Spring Street revisited

Posted on July 30, 2008 by lmharnisch




 
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C.C. Pierce & Co. Photographers, Los Angeles, Cal., U.S.A.

An undated photograph of the Phillips Block, 1887-1912.

 
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After looking at the old photos of Spring Street over the last few days, I wanted to learn more about the Phillips Block, a seemingly lovely building north of 1st Street. The Phillips Block, designed by R.J. Reeve looked wonderful–but even before it was finished there were problems with the construction, see story below left.

In December 1888, developer Louis Phillips denied charges that, for example, "in Chicago or New York this building would be condemned in 20 minutes. He also denied that "the building is nothing but a shell and a very light earthquake might bring the whole thing to the street."

The Times lavished praise on the People’s Store, which opened in the building in July 1888.

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Above, books on sale at the People’s Store, in the Phillips Block.

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Above, in the final days of the Phillips Block, after most of its tenants had left, including the Hamburger Brothers’ store, it housed an auctioneer.
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By 1912, however, the Phillips Block was considered a deathtrap and the worst fire hazard in the city.

Below, possibly my most favorite fact in a very long while: In 1911 "mice and matches" were blamed for 12 fires in the city of Los Angeles.

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A few months after the 1912 article was published, the building, in fact, burned in what was believed to be arson. Fortunately, no one was injured in the blaze, which drew enormous crowds, The Times said. 

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Nuestro Pueblo

Posted on July 29, 2008 by lmharnisch


 
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Below, Ducommun and Garey streets, the general area where this picture was drawn, via Google maps’ street view. 

 



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Lovers’ death pact at downtown hotel

Posted on July 29, 2008 by lmharnisch


 
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The Hotel Ramona on Spring Street.


 
I stumbled across this story while researching something else and it’s too good not to post. From The Times, Dec, 28, 1891. Email me

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Spring Street revisited

Posted on July 29, 2008 by lmharnisch




 
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C.C. Pierce & Co. Photographers, Los Angeles, Cal. U.S.A.

This picture was taken from Spring and 2nd streets about 1895, and shows the reverse angle of Spring and 1st, which we looked at yesterday.


 
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One of the most prominent buildings in this photo is the courthouse, which was at Fort (later renamed Broadway) and Temple.

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Above, the courthouse, which was torn down in 1935 after being badly damaged in the Long Beach earthquake, a phenomenon I call "seismic Darwinism." (Thanks to Brady Westwater, I now know that the 1888 cornerstone is outside the Criminal Courts Building). By the way, the two brass cannons that used to be at the courthouse, originally from Ft. Moore,  were to be installed in a park in Montebello to commemorate the Battle of Paso de Bartolo, according to a 1941 Times story.


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The Nadeau Hotel, now the site of The Times Building, at 1st Street and Spring. The Nadeau was built in 1882 by Remi Nadeau and demolished in 1932. Note that the gingerbread decoration at the top is false front and disappears in later photos.

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We also have a better view of the Phillips Block, 1886-1913. A Times article reviewing major Los Angeles buildings for 1886 attributed the Phillips Block to architect R.J. Reeve. The Times gives the dimensions as 120 feet on Spring Street, 131 feet, 6 inches on Franklin Street and a height of 120 feet at the main center of the building. Construction materials were brick, granite and iron, and the cost was $125,000 ($2,850,281.51 USD 2007). Stay tuned for more on the Phillips Block.

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And finally, we get a good view of the crazy angle in Spring Street. Today, of course, Spring has been realigned so that it’s straight, and it’s been widened.

And why was there a kink in Spring Street? The answer is complicated. At one time, Spring (originally Primavera when Los Angeles’ streets had Spanish names) went in a straight line from the early plaza. Instead of taking a bend at 1st Street as it went south, Spring originally angled through the site of the Nadeau Hotel, the corner of what is now Broadway and 3rd Street, Hill and 4th Street, and Olive and 5th Street.

Below, thumbnail histories of Los Angeles’ streets from 1896, including an explanation of why they were 28 feet wide. Warning: This story describes a bullfight in Los Angeles and refers to Calle de los Negros, later known as "N-word Alley."   Email me

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Spring Street revisited

Posted on July 28, 2008 by lmharnisch

 

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C. C. Pierce Photographer, 1572 W. Pico, Los Angeles

This photograph of Spring Street, looking south from Temple, is slightly later than the one in the previous entry and was taken about 1896. 

 
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Notice that our single-track, horse-drawn streetcars have vanished. Instead, we have parallel tracks for cars powered by–what's this? A cable! Also notice that Spring has been paved with bricks.
   

