November 17, 1907
Los Angeles
Mashers are at work across Los Angeles, although those at Levy’s Café certainly don’t have the cachet of a Caruso (or even of a Cazauran, I suspect) as reported on in Larry’s post below.
This time it was the work of ruffians, an all-too infrequently used word, which we at 1947project implore our readers to use at least thrice weekly henceforth.
In any course, Eugene Harrison, a “gentleman” by occupation, of 612 Figueroa Street, had taken his friends Mr. and Mrs. George Walters of 714 Figueroa, and one Miss Margaret de Baugh, a guest at the Hotel Ohio, 1104 East Seventh, off to Levy’s Café for some late-night comestibles and libations.
All was well until Harrison and Mr. Walters went off in search of a waiter so as to procure the group’s nightcaps, when in strolled a couple of rowdies. When Harrison and Walters returned they found their lady companions engaged in a struggle for some deep lip-lock with the burly intruders. Walters bravely ran off to find a policeman, whereas Harrison jumped upon the brutes, and by all accounts, put up a sturdy fight.
When Walters returned with a constable in tow, they found a supine Harrison, having received a broken nose and two black eyes for his trouble. The smooch-mad barbarians had fled.
The Walters’, and Harrison, recent and monied émigrés from Pittsburgh, are anxious to have the whole sordid affair hushed, but stated they were willing to testify against the mashers if the pair were ever arrested.
The former site of Levy’s Café now looks like this– 
….could this be an Edwardian-era building, remuddled into unrecognizability? Well, it’s late on a Friday night, or early on a Saturday morning, and I’m not about to go out investigating. But if it is an old building, I can conjecture with certitude that its interior no longer looks like this. 
