1947-Chinatown’s Keno and Pan had passed into history, as had Cornero’s fleet of floating vice. But it’s also pre-Vegas, before lo-ball Bell and pai-gow Gardena, and long before where the Morongo. What’s a boy with betitis to do?
Hey, says your buddy. Book joint out in City Terrace. Wire room and everything, whole system of runners, jobbies and sheeties. So you call a comeback to lay a trey to show parlay on a high-stepper. Beats having to actually go out to City Terrace-that place gives you the heebie-jeebies, what with all the signs in Yiddish and all.
Evidence of the area’s Hebraic genealogy is now gone, as is the upholstery shop. (Also removed is the Pacific Electric line a block north, replaced by the 10; the traincars once headed to the mighty PE rail yard, where today stands Cal State LA.) As for those who currently manage the area’s funtastic activity, the men who make up CT13 do not, lamentably, make book.
