I only recommend books that I have read, which is why I haven’t listed Susan Orlean’s “The Library Book” or Stephen Gee’s “Los Angeles City Hall: An American Icon.” I look forward to reading both of them, but I’m not there yet.
Marne L. Campbell also appears in a video on Archive.org.
“Making Black Los Angeles,” by Marne L. Campbell, 2016. University of North Carolina Press.
Note: This is an encore post from 2005 and originally appeared on the 1947project..
And at the age of 55, after dozens of novels and countless short stories, he died. Not that you’ve heard of him or any of his books—unless you collect potboiler novels of the 1930s.
The list of his works is impressive in bulk if nothing else, with titles that tell the entire plot in two or three words: “Dancing Feet,” “In Love With a T-Man,” “Love or Money,” “Modern Marriage” and my favorite: “Short Skirts: A Story of Modern Youth.”
Note: This is an encore post from 2006.
Dec. 20,1907
Los Angeles
Mr. C.D. Roberts of 1900 E. Main was feeling a bit unwell. He had bad headaches, an irregular appetite, saw dark spots before his eyes and felt as if something in his stomach was alive.
Not sure what to do, Roberts consulted the European Medical Experts at 745 S. Main St., where he was treated with the secret cure of “The Great Fer-Don.” “He was prevailed upon to try it, with the result that his system was quickly relieved of this monster scores of feet in length,” surely the Loch Ness creature of internal parasites.
Here are six reasons Dr. George Hodel did not kill Elizabeth Short that you will need to know before watching the TNT mini-series “I Am the Night” or listening to the eight-part podcast accompanying the production.
Reason No. 1: Dr. George Hodel was never “the prime suspect” or even “a prime suspect” in the Black Dahlia case.
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:
Note: This is an encore post from 2006.
Dec. 19, 1907
Los Angeles
What you have to understand first about George White is that he isn’t to blame. Oh he’ll take his prison sentence for robbing the Hot Rivet Saloon, 1006 N. Main St., but it’s not his fault; he fell in with the wrong man. He just hopes that when he’s released he won’t be turned over to the Army as a deserter.
Continue reading
Note: This is a video I made in 2005 using clips from a police training film.
Note: This is an encore post from 2005 and originally appeared on the 1947project.
The Jacobowicz brothers—Karl, 16, Joseph, 13, and Rudolph, 10—stood on the metal ramp leading from the gleaming airliner that carried them on the final leg of their journey from Vienna.
The Nazis took their Jewish father away in 1940 but left their mother because she was Catholic. Then on Christmas Eve 1942, the Gestapo made their mother get rid of her children because they were half-Jewish. She died less than a year after turning them over to Catholic nuns.
Note: This is an encore post from 2006.
Dec. 18, 1907
Los Angeles
Los Angeles County Coroner Roy S. Lanterman was arrested on charges of being drunk and disorderly at the Navajo, a bordello run by Ida Hastings, 309 Ord St. Hastings called police, who arrested Lanterman.
A Mills Seminary graduate nicknamed “Suicide Ida” because of her attempts to kill herself “every time she has a serious setback in her numerous ‘love’ affairs,” Hastings had contacted police earlier in the evening, asking for protection from Lanterman, saying that he had attacked her. Hastings notified police when Lanterman, who was married, returned to the bordello, went to her bedroom and after a fierce fight, removed several photographs of himself as well as a letter.
This week’s mystery movie was the 2004 film “A Belated Premiere” on the amazing work of Alexander Shiryaev, written and directed by Viktor Bocharov, photographed by Inna Tiktinskaya, artwork by Yury Solovev and music by Sergei Banevich. It’s on YouTube in four parts.
See “Ghosts of ‘Nutcracker’ Past, Preserved on Film” by Marina Harss from the New York Times, Dec. 11, 2018.
6757 Hollywood Blvd., former location of the Cafe Montmartre, via Google Street View.
Constructed in 1922 as part of the expanding restaurant empire of impresario Adolph “Eddie” Brandstatter, the Cafe Montmartre ushered in Hollywood nightlife as its first swanky nightclub during the town’s transformation from rural farming community into high-end factory town.
Brandstatter, born Adolph E. Brandstatter in 1884, served as one of Los Angeles’ top restaurateurs by the early 1920s. Possessing experience working in restaurants in London, Paris, and New York before arriving in Los Angeles in the teens, Brandstatter had served as the maitre d’hotel of Victor Hugo’s before partnering with fellow cafe man Mike Lyman to open such hotspots as Santa Monica’s Sunset Inn and Club Marcell in the early 1920s.
Mary Mallory’s latest book, “Living With Grace: Life Lessons from America’s Princess,” is now on sale.
Note: This is an encore post from 2005 and originally appeared on the 1947project..
Bonus factoid: The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a $2,500 fine against Hollywood book dealer Marcell Rodd for selling the obscene book “Call House Madam.” The book, by Serge G. Wolsey, is now available at the Los Angeles Public Library.
Quote of the day: “I don’t give a so-and-so what you think.”
