The Brief

If you drive too quickly along West Adams Boulevard, west of 9th Avenue, you’ll likely miss the former home of the Mary Clay School, a two-story building that for decades provided innovative daycare and schooling to middle class Black children, starting in 1959.

L.A.’s Cultural Heritage Commission voted on Thursday to ask the L.A. City Council to give the building historical cultural monument status.

“[I] think it’s important to recognize this building… for the stories it tells… what it tells us about the history of Los Angeles,” said commission President Barry Milofsky, just before members unanimously voted to approve the request.

The Mary Clay School opened in L.A.'s West Adams neighborhood in 1959.

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Courtesy LA Office of Historic Resources/Clay family archives

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If approved by the City Council, the designation would protect the 102-year-old building from alterations, new construction, or demolition that would alter or erase elements that are of historic importance and irreplaceable.

The proposal for monument status comes as organizations work to preserve the under-recognized heritage of African Americans in L.A. after decades of demographic shifts in the city that have shrunk the city’s Black population.

Supporting Black families

Mrs. Mary Clay relaxing in her private residence which was upstairs above the Mary Clay School operations, 1961-62.

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Courtesy LA Office of Historic Resources/Clay family archives

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The building is an important site of Black education in L.A., where school founder Mary Elizabeth Smith Clay lived and worked. Clay was a trailblazing educator, civic-minded volunteer, and a nationally recognized expert on children’s education.

According to reports prepared by the cultural heritage commission staff, the school operated from 1959 to 1998 and used innovative methods to help kids with issues such as speech disabilities, while becoming also an important part of the social life of young people in middle-class Black families.

The school's origins

African Americans had moved to Los Angeles in the 40s to fill job openings created by the war effort, including Black women, who entered the workforce in large numbers. Publicly funded and integrated daycare was made widely available to help mothers from all income levels,

The Music Room of Mary Clay School. Children get situated on their cots at the beginning of nap time,1961-1962.

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Courtesy LA Office of Historic Resources/Clay family archives

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In the years after the war, public funding for daycare shifted to low-income families. Quality daycare for middle class Black families became difficult to access due to racism and high costs.

Clay opened a private school in her home to address that gap, and then moved into a bigger house to meet the growing demand. The school employed three teachers and introduced innovations like a psychologist, scientific methods to address speech issues, and foreign languages in kindergarten to third grade.

Mary Clay School annual photograph in 1989. Pre-school students are together with school owner/teacher Elenore “Sue” Clay (left) and teacher Miss Riggs (right).

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Courtesy LA Office of Historic Resources/Clay family archives

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It was also used for fundraisers hosted by Clay for Black-focused and child-oriented causes such as the L.A. chapter of the Links Incorporated, the Anchorettes, Jack and Jill of America, the Pitt-Los Club, and the 12 Big Sisters.

In 1965 Clay was appointed by President Lyndon Johnson to direct the Title Five Project, a program that gave training to people interested in working in childcare. She died in Los Angeles in 1971.

The building's history

Mary Clay was not the building’s original owner. The building was built in 1924 for F. Irwin Herron, whose family rode the waves of wealth created by L.A.’s oil and real estate booms in the early 1900s. Herron helped found what became the Los Angeles Stock Exchange.

He hired Edwin C. Thorne to design the home. Thorne would go on to design public buildings later in the 1920s in Colton and La Puente, as well as private homes.

The owner of the property is listed in commission documents as Andre Gaines, associated with West Adams LLC. The document says the owner does not support the historical monument status. Rafael Fontes, planning associate in L.A.’s Office of Historic Resources said the owner had not permitted staff to see the interior of the building.

A contemporary photo of the former site of the Mary Clay School.

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Courtesy LA Office of Historic Resources

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The designation was begun earlier this year by L.A. Councilmember Heather Hutt, who represents the 10th council district.

An employee of Los Angeles County’s Office of Emergency Management has sued his employer, alleging he was retaliated against for making whistleblower complaints about the response to the deadly Eaton Fire.

Nicholas Vaquero, an associate director in the Office of Emergency Management, alleges that officials leading the office failed to properly staff the response to the fire, which killed at least 19 people and burned thousands of homes and businesses in January 2025.

He also alleges the county’s emergency alerts were inadequate and that it submitted fraudulent data in order to receive FEMA reimbursement. Vaquero says in the suit that he used official county whistleblower channels to raise his concerns, in addition to speaking to OEM’s top two officials, Director Kevin McGowan and Deputy Director Leslie Luke.

Vaquero’s lawyers and the county declined to comment on the substance of the lawsuit. “L.A. County is going to address the allegations in court,” spokesperson Elizabeth Marcellino wrote in a statement to LAist.

LAist previously reported on Vaquero’s whistleblower complaint, in which he alleged that a now-retired employee with “a long history of sleeping on the job” was put in charge of emergency workers sending evacuation alerts and was asleep during critical moments of the first night of the Eaton Fire, when many of the deaths and much of the devastation occurred.

In the lawsuit, Vaquero alleges he has faced retaliation after raising his concerns, including being excluded from meetings he previously was a part of and being treated with hostility by the department’s leadership, among other things.

The complaint comes after county leadership launched a three-year restructuring of the Office of Emergency Management, which includes working to add staff and to conduct regular training for all staff on emergency alert software.

An after-action report from the McChrystal Group highlighted that the emergency management office was severely short-staffed during the fire. The department, which serves 10 million people, had a staff of 37 people at the time the fires broke out. Meanwhile, New York City has a population of 8.5 million and an emergency management staff of about 200 people, the report noted.

