Note: This is an encore post from 2005 and originally appeared on the 1947project.

City Hall’s elevator operators have been having a little too much fun on the job. Instead of calling out the numbers of the floors, they have been using nicknames and building superintendent Ralph Hoffman wants them to stop.

The operators say that the passengers were the ones who were using the nicknames:

Temple Street entrance, police headquarters—“Flatfoot Alley.”

2nd floor, criminal division of the city attorney’s office—“Ball and Chain.”

10th floor, divorce courts—“The War Department” and “Alimony Alley.”

16th floor, adoptions—“Baby Farm.”

17th floor, probate courts—“Forest Lawn” or “The Morgue.”

Bonus factoids: Jean Heather, who played Lola Dietrichson in “Double Indemnity” is injured when her car overturns at Coldwater Canyon and Mulholland Drive. Her last movie is “Red Stallion in the Rockies,” released in 1949. She died Oct. 29, 1995, as Jean Hetherington Meier, but no published obituary can be located.
Wealthy socialite Harriet Gardiner Lynch Coogan dies in New York, 37 years after shutting herself away in a hotel room when prominent New Yorkers refused to attend her daughter’s debut in 1910. She was visited only by her four children. The hotel staff left her meals and mail at the door to her room.

Maria Formicola, 21, arrives in New York from Italy to marry her G.I. fiance. After she waits on the dock for five hours, steamship employees tell her that James H. McIntosh was killed in a car accident on the day she left for the U.S. She receives hundreds of marriage offers to avoid being sent back to Italy, but is released for 90 days to the custody of a cousin.

10 Commandments to Avoid
Christmas Tree Fires Given

1—Choose a small tree instead of a big one.
2—See that the tree stands well away from radiators or the fireplace.
3—Never place a tree near entrance doors or in a location that will block exits.
4—Keep it away from stairways or elevators.
5—Use electric lights and no candles.
6—Use no cotton or paper on around tree. Use glass or metal decorations.
7—Don’t leave Christmas gift wrappings and package materials lying around the living room.
8—Don’t place electric trains around the tree.
9—Turn out the tree lights when you leave the house.
10—When the needles start falling, take the tree down.
That 8th Commandment is going to be a toughie….