Tallulah Bankhead, continuing her feud with Lynn Fontanne, when Fontanne and Noel Coward visited Bankhead backstage to give their compliments after a performance of “Private Lives.” Bankhead asked: “What did you think of me, Noel?”
Note: This is an encore post from 2005 and originally appeared on the 1947project.
Somewhere, there’s 57-year-old man; maybe his name is Steven, or maybe his foster parents changed it. He doesn’t know much about himself except that his birthday is March 7, 1948. He doesn’t know that he was born in the jail ward of what’s now County-USC Medical Center. He doesn’t know that before his mother, Shirleen, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for killing his older sister, Denise, Juvenile Court Judge A.A. Scott told her, “You shall never see this baby again!”
Denise Kunin was nearly 2 years old when she died in 1947 of a broken back and fractured skull. During the trial, it took Dr. Frederick Newbarr, the autopsy surgeon, 15 minutes to describe her injuries. The testimony and color pictures left the jurors devastated.
Note: This is an encore post from 2006.
Dec. 16, 1907
Los Angeles
And what ran on the sports pages in 1907? We certainly didn’t have the Lakers. How about a cat show at Chutes Park at Grand and Washington? I can just imagine the reaction of my distinguished colleagues on the other end of newsroom to this:
“In the class of white neuters, Col. Dunham Jr. was awarded the first place, and Tootsie, owned by Mrs. E.H. Coane, was a very close second. Mr. [Frederick] Story said he had never had to decide between two cats having so many equal points. The colonel was the finer and best furnished. The eyes and head of Tootsie were better than those of the colonel.” Continue reading
“Angel’s Flight” by Leo Politi.
Note: This is an encore post from 2014.
Another of my favorite books about Los Angeles is Leo Politi’s “Bunker Hill Los Angeles: Reminiscences of Bygone Days,” published in 1964. Copies are listed on Bookfinder in the $30-$40 range. This painting shows Angels Flight as it was in the 1930s and ‘40s, when it was next to the 3rd Street Tunnel. It was moved to its current location, across from Grand Central Market, as part of a 1980s redevelopment project after years of being in storage.
Note: This is an encore post from 2005 and originally appeared on the 1947project.
Curiously, The Times apparently never published another story about Chad A. Schultz, despite his considerable generosity ($1,000 = $9,464.19 USD 2005).
However, the South L.A. animal shelter is still in operation at 3612 11th Ave.
Bonus factoid: Mideast death toll since U.N. voted to partition the Holy Land reaches 360.
Quote of the day: “Among juvenile delinquents, the No. 1 physical defect is defective hearing.”
Willard Hargrave, founder of the Auricular Foundation.
Note: This is an encore post from 2006.
Dec. 15, 1907
Los Angeles
Anybody who sets out to study the development of the city’s neighborhoods can expect to do lots of driving. My recent travels have taken me to an obscure area of South Los Angeles to look for 1907-era houses mentioned in the Dec. 8 issue of The Times: one in the vicinity of 4615 Wesley Ave. and another around 124 W. 52nd St. (Bonus fact: Broadway in that area used to be known as Moneta).
I’ll post some pictures later. The buildings on Wesley are a mix of single-family homes and two-story apartments. As for preservation, you might as well call this neighborhood Stucco Heights.
Note: “Little Shoes,” about the murders of three little girls, may not be everybody’s idea of an appropriate holiday gift, but it is more than a “true crime” book. In “Little Shoes” Pamela Everett explores her family’s tragic history in one of Los Angeles’ biggest cases of the 1930s, and she raises compelling questions about the guilt of Albert Dyer, who was hanged for the killings.
A family’s history is tricky even in the best of circumstances; the past may be sanitized and rewritten for consumption by the next generation. When tragedy is involved, family stories become murky or are simply locked away.
So it was with the tale of the “Three Babes of Inglewood”: Madeline Everett, 7; her sister Melba, 9; and their playmate, Jeanette Stephens, 8; who were kidnapped from Centinela Park in Inglewood and killed June 26, 1937. The case, with the trial and execution of Albert Dyer, was one of the most sensational crimes of Los Angeles in the 1930s, along with the Harry Raymond bombing.
Note: This is an encore post from 2005 and originally appeared on the 1947project.
It’s hard to reduce so many important stories to three-bullet items … like blood flowing in the streets of Jerusalem and Jaffa … Earl E. Kynette trying to get out of a 20-year prison sentence for the Harry Raymond bombing … Lewis M. Terman of Stanford examining what becomes of gifted children as they reach adulthood (no, they’re not all dysfunctional misfits, he says, but rather the elite).
But I’ve been trying to figure out a way to look at chess in 1947….
Note: This is an encore post from 2006.
Dec. 14, 1907
Los Angeles
The madman who calls himself the superintendent of the Los Angeles schools has touched off an absolute firestorm of anger by ordering teachers not to mention Christ during Christmas pageants or other festivities.
“The town was agog with it yesterday,” The Times said. “It was the talk among both ministers and laymen of the 200 and more churches in Los Angeles.”
ladailymirror.com 