Contract Awarded for Dodger Stadium

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April 14, 1960: The contract to build the Dodgers' ballpark in Chavez Ravine was announced and Walter O'Malley once again talked about delays.

"A final completion date cannot be fixed at this time due to the uncertainty of the various actions that have to be taken by the City Council and the Board of Supervisors but it is believed that there will be full cooperation," O'Malley said.

In other words, plan on staying in the Coliseum a little longer.

The Dodgers said construction of the ballpark would cost more than $11 million, with other costs bringing the price closer to $16 million. Still a bargain.

–Keith Thursby

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Brown Signs Nation’s First Smog Law

April 14, 1960, Smog Bill

April 14, 1960, Brown Signs Smog Bill

April 14, 1960: Gov. Pat Brown signs America’s first law requiring emissions controls on automobiles. "I consider this bill one of the most far-reaching pieces of legislation to come across my desk in my 15 months as governor," he said. In a few years, the old road-draft tubes will be replaced by the "California emissions package."

On the jump, Caryl Chessman says he expects to be executed May 2 … And manager Casey Stengel refuses to predict a pennant win for the Yankees, who finished spring training with the worst record in the American League.

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Death at the Bimini Baths

 
April 14, 1910, Bimini Baths

April 14, 1910: The story is old and the details are fragmentary. Victor Lamar, 15, and Father E.V. Reynolds, a Catholic priest from Oklahoma, met somehow in Los Angeles. Reynolds might have paid Lamar $3 or $4 [$68-$90 USD 2009] to go “have a good time,” according to Marie A. Lamar, but her brother wouldn’t talk about it.

What’s certain is that Victor’s body was found at the bottom of the Bimini Baths, at 3rd Street and Vermont Avenue. Initial reports said he had been badly abused, but later testimony said injuries from vigorous attempts to revive him may have misled investigators. According to an autopsy, he died of heart trouble.

Victor’s father won a $1,000 [$22,738.82 USD 2009] settlement from the Bimini Baths for negligence, but The Times is silent on whether Reynolds was charged with molestation, although one story calls him “a moral degenerate.”

The Internet adds a few, skimpy details. There was a Father E.V. Reynolds in Chandler, Okla., about that time, but there’s nothing more. 

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Matt Weinstock, April 13, 1960

 
1960_0413_peanuts

Sweden and Chessman

Matt Weinstock     David Stone, instructor at John Adams Junior High School, plans a trip to Europe this summer with another teacher.  Not long ago he wrote a friendly letter to a newspaper in Sweden giving the date they would be there and expressing the hope they might meet interested persons for an exchange of information.

    Stone has been shocked the last few days to receive three replies, all disturbingly striking the same note.

    One, from a  religious order, stated, "Sir:  Why do you want to come to Sweden?  You are representative of a country where a criminal must die eight or nine times.  God allows a human being to die but once."

    Another:  "Sir: Come to Sweden by all means.  Explain to us your judicial system.  We are full of admiration for the procedure in the Chessman case.  You surpass the Nazis and the Bolshies.  Ten Swedish Mothers."

  

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Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, April 13, 1960


April 13, 1960, Mirror Cover

 Beverly Aadland, 1960

In a photo taken by guest Bob Profeta during a party at their Hollywood apartment, Florence Aadland, left, scuffles with her 17-year-old daughter, Beverly, during an argument over whether the television was too loud. You may recall that Beverly Aadland was in the news in 1959 as Errol Flynn’s “protege.” She was being held on charges of prostitution and lack of parental supervision after William Stanciu was shot to death while struggling with her over a gun.

Tijuana's Vigilantes Swing Into Action

Paul Coates    In Tijuana, the vigilantes have formed.

    They were no broad sombreros, no special uniforms, no shiny badges.  They pack no pistols.

    They are quiet, unobtrusive vigilantes.  And they're careful.

    When they step on the toes of the moneyed dealers in sin, they say "Excuse me."

    But they say it firmly, so as not to be misunderstood.

    They have no official commission, no legal authority.  But so far, they've been getting their own way.

    Why they have, they're not exactly sure themselves.

    Except for the fact that they've got right on their side.  And what they're doing could save the bawdy border city from self-destruction. 

   

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Jimmie Fidler in Hollywood, April 13, 1940

 April 13, 1940, Nazis Occupy Oslo
April 13, 1940, Nazis Occupy Oslo  

April 13, 1940: “Wot's this re: Orson Welles retrenching financially by moving into the Hollywood YMCA,” Jimmie Fidler asks.