For the last three years, the record store and music venue Healing Force of the Universe has been operating on a sleepy street corner not far from Pasadena City College. Nearby businesses include a shoe repair store, a nail salon and several auto shops.

“We're kind of in a dead corner,” owner Austin Manuel said. “No offense if anybody lives here, but not a very foot-trafficked area, kind of a hard place to have a store.”

In spite of the location, Manuel said Healing Force has become a home away from home for musicians and music fans. One of them is Bobby Bradford, a jazz trumpet legend who lost his house and personal archive in the Eaton Fire. He performs regularly at the venue. (Healing Force has also partnered with LAist on fire recovery events.)

Its current location is set to close this month, but Manuel and his team are already raising funds to cover a move to another space: G-Son Studios in Atwater Village. The repurposed ballroom was the Beastie Boys' home base when they recorded their classic albums Check Your Head and Ill Communication. Run-DMC and Biz Markie stopped by at one point, and Beck also laid down tracks for his album Odelay there.

Inside Healing Force's space in Pasadena.

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Kevin Tidmarsh/LAist

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The vibe

Healing Force sells records, of course, but these days it’s more of a nighttime performance space. Manuel said he wants people to feel comfortable striking up conversations after a show.

“I grew up in the church in the South, and I was like, ‘How do I design this so that it feels like a Southern church lady could come in here and feel welcome?’" Manuel said. “ I didn't want it to be too cool.  I wanted it to feel kind of suburban in a way.”

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Kevin Tidmarsh/LAist

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Kevin Tidmarsh/LAist

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Kevin Tidmarsh/LAist

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Though the name might call to mind a cult slogan — and Manuel said they lean into that aesthetic on purpose — it’s actually a reference to the 1970 album Music Is the Healing Force of the Universe by saxophonist Albert Ayler.

At the venue, “people can kind of get … into a meditative zone,” Manuel said. “After the [January 2025] fires, it felt so good to come back together in this room and feel the healing of community.”

Healing Force's stage setup.

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Kevin Tidmarsh/LAist

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The performances

The shows Healing Force puts on share a common thread: They’re meant to promote peace and relaxation, as well as deep, careful listening on the hi-fi sound system. But they’re an eclectic mix of genres. On one night, you might see L.A. spiritual jazz band Phi-Psonics, who turned a residency at the venue into a live album, Expanding to One.

On another night, you might catch a spaced-out electronic set, an up-and-coming singer-songwriter or a group of session musicians who’ve played with the likes of Paul Simon, Elton John and Lucinda Williams.

About the fundraiser

With the new space on Glendale Boulevard, Manuel said, Healing Force would triple its capacity for concerts, get a bar space and be closer to other venues in Northeast L.A.

“If 1,000 people gave $25, we would get there,” Manuel said – though he also said most people have been giving more.

You can read more about the fundraiser and donate at Healing Force’s GoFundMe.

See the Pasadena space before it closes

The venue is still open at 1200 E. Walnut Street and is holding events through this Halloween weekend. You can see their events calendar on their website.

The racist DNA of Jim Crow discrimination may be embedded in your housing documents.

The language in housing documents that restricts sale or use of a property only to a person of the white race is called a “restrictive covenant,” and in California the practice goes back to the 19th century and continued into the mid-20th century. While housing discrimination persists, the practice was found unconstitutional in 1948.

California counties are reporting mixed progress in meeting the demands of a 2021 law to excise the language from property records.

According to Sylvia Manzo, deputy recorder in the Orange County Clerk-Recorder’s office, the county finished the job in March of this year, removing racist language from more than 27,000 property documents with the help of computer software.

This 1924 property document from Bakersfield includes racist language limiting use of the property in question to people of "the white or Caucasian race."

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Screenshot from CSU Bakersfield

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L.A. County is far from done. It says that with the help of an outside company hired in 2024, 50 million pages will be examined yearly, which would take about 10 years to finish the job.

Public agencies could use the public’s help.

Language examples

Here’s a 1924 example from a property in Bakersfield. The text reads, “That the lands herein conveyed shall never, at any time, be sold to or rented to or occupied by any person not of the white or Caucasian race.”

Or this language from a 1936 document relating to a Costa Mesa property: “That said premises shall not be sold, conveyed, rented, or leased to, or occupied by any person of African, Mexican, or Asiatic descent.”

How to get it taken out

The Restrictive Covenant Modification Form is at the heart of the effort to remove the racist language from housing documents. Each county has its own process. Some charge a fee; others don’t. Some require a notary certification for the signature; others don’t.

L.A. County:

Registrar-Recorder officials recommend these steps:

• Highlight or underline the unlawful provision on the recorded document
• Complete the Restrictive Covenant Modification Form
• Submit the form and the recorded document by email: RCM@rrcc.lacounty.gov or in person at the Norwalk headquarters at 12400 Imperial Highway in Norwalk
• Mail instructions are here.

Orange County:

The Orange County spokesperson says there may be some properties not caught by its software and urges the public to report them. Here’s the form

Riverside County:

Here’s the Riverside County form

San Bernardino County:

Here’s the San Bernardino County form

San Diego County:

Here’s the San Diego County form

Santa Barbara County:

Here’s the Santa Barbara County form

Ignoring the racist language in property documents, some say, reinforces the legacy of segregation, while taking steps to remove restrictive covenant language is a way individuals and organizations can repudiate policies that sought to discriminate.