Note: This is an encore post from 2006.
Dec. 23, 1907
St. Louis, via Direct Wire to The Times
Dr. Henry S. Atkins, superintendent of St. Louis’ insane asylum, has found that Christmas is a perfect time to test his theory that shopping cures insanity.
Atkins and two attendants took 60 women from the asylum “into the world of department stores and the activities which all women enjoy,” The Times said.
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. 5: Dr. George Hodel had no surgical practice in Los Angeles. He had no admitting privileges as a surgeon at any Los Angeles hospital.
Previously:
Reason No 1: George Hodel was never “a prime suspect” in the Black Dahlia case.
Reason No. 2: George Hodel was found not guilty of morals charges.
Reason No. 3: George Hodel was not pals with Man Ray.
Reason No. 4: George Hodel served the poor blacks of Bronzeville.
Note: This is an encore post from 2005 and originally appeared on the 1947project.
The young mother asked the waitress at the cafe in the Subway Terminal Building to hold her baby for just a moment—and then she was gone.
Four-month-old Nancy Joyce Morris, with light blue eyes and blond hair, was wrapped in a purple quilt and a pink blanket to which her young mother had pinned a Christmas card: To Mr. and Mrs. Robert Lane, 1711 N. Alexandria, with a return address of C.H. Wagoner, 4256 Troost Ave., in North Hollywood. It was signed Bonnie.
Los Angeles, May 25, 1944: At a Shinto shrine near City Hall, Los Angeles Mayor Fletcher Bowron, second from left, Dr. George M. Uhl and Nicola Giulli of the city housing authority talk to black residents of Bronzeville. Courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library.
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. 4: George Hodel operated a clinic serving poor African Americans living in Bronzeville, the nickname for Little Tokyo, left vacant by the internment of Americans of Japanese ancestry.
Previously:
Reason No 1: George Hodel was never “a prime suspect” in the Black Dahlia case.
Reason No. 2: George Hodel was found not guilty of morals charges.
Note: This is an encore post from 2006. Homelessness is a more than century-old problem in Los Angeles — there are no easy or quick fixes. And yes, homeless people were put on the chain gang in 1907.
Dec. 22, 1907
Los Angeles
As Police Capt. Flammer approached Yuma, Ariz., to take custody of George White, he noticed the smoke of hundreds of campfires made by hobos burning old railroad ties.
The hobos, Flammer learned, were avoiding Yuma because the marshal meted out hard justice to vagrants, as he warned in posters all over town. But Flammer also learned all those homeless men were heading for Los Angeles.
The “minotaur love/death cult of Hollywood” is apparently getting a big play in “I Am the Night.” Oh dear.
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. 3: George Hodel had nothing more than a minor business transaction with Man Ray for a photo session. Dr. Hodel also had a book of photos.
__________
Correction: A previous version of this post said Dr. Hodel bought a book of photos. It’s unclear how he obtained the book.
__________
Previously:
Reason No 1: George Hodel was never “a prime suspect” in the Black Dahlia case.
Reason No. 2: George Hodel was found not guilty of morals charges.
Note: This is an encore post from 2005 and originally appeared on the 1947project..
Bonus factoid: The Jewish “defense army” Haganah was reported to have made a major attack—the largest since the U.N. partition decision—against Arabs in Lydda and Bet Nabala, where troops of the Trans-Jordan Arab Legion are camped.
Listen to Victor Jory read “Tubby the Tuba”
Listen to “Uncle Don’s Playland”
Listen to “The Great Gildersleeve”
Links to mp3 files of 78 rpm children’s records
While you’re it, listen to “Grumpy Shark”
Quote of the day: “For a redhead who worked her way through law school as a floorwalker in a department store and by washing dishes, that’s not bad!”
The Times, on Municipal Judge Mildred L. Lillie, whose 1971 nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court by Richard Nixon predated Justice Sandra Day O’Connor by 10 years. When a 12-member bar panel rated Lillie, who had 24 years on the bench, “unqualified” because the men feared a woman would be “too emotional” for the Supreme Court, Nixon withdrew her name in favor of William Rehnquist.
Note: This is an encore post from 2006.
Dec. 21, 1907
Los Angeles
Lillian Poelk was new to Los Angeles, with no friends and little more than a job as a waitress that didn’t quite cover the rent of her room at 831 S. Hope.
“While other girls were getting pretty things and preparing for a pleasant Christmas, she was shut up in a cheerless room,” The Times said.
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. 2: George Hodel was found not guilty of molesting his daughter, Tamar.
Previously:
Reason No 1: George Hodel was never “a prime suspect” in the Black Dahlia case.
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.
ladailymirror.com 