed, educated and healthy,” said Francisco Moreno, executive director of the Council of Mexican Federations in North America, in a Tuesday press conference.
Find a rally: What’s typically the region’s largest May Day gathering starts Friday morning at MacArthur Park, and events are planned throughout the region.
The “economic blackout” is modeled after January protests in Minnesota following the surge of immigration enforcement and shooting deaths of two U.S. citizens.
“Our vision includes an economy that works for everyone with a living wage, strong labor protections and programs that keep families housed, fed, educated and healthy,” said Francisco Moreno, executive director of the Council of Mexican Federations in North America, in a Tuesday press conference.
The organization is one of more than 100 involved in planning a Los Angeles May Day rally with the theme, “solo el pueblo shuts it down: no school, no work, no shopping.”
“Starting there really sends a message that we're here,” said Kristal Romero, press secretary for the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. “We're standing with this community, and if you take on one of us, you take on all of us.”
May Day’s history in LA
May Day, sometimes called International Workers' Day, started after an 1886 strike tied to the fight for an eight-hour work day. The protest turned violent after police attacked workers. In the 1990s, L.A. organizers started to connect the labor movement with advocacy for immigrant rights.
Romero said the Federation has offered training on de-escalation, conflict resolution and non-violent protests and that hundreds of people will act as “peacekeepers” during Friday’s rally and march.
“ A lot of times, folks can get caught in echo chambers and it may really feel hopeless,” Romero said. “The big point of these events is to inspire hope to show people we're all here, we're all fighting for the same thing.”
