90.1 FM San Luis Obispo | 91.7 FM Paso Robles | 91.1 FM Cayucos | 95.1 FM Lompoc | 90.9 FM Avila
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

The poignant journey of Tyrone Taylor--Mayor of LA’s Skid Row

Tyrone Taylor proudly shares the proclamation presented by the City of Los Angeles proclaiming Tyrone Taylor the Mayor of Skid Row
Thomas Wilmer

Life was chugging along just fine for Tyrone Taylor, that is until he lost his job when the steel plant closed in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania back in 1983. Drugs and alcohol sped his descent. He eventually wound up spending 20 years homeless on Skid Row in Los Angeles. 

But one day he looked up as a woman gazed at him. It was his daughter who had found him after an exhausting family search. It was that moment when he looked in his daughter’s eyes that turned his life around.

Skid Row Los Angeles where Tyrone Taylor lived on the streets for 20 years
Credit Thomas Wilmer
Skid Row Los Angeles where Tyrone Taylor lived on the streets for 20 years

He went clean and sober and with the help of social services moved in to an apartment. He now spends his days working the streets helping those in need.

His untiring efforts to help the homeless of Skid Row led the Mayor of Los Angeles to proclaim Tyrone “The Mayor of Skid Row.

Join correspondent Tom Wilmer at the Society of St. Vincent de Paul’s Cardinal Manning Center in the heart of LA’s Skid Row as Tyrone Taylor shares his life journey.

Click here to read the New York Times article about Tyrone published in 2007

 Journeys of Discovery with Tom Wilmer NPR One, Apple Podcast album artJourneys of Discovery with Tom Wilmer NPR One, Apple Podcast album art
 

Edit | Remove

You are invited to subscribe to the Lowell Thomas award-winning NPR Podcast travel show Journeys of Discovery with Tom Wilmer via: 

Apple Podcast

NPR.ORG Podcast Directory

NPR One (APP)

Stitcher.com

Twitter: TomCWilmer

Instagram: Thomas.Wilmer

Culture Editor @360magazine

Journeys of Discovery with Tom Wilmer winner of the Lowell Thomas Award 2017, 2016, 2015, 2013
Credit SATW Foundation
Journeys of Discovery with Tom Wilmer winner of the Lowell Thomas Award 2017, 2016, 2015, 2013
underwriting support for Journeys of Discovery with Tom Wilmer provided by Society of St. Vincent de Paul
Credit Society of Saint Vincent de Paul
underwriting support for Journeys of Discovery with Tom Wilmer provided by Society of St. Vincent de Paul

Tom Wilmer produces on-air content for Issues & Ideas airing over KCBX and is producer and host of the six-time Lowell Thomas award-winning NPR podcast Journeys of Discovery with Tom Wilmer. Recorded live on-location across America and around the world, the podcasts feature the arts, culture, music, nature, history, science, wine & spirits, brewpubs, and the culinary arts--everything from baseball to exploring South Pacific atolls to interviewing the real Santa Claus in the Arctic.
Related Content