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According to The Times, the City Council granted a franchise to the Los Angeles Cable Railway Co. in 1887. The route began at Spring 200 feet south of 1st, went along Spring to Main, Upper Main Street, Alameda and San Fernando streets, and Downey Avenue to the intersection with Workman. The fare was not to exceed 5 cents per passenger ($1.14 USD 2007).   

At left, an 1889 accident involving a buggy that was caught in the tracks for the cable car. Notice that the team of horses ran away and one of them broke a window before being caught.



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Another detail from the photo shows the Nadeau Hotel at 1st and Spring (now the site of The Times Building). To the left is Jevne's grocery store. Also notice the tower at the center of the picture.

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The tower visible in the center of the picture is City Hall, then located on Broadway. The building was demolished for a parking lot, but the annex remains as the Victor Clothing building.
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I think this pedestal clock is a wonderful detail from a 19th century streetscape. London Clothing Co. later became Harris & Frank.

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The unhappy fate of photographer Lemuel S. Ellis, who worked for C.C. Pierce and died in 1902.
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This imposing building is the Phillips Block and the location has an interesting history. Los Angeles' first City Hall was located here in what was known as the Rocha House, an adobe on Spring between Temple and 1st on an unnamed street.

In 1853, Juan Temple sold the house and lot to Los Angeles County, which in turn sold a share of the building to the city, according to a 1930 Times story. Because a building on the property was used as a jail, the unnamed street became known as Jail Street and, after neighbors' protests, was renamed Franklin Street in 1872.

According to the 1930 Times story, criminals were hanged from the portico of the Rocha House, including a murderer and his two companions on Nov. 21, 1863.

In 1883, the city sold the Rocha House to Louis Phillips and used the money to build another City Hall at Spring and 2nd.  Phillips demolished the Rocha adobe to make way for his five-story Phillips Block. The building, which housed the People's Store, was destroyed by a spectacular fire in 1912 and torn down in 1913, according to The Times.

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And finally, we find a young boy being led, presumably by his father. Are they headed for London Clothing to get a new outfit? We can only wonder.

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Spring Street revisited

Posted on July 27, 2008 by lmharnisch



 
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Los Angeles Times file photo

When this photo was taken, about 1883, Spring Street took an oblique angle at 1st. We're looking north, possibly from the Nadeau Hotel at what is now the site of The Times Building. The curious angle is somewhat visible in the building on the left, labeled the Schumacher Block.

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One of the most prominent details in this photo is the horse-drawn streetcar. Notice that there's only one track. How did the cars get around one another?

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Here's how: There was a little "pullout" in the tracks so that one car could get by the other.  Notice that the street is unpaved. Also note that we have a vehicle not staying to the right.
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Although there's no street lighting, we have utility poles with overhead wiring. Notice the filigree on the large cable at the top of the image.

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More to the point, we find a chaotic jam of wagons outside the dry goods store. Notice that some vehicles are blocking others. I should also point out that the early editions of The Times are full of harrowing stories about runaway horses injuring themselves and their passengers.

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And, of course, with horses as the main mode of transportation, there will be horse flop. The Times once noted that unpaved streets were actually preferable in some ways because manure mixed with the dirt and "disappeared" while it accumulated and became an annoyance on paved streets. Email me
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Headline News

Posted on July 26, 2008 by lmharnisch




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July 26, 1948

By Keith Thursby
Times staff writer

Dropcap_q_quaint uiz time: What does this headline mean?

It’s pretty clear we’re talking about baseball, but who are the Twinks and the Suds?

The Twinks were a familiar headline name in The Times for the Hollywood Stars. I never understood the need for the nickname’s nickname. You really need another way to say Stars?

The Suds referred to the Seattle Rainiers, named after a local brewery.
The story was a run of the mill wire report on the doubleheader but there’s one line that really stopped me. The Seattle pitcher is referred to as a "wrong hander."

As a lifelong left-hander, I’ve been called a southpaw, a port sider and even a goofy footer, but a wrong hander?

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the pitcher was right-handed.


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July 26, 1938

Posted on July 26, 2008 by lmharnisch


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aul "the Porpoise" Chotteau collapses within 10 miles of his goal of swimming from Santa Barbara to Venice … A bomb in Haifa kills 50 people, wounds 58 others and touches off rioting … Kentucky Gov. A.B. "Happy" Chandler is recovering after being poisoned … And the city clerk’s office certifies petitions to recall Mayor Frank Shaw. The election is set for Sept. 16, The Times says. Candidates seeking to run against the mayor must qualify by Aug. 22.

ps. The last we heard of Chotteau, in 1960,  he was living in Key West, Fla. He had invented a pontoon boat to be towed by an unsuspecting shark that he would capture and harness. "Sharks make wonderful motors," he said, "Of course, sometimes they decide to go straight down." Hm. Sounds like a plot for "Jabberjaw."

