Moment of Decision

A
bunch of maniacs showed up at noon and stood on the launching platform
and sipped champagne, munched barbecued ribs and rode up and down on
one of the two cars, commandeered for the lunch hour.

Not only
that, photographers kept shooting pictures of some joker named Jim
Hawthorne as he stood on the west end of the ascending and descending
car like a touring politician. For the occasion a sign had been placed
on it, "Save Angels Flight." What had the natives nudging each other
was the tuxedo Hawthorne was wearing. This is strictly sport-shirt
territory.

It seems, Hawthorne, who has a show on KTTV, had some
time to spare yesterday and decided to save Angels Flight whether it
needed saving or not. No one is certain. The owners, L. B. Moreland and
his wife, who were present, attended the recent hearings on the
proposed redevelopment project and there was no mention of the
one-block railway's future. Neither was it included in the bright new
plans for the hill after it is leveled and the architects start fresh.

Odd
thing about yesterday's proceedings was that hardly any of the
gentlemen busily saving Angels Flight had ever ridden on it before.

::

AROUND TOWN
— A young mother of two small daughters is relieved that Mother's Day
is over for another year. They bought and insisted she apply blue
fingernail polish … Del Mar, as horse players know is "where the turf
meets the surf." Art Petsch Jr. reports that a home-towner referred
proudly to El Segundo as the place "where the sewer meets the sea" …
Harry Oliver, the desert rat, has two new dogs — Dot, which has no
tail, and Comma, which has a tiny one … A girl in Vancouver, Wash.,
wrote the UCLA library for information about a former student, one Jack
London, who became a pretty good writer. She will doubtless be sorry to
learn he dropped out of school in 1897 without leaving a forwarding
address. And it was Cal, not UCLA … Gene Hackley reports this sign on a window screen store on Lankershim Blvd. "Hang Yourself; 20% Discount."