Noho Ghosts, a paranormal historical walking tour of NoHo Arts District

We’re a group of passionate ghost hunters native to the San Fernando Valley. We feel honored to be able to share our love of the history and spirits of the North Hollywood Arts District with you!

It seems that when ghosts and history pertaining to the Los Angeles area are talked about, it generally only covers Hollywood and Downtown LA. However, the rest of the city’s extensive urban sprawl is rich with its own stories and hauntings and that’s especially true of North Hollywood. Just over the Cauenga pass from Hollywood proper, North Hollywood and its surrounding neighborhoods of Toluca Lake and Studio City may not have the glitz and glam of Hollywood, or a giant sign announcing its existence to the world, but much of the film business calls this area home. North Hollywood is also home to many music and talk recording studios and even features the valley’s most haunted building, a recording studio itself! Come join us for tales of the past that form the essential backbone of this Los Angeles community and stay for the spooky stories and ghost hunting tools!

So, what does it take to put together an interesting tour in a location chock full of paranormal and historical sites?

First, one must scour the internet, typing in search term after search term, reading as much as you can until you have a comprehensive idea of how the past shaped a neighborhood. Next, you have to walk the streets, scouting for interesting environments and architectural gems. Then, once you have a feel for the area, it's time to start chatting with the people who live or work there. You talk in person, you talk through social media, you talk, talk, talk and talk. They're the ones who have experienced all the odd stuff, they're the ones with the eye witness accounts and the stories!

Once we compiled a few dozen tales we took what we had and began to put together a route tying them all together. It's been a long and memorable path but we wouldn't have it any other way!

So, why create a tour in North Hollywood of all places? The answer might surprise you. For us, one of the most worthwhile reasons to be alive is the knowledge that human beings exist on the edge of mystery. Questions about existence and life and meaning are all around no matter where we go.

Our core team are California natives born right here in the San Fernando Valley. We grew up being driven on streets named for Lankershim and Mulholland and Colfax, only to learn surprisingly little in school about the figures these names belonged to, who conjured our city out of the raw wilderness. The notion that human beings from long ago built the community where we are now made an abstract word like "History" very real. It sparked our lifelong passion to know the stories from behind the scenes. Our desire to know unlocked the mystery of history.

We read books, we went to local museums, we received lessons in school and went down rabbit holes on the internet. We felt good about the academic information we gathered but the most interesting concepts began coming our way when we started talking to people. It didn't matter where we were, at the bus stop, in line at the coffee place, at a party... whenever we started a conversation about how our city put down its roots, the subject gradually changed to how places in the neighborhood were haunted. As people talked we could feel ourselves being drawn in. To think of ghosts is to think of dusty old castles in Europe or grand ocean liners like the Queen Mary but to be told that the house down the street or the local theater was home to a phantom? Mind boggling!

We were spellbound by the idea that the veil between life and death could be so thin as to allow lost souls to wander the world right in our own backyard. Once again it sparked our lifelong passion to know the stories from behind the scenes. Our desire to know unlocked the mystery of the supernatural.

Our little band of ghost hunting history nerds gathered one night not too long ago. One of us pointed out that every square mile of our San Fernando Valley was riddled with historic significance. Another added that there were little-known ghost stories all over the various neighborhoods populating the area.

What would be the best way to get the word out?

It was a few weeks later while we shared pizza at an outdoor table on Magnolia and Lankershim that someone offhandedly mentioned that in a city as sprawling as Los Angeles, where everyone needs to have a car, how walkable the North Hollywood Arts District was.

That was when it clicked. It could be our pleasure to introduce the little-known history of the valley to eager listeners through the stories of those hauntings native to the NoHo Arts District. Tales that wouldn’t make sense without the larger cultural and historical context. Ghosts are a concept universal to almost all cultures, like music or food. Caring about the question “where do we go when our stories end?” is a human quality, something that can bring us together in spite of our differences. Respecting and commemorating the dead, whether they’ve moved on to another plane or not, is to forge community. That this was something we could accomplish and share through this tour. To gather together to travel through space, time, and the paranormal is to create memories that last a lifetime… and maybe even into the beyond.

Host or Publisher Researched and organized by Noho Ghosts