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July 26, 1908

Posted on July 26, 2008 by lmharnisch

 




Above, developer Samuel A. Selover buys a home at Bonnie Brae and Miramar streets. Selover, whose projects included Belmont Shore in Long Beach, died in 1939. Below, Bonnie Brae and Miramar via Google maps’ street view. Email me


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Nuestro Pueblo

Posted on July 25, 2008 by lmharnisch

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‘Discovering’ Chavez Ravine

Posted on July 25, 2008 by lmharnisch




1958_0725_cobbBy Keith Thursby
Times staff writer

The Times published a tidbit about the Hollywood Stars and their owner, Bob Cobb, that made me go looking deeper for more details.

Jeane Hoffman reported that Cobb "discovered" Chavez Ravine as a potential home for a baseball team and in 1954 proposed building a stadium and leasing it back to the city for $1 a year. Hoffman said the plan didn’t work because it was for minor league baseball and Cobb was just a little ahead of his time.

The Dodgers’ plans to build a stadium were still on hold at this point in 1958 after a Superior Court judge ruled the contract between the team and the city was invalid. But what of Cobbs’ idea?

I found a Times story from Dec. 17, 1954, in which Yankees manager Casey Stengel, longtime baseball owner Bill Veeck and Cobb talked to a City Council committee about bringing big league baseball to Los Angeles. According to Paul Zimmerman’s story, the discussion focused on whether the city should expand Wrigley Field or build a ballpark in Chavez Ravine.

"No city in the United States can offer what Los Angeles does," Cobb said. "We need something new, something modern and a place to park 25,000 cars."

Cobb and his Hollywood Stars have long fascinated me. My mom grew up in Los Angeles and her family’s baseball allegiances were split down the middle between fans of the Stars and the Angels. Photos of Gilmore Field made the experience look glamorous and any search of Pacific Coast League games can find tales of wild fights and long doubleheaders. And Cobb was no ordinary owner, with his connection to the Brown Derby–and what other baseball owner had a salad named after him?

After the Dodgers decided to move to Los Angeles–moving the minor league Stars and Angels out of the Southland–Cobb remained civic minded. In searching the website walteromalley.com for any connections between the two owners, I stumbled on a 1957 Times story where Cobb came to O’Malley’s defense.

"I’m shocked at the unbelievable position in which Walter O’Malley finds himself," Cobb told The Times’ Hoffman. "We invited this man to Los Angeles. He didn’t solicit us."

Hoffman said Cobb’s plan for Chavez Ravine was ahead of his time. The 1957 story had another example. "But you can’t stop progress," he said. "We’re going to have not one but two major league clubs here within five years. Where? Well, this second club will settle in Orange County, probably Anaheim. That’s where the Hollywood Stars were going if the majors hadn’t come."

Too bad it didn’t work out. I can seem them now–the Hollywood Stars of Anaheim. Wonder how much they’d charge for a Cobb salad?

keith.thursby@latimes.com

 
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July 25, 1938

Posted on July 25, 2008 by lmharnisch




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oe Shaw resigns as personal secretary to his brother, Mayor Frank Shaw, and elopes to Reno with Buelah M. Fuller of the mayor’s secretarial staff. Curiously enough, Joe Shaw is identified as a lieutenant, which I haven’t encountered before. Perhaps it refers to his former rank in the Navy.

"I have never fully agreed with your expressed desire that I remain an attache of your office during the recent period when heaven and earth have been moved by political malcontents and enemies to find fault with you because of my presence on your staff," Joe Shaw wrote.

"For me to ask to be relieved of service under these conditions has been repugnant to both of us alike, for, whatever the personal desires might be in the premises, they would be distorted and misunderstood by political critics sadly lacking in their makeups any sense of American fair play.

"In spite of their slander, you have continued to repose confidence in me and I cannot adequately put in words what this loyalty has meant to me, especially because of our relationship and in the light of my unblemished record in the United States Navy for 25 years prior to becoming your secretary….

"It seems a curious commentary upon human nature that a small group of gossips would assume that they could convince any considerable proportion of the people of Los Angeles that a man trained as I had been for 25 years in the code of an officer of the United States Navy could be capable of the actions that have  been charged against me by innuendo.

"I now resume my status as a private citizen. As a private citizen I shall be at liberty to answer the slander that has been directed toward me."

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Woman, boy strangled

Posted on July 24, 2008 by lmharnisch
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Blind Tom dies

Posted on July 24, 2008 by lmharnisch
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 Dropcap_t_1938 he Daily Mirror overlooked the death of "Blind Tom" Wiggins, reported June 28, 1908. Blind Tom played the piano, but he was more than a pianist. He wrote music, but he was far more than a composer. Blind Tom was a sensation and a curiosity, a force of nature. I’m not even sure what term we would use for him today; perhaps "childlike genius" would be the most appropriate.

