Month: December 2005

1753+1/2 West Berendo To-day

A decidedly post-1947 complex of late-fiftiesiana has replaced the Mills’ death apartment. Hail the authoritative and striking Berendo Vista! Certainly we must imagine suicides of only the finest and most modern order conduct themselves here.

Despite my love of the Mills’, after having blogged about nurses a scant two days ago, I was hoping Kim would go with this story:

-because I’d hate to see another nurse, of whom I love collectively, whose mints on the pillows of the ol’ Hotel du Crazy are always fresh, fall through the cracks of 21 December 1947. That a blarney-smooching nurselet shall hang from a kookootown window, turning herself that particular shade of necrophile grey, is to be forgotten on my watch? Think not, dear reader.

6608 Hollywood Boulevard To-day

Hey look, that’s one of the many Edward Sibbert-designed Kress department stores (this being from 1935, ogle those setbacks) on the right. That’s a 1928 JJ Newberry Company on the left.

Christmas shopping represents nothing more than a Consumer Confidence Index precisely mirrored against the Death of the Earth. When our last National Treasure, the choked and gasping American Landfill, dies via poison spilled from Christmas’ gaping chasm, we shall recall the time when the only terrors visited upon us were those involving popgun-wielding desperadi. As we suck in our final breath of outgassed CFCs we will beg for the Kress bandit’s bullet to put us out of our postmodern misery!

On behalf of the 1947project, I invite you to consume as hard as you can, while there is still time. Thank you for your attention.

The Noir Nurse

December 19, 1947
Los Angeles

Nurse Fay Young, 28, was dressed all in black when they found her in a cafe two blocks from her apartment at 826 W. Sixth Street–down to the .45 caliber Army automatic hidden in her purse.

Police were interested, because Fay matched the description of the woman who had just held up Stanley Brown, 1110 S. Lake Street, for $9 nearby. Would that she had walked to the cafe. It was her suspicious behavior in a cab that led driver Sam Wurtzel, 1163 S. Kingsley, to drop a dime on her. It seems she had been cradling the weapon in her lap and cooing to it, “This is my only friend, my best friend.”

Fay and her best friend are in police custody tonight. Neither is talking.

My Fay Young’s Little World

There is no profession more honorable than nursing, and I steadfastly believe all nurses give 110% to their craft. Such said, I’ve found nurses-having known an inordinate quantity for some reason-to be emotionally damaged sex addicts with rather pronounced substance abuse problems. Like yours truly. Which is why I like them so much, or at least that’s why I’ve known so many.

In any event, the Nurse: like the Cop, she spends her days with her head in the human toilet, seeing people only at their lowest ebb. Is it any wonder they garb themselves in black and take in a lonely GI ACP as their only friend?

Here’s where my new delightful intended Fay Young lived:

Note her small apartment building just there to the left of the Gates Hotel. Both of which are gone, having been replaced like so:

(Orient yourself in the two pix via Wurdeman & Becket’s 1946 Mobil Oil/General Petroleum bldng peeking from the corner.)

And where Fay boosted some schmendrik who so dearly deserved to be relieved of his nine dollars:

Relatedly, on a Los Angeles streetcorner I recently reacquainted myself with M—– R—–, former nursing student and former girlfriend of mine at that, who now panhandles to support her, uh, nursing habit.

The Case of the Walking Wristwatch

Hear this case recounted live on KPCC radio’s Pacific Drift L.A. noir episode.

December 18, 1947
Hollywood

Two years ago, Mrs. Mary Louise Loftus rented a room in her home at 6429 Primrose Avenue to a (seemingly) nice young man whose height and cherubic features earned him an occasional paycheck doubling for Orson Welles. John Abernathy made such a good impression on Mrs. Loftus that she entrusted him with taking a broken diamond- and sapphire-studded wristwatch down to the jewelers. And that was the last she saw of Abernathy until…

… driving near Sunset and Laurel Canyon Boulevards last night, Loftus thought she spotted Orson Welles standing on the corner. But everyone knew that Orson was in Rome making Black Magic and mourning his split from Rita Hayworth. Ergo, that had to be Abernathy taking his evening constitutional! The lady called the cops, who located Abernathy in his nearby apartment at 8117 Sunset and took the kid down to the Hollywood Jail. The charge: grand theft, wristwatch, for the missing bauble was valued at $750.

Hans’ Best Friend

December 17, 1947
Los Angeles

Hans S. Erlandsen, 48-year-old security guard, suffered an apparent heart attack today while driving and smashed into a telegraph pole at the used car lot at Santa Barbara and Vermont Avenues. Officers J.H. Turner and L.M Friday were called to the scene and tried to aid the stricken man, but his Doberman pinscher refused to let them anywhere near his master. After nearly half an hour, the dog quieted and permitted ambulance workers to attend Erlandsen, who was probably dead when his car left the road. According to his fishing license, the victim lived at 3980 S. Budlong.

The Case of the Killer Longshoreman

December 15, 1947
Los Angeles

Police are holding Rufus Avery, 47, on suspicion of murder and arson after discovering the longshoreman wearing scorched clothing in the aftermath of a fire at 10351 1/2 S. Hickory Street.

Mrs. Vera Dudley directed police to look at her former suitor, who had previously attempted to burn her house down, following the early morning blaze in which her mother Mrs. Minnie Dudley, 50, and children Lawrence, 8, Carol, 6, and Kenneth, 4, were killed.

Avery was taken into custody at his hotel room at 108 Palos Verdes Street, San Pedro. Vera Dudley was not at home at the time of the fire.

10351 1/2 South Hickory To-day

Longshoremen are best kept down on the, uh, longshore. They come inland, and trouble ensues.

But Longshoreman Rufus came up he did, just a few blocks from where Simon Rodia was toiling away on his towers, to set a house full of children (plus one old lady) ablaze.

Fifty-eight years later, and still no-one’s built there.

There are a number of lots empty in the neighborhood, not just ’65-era commercial blocks-come-parking lots, but vacant plots of residential, like this lot two doors down from Vera Dudley’s.

The work of longshoremen, no doubt.