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Dodgers Open With 11th Inning Win Over Cubs, 3-2

April 13, 1960, Dodgers

April 13, 1960, Dodgers

April 13, 1960: The Dodgers opened the season with another record crowd at the Coliseum, with 67,550 fans watching a 3-2 victory over the Cubs. Chuck Essegian's home run made the difference and Don Drysdale stuck out 14 as the opening night starter.

The crowd was the biggest for a National League night opener.

The Times ran a short story about someone who complained to police after he wasn't allowed in the Coliseum. His three tickets bought for $1 each were phony.

Dick Walsh, the Dodgers' assistant general manager, said the tickets didn't have seat numbers and other items found on real tickets. The Times said the case "touched off a possibly large scale forgery operation."

–Keith Thursby

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Giants Open Candlestick Park With Win

 
April 13, 1960, Nixon, Willie Mays

April 13, 1960, Candlestick Park 

April 13, 1960: Candlestick Park opened in San Francisco and The Times' Al Wolf described the stadium as "magnificent."

Candlestick Park?

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Union Officer Recalls Lowering U.S. Flag at Ft. Sumter

April 13, 1910, Ft. Sumter

April 13, 1910: The Times marks the [Update: 49th — I think a 100-year-old correction is some sort of record] 50th anniversary of the firing on Ft. Sumter by interviewing an officer who was there, Lt. Col. W.H. Hamner, a Virginian. The Times found Hamner playing billiards at the Ingraham Hotel and gave the following account, posted after the jump.

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Matt Weinstock, April 12, 1960

1960_0412_peanuts 

An Escape to Nature

 

Matt Weinstock     There's this hideaway up near Lake Hughes and Sunday, responding to an urge to get away from mundane affairs, a group of weekend pioneers, equipped with enough picnic lunch for twice their number, headed there.
 
    We drove up the Ridge Route, Highway 99, always an enjoyable journey for those who remember it as it was in more primitive days.  Approaching Gorman we came upon one of nature's most glorious sights.  The hills were covered with soft blankets of brilliant gold  poppies. Here and there the gold was trimmed with blue  lupine.  A gas station attendant attributed their profuse growth this year to the heavy early snows.
 
    From there we headed east on Highway 138, which connects with Lancaster, but turned off on the Lake Hughes road and came eventually to the place — acres and acres of acres.

   

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Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, April 12, 1960

Barbara Stanwyck’s Son Thinks It Over

Hollywood kids have a habit of making headlines the hard way.

Some — like Barbara Burns, Eddie Robinson Jr. and Cheryl Crane — started precociously in their teens.

Others — Dennis Crosby and Diana Barrymore, for example — waited until they were of voting age.

And that’s the way it was with Anthony D. Fay.  A couple of days ago, at age 28, he reluctantly joined the list. The charge against him:  attempting to sell lewd books to teenagers.

Not much of a crime for a Page 1 story, but that’s part of the reason for the ever swelling public list of Hollywood’s “bad children”:  If your father or your mother is a movie star, the spotlight catches you, too.

Strangely, it almost passed Anthony Fay by.

When he was taken to the Venice police station last Friday, his name registered with no one.  Then, while he was being booked, a pair of reporters dropped into the station.

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Jimmie Fidler in Hollywood, April 12, 1940

April 12, 1940, Rancho Grande

June Storey in “Rancho Grande” with Gene Autry.

April 12, 1940: Seen in profile, W.C. Fields' expression is touchingly nose-talgic, Jimmie Fidler says. 

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A Second Look at Reagan’s Campaign Claims

April 12, 1980, Reagan

April 12, 1980, Reagan

April 12, 1980: “It is often said of Reagan that he never met a statistic or an anecdote he didn't like if it helped him illustrate the evils of big government,” according to The Times’ Bill Stall and William Endicott.   Notice how carefully the headline avoids saying that Ronald Reagan is inaccurate or distorts the facts.

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Otis Chandler Named Publisher of The Times

 
Norman Chandler and Otis Chandler
Photograph by Frank Q. Brown / Los Angeles Times 

Norman Chandler, left, during the luncheon to announce that his son, Otis, was the new publisher of The Times.

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April 12, 1960: Otis Chandler is named publisher of the Los Angeles Times. In a speech to more than 700 civic leaders at the Biltmore Bowl, Norman Chandler said: “Otis, as my successor and as my son, I say to you — you are assuming a sacred trust and grave responsibilities. I have the utmost confidence that you will never falter in fulfilling these obligations. This trust is dearer than life itself.”