Whatever Blind Tom was, the piano was his connection to the world. According to accounts from the period, he could use the piano to reproduce any imaginable sound. He was apparently capable of mimicking performances of other pianists and seemingly never forgot anything — at least about music. 

And as you might expect, living in the 19th century, being African American and developmentally disabled, Blind Tom did not have an easy life.

Blind Tom performed in Los Angeles and Santa Ana several times and drew large crowds, according to The Times.  Above left, a program from one of his concerts.

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Warning: The "N-word" appears several times in his obituary, below. 

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Woman disappears

Posted on July 23, 2008 by lmharnisch

3714 W. Pico, via Google maps.
  July 23, 1958

uth lived in a room at the Shari Hotel, 3714 W. Pico, that she shared with a little dog and a couple of parakeets. The landlord realized she hadn’t been around for a few days, and when he checked on her, he found her pets were nearly dead.

But nothing was written about her until October, when he was finally caught. The Times said investigators searching her belongings learned that she had been a “wartime member of the WAF” and was originally from Plattsburgh, N.Y.* Apparently she worked as a stripper and a model, using the name Angela Rojas. The most important thing about Ruth was that unlike the other victims, she could disappear and no one would notice.

The only person The Times interviewed about her was someone who took her newspaper ads: “She was a seemingly clean-cut, nice kid who was anything but the kind of person you’d expect in that kind of business. She was reliable, the sort who always paid her bills on time.”

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* The Times gave Ruth’s age as 24 and California death records say she was born Dec. 19, 1933. If she had served in World War II she would have been much older. Possibly she served during the Korean War.
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Nuestro Pueblo

Posted on July 22, 2008 by lmharnisch




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ow this was truly a happy discovery: Someone turned two streetcars into a house. Alas, it’s not there anymore. I would love to know the story behind the home, I’m sure it’s an interesting one.

At left, an update on the campaign to recall Mayor Frank Shaw and federal charges are filed against Peter Pianezzi in the Les Bruneman killing.

Oh, and those $12 dresses at the Broadway? $171.59 USD 2007.

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And commuting was born

Posted on July 22, 2008 by lmharnisch


 
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Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Except this was published in The Times on July 1, 1901. Today, we shake our heads when we read about someone who works in Santa Monica or downtown Los Angeles and lives in the Inland Empire or the Antelope Valley or in South Orange County. But it’s no different than what people were doing more than a century ago. And we can’t blame the automobile in this era. It’s the streetcar system that allows people to live far from where they work.

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Spring Street revisited

Posted on July 22, 2008 by lmharnisch




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Photograph by Munsey Studios, winter 1900


Here’s another detail from the photo I wrote about yesterday. These people are on the sidewalk just to the left of the fellow sitting in the wagon.
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Here’s a closer look at the people on the sidewalk. It’s easy to make out the man’s watch chain. The young boy seems to have something pinned to his shirt and the woman appears to be looking directly at the photographer.

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What caught my eye were the signs, "Furnished Rooms," "Cut-Rate Cigar" and my favorite: "Platform Psychic, Independent [Illegible] and Trumpet Medium." I’m going to have to research trumpet mediums and see what they were. Hm. A Times editorial from April 18, 1902, refers to an "independent typewriter and trumpet medium." I wonder if it’s something like "independent writer." The Times editorial writers don’t seem to think much of the paranormal.

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Mystery photo

Posted on July 22, 2008 by lmharnisch
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Los Angeles Times file photo


Well, who is she?
  • Joan Davis? Alas, no.
  • Tempest Storm? I’m afraid not.
  • Lucille Ball? Sorry, no.
  • Hedy Lamarr? Alas, no.
  • Susan Hayward? I’m afraid not.
  • Paulette Goddard? Alas, no.
  • Martha Vickers? I"m afraid not.
  • Florence Rice or Madge Evans? Sorry, no.
  • Bette Davis? Sorry, no.
  • She is sort of a Lilli Palmer type. (Alexa Foreman). Yes, this is the former Mrs. Rex Harrison (one of them, anyway) in a 1937 photo. Congratulations!

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July 21, 1958

Posted on July 21, 2008 by lmharnisch
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Dropcap_r_ironworks_3 ather than even make an attempt to explain what’s going on in the Mideast in this period, I’ll defer to Robert G. Neumann, below. I can only echo what Hanson W. Baldwin said Feb. 21, 1958, when he referred to the  "military and political quicksand of the Middle East."

Here’s a quote from Neumann’s piece:

"… but all the other Arab countries, with the qualified exception of Lebanon, live under dictatorships, certainly Egypt above all others. Nor is democracy a meaningful concept among the Arabs."

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