In his speech, Otis Chandler replied: “I pledge to you to carry out the sound principles which have guided you. I will not let you down. It is with humility and gratitude that I accept.”

And in 1999, Otis Chandler echoed these words in his famous memo dictated to then-City Editor Bill Boyarsky during the Staples scandal: “When I think back through the history of this great newspaper I realize how fragile and irreplaceable public trust in a newspaper is. This public trust and faith in a newspaper by its employees, its readers, the community, is dearer to me than life itself.”

I never realized until now that he was referring to his father’s speech 39 years earlier; a speech that everyone else had probably forgotten – except him. 

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Mule Driver Doesn’t Swear – Even When Kicked in the Head

April 12, 1910, Mule Driver

April 12, 1910, Divorce 

April 12, 1910: The geometry of the eternal triangle is particularly complicated in the case of David Perry Doak, who kept a home in Los Angeles with  Jessie May Doak – and a ranch at Klamath Falls, Ore., with B. Freda De Haven and her child. And you thought newspapers only put heart-shaped frames on photos in “Citizen Kane” and “Chinatown.” 

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Matt Weinstock, April 11, 1960

April 11, 1960, Library Fever

“ ‘Library Fever’ Is Similar to Other Mental Disturbances.”  

Pay-as-You-Breathe Plan

 

Matt Weinstock     Everyone, it seems, wants to help the beleaguered councilmen find a way to raise desperately needed revenue.  And it is a heartening thing indeed to witness the spectacle of citizens, inspired by a sense of civic duty, take time out from their vital TV watching to come to the aid of their lawmakers.

    Let us now consider Mark Keats' idea, never tried before.  He calls it the Pneumometer Plan- pronounced new-mom-eater.  In plainer language, it is a breathing meter.
 
    From a baby's first breath, this pneumometer would be permanently attached to the nose.   Anyone caught without it or caught tampering with it would be subject to  a fine.
 
    A basic tax rate per cubic foot of pure air inhaled by citizens would be established by the council.  Naturally there would be a reduction in the rate when there's smog.  And those who insisted on an occasional whiff of pure oxygen would have to pay extra.  Athletes, movie heavies, glass blowers and other deep breathers would, of course, be given a special rate because their work requires a greater volume of intake.
 
   

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Paul V. Coates – Confidential File, April 11, 1960

 April 11, 1960, Mirror Cover

Patty Gardenseed Walks the World

 
Paul Coates    John Chapman . . . born 1773 . . . in Pennsylvania . . . a pioneer . . . also known as Johnny Appleseed . . . he devoted his life to planting apple trees . . . in ragged clothing, he roamed Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana, with a sack of appleseeds on his back . . . a friend of whites and Indians, animals and birds . . . –From the story of Johnny Appleseed.
 
    His real name is Aloysius Eugene Francis Patrick Mozier.
 
    But the one he likes is Patty Gardenseed.
 
    It sounds kind of ridiculous — like something invented by a Hollywood hack for a comedy take-off of Johnny Appleseed.  At first, it does.
 
    But when you meet the man, you're aware immediately that neither the name, nor he, is a joke.
 
    In another 100 years, the legend of Patty Gardenseed could conceivably push the front page deeds and decisions of many of today's politicians and diplomats into the footnotes of our history books.

   

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Jimmie Fidler, April 11, 1940

 
April 11, 1940, It's a Date

“Weird experiments of a mad scientist.” Are there any other kind? 

April 11, 1940: Ode to mayhem: "And now, Miss Velez, DO try to act like a lady!"

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Pacific Ocean Park

 
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April 11, 1960: Happy Easter from Pacific Ocean Park (1958-1975). Adult admission is $10.75, USD 2009. On the jump, African Americans across the South begin an Easter week boycott of stores with segregation policies.

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Emergency Medical Training for Police, Firefighters

 
April 11, 1910, Paramedics

April 9, 1910, David Brooks

April 11, 1910: Dr. Charles Zerfing, the police surgeon, wants police officers and firefighters to be trained in “first aid to the injured.” Zerfing also wants an automobile ambulance equipped with emergency supplies, The Times says. Zerfing’s actions come after delays hindered the response to treating plainclothes Officer David Brooks, who was shot to death by robbers at 30th Street and Grand Avenue. The killing was evidently never solved.

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