Author: Kim Cooper

Kim Cooper is the creator of 1947project, the crime-a-day time travel blog that spawned Esotouric’s popular crime bus tours, including The Real Black Dahlia. She is the author of The Kept Girl, the acclaimed historical mystery starring the young Raymond Chandler and the real-life Philip Marlowe, and of The Raymond Chandler Map of Los Angeles. With husband Richard Schave, Kim curates the Salons and forensic science seminars of LAVA- The Los Angeles Visionaries Association. When the third generation Angeleno isn’t combing old newspapers for forgotten scandals, she is a passionate advocate for historic preservation of signage, vernacular architecture and writer’s homes. Kim was for many years the editrix of Scram, a journal of unpopular culture. Her books include Fall in Love For Life, Bubblegum Music is the Naked Truth, Lost in the Grooves and an oral history of Neutral Milk Hotel.

Rolling Stone lauds 1947project

Rolling Stone magazine, in a current feature on the growing influence of true crime blogs on the mainstream media, has named 1947project as one of the best stops on the Web. Making special note of the site’s year-long exploration of forgotten 1940s crimes, RS raves: "If you’re a fan of Raymond Chandler or Chinatown, this L.A.-noir site goes deep into the year 1947 and the murder of the Black Dahlia, positing the homicide as one of the most pivotal events in the city’s history.

Also singled out for notice in "Cyber Cops: Inside the frightening world of the Web’s original crime blogger" are Trench Reynolds of thetrenchcoat.com, Steve Huff of crimeblog.us, Mark Gribben of markgribben.com and the dark-side-of-myspace site mycrimespace.com.

We’re pleased to be in such good company, and welcome RS readers to explore our current site, a day-by-day accounting of L.A. in the year 1907, as well as our prior incarnation on blogger, where the subject was the 1947 of Beth Short, Bugsy Siegel and many other fascinating, forgotten figures. FYI, we also lead regular Crime Bus tours to scenes of mayhem and weirdness all around L.A., and hope local readers will subscribe to our email list to be kept informed of upcoming events, like this Saturday’s Pasadena Confidential tour, Weird West Adams on 12/16 and the 60th anniversary Real Black Dahlia tour on 1/13/07.

CourtTV rides the Crime Bus

Lisa Sweetingham of CourtTV rode the Halloween Horrors Crime Bus, and reports in with a charming little feature she calls "The bus ride to hell, and back."

LOS ANGELES — "Ladies and gentlemen, this tour should not be taken by anyone with a heart condition … We recommend you leave the bus immediately." A tour guide makes the announcement as the doors slam shut on our filled-to-capacity 56-seat cruising bus. We are rolling into Los Angeles noir, embarking on an exhaustive five-hour tour of grisly crime scenes and lesser Halloween hijinks from the ’20s to the ’50s.

The 1947project’s inaugural Halloween Horrors crime bus tour is touted as a BYOBB (Bring Your Own Barf Bag) event. And no children are allowed.

So why is there a clown breathing down my neck?

Crimebo the crime clown (aka Michael Perrick) bares his teeth and purrs in a gravelly voice as he walks down the aisle with a cauldron full of cheap candy, some shaped like eyeballs. "Something sticky?" he offers.

He pops a balloon animal and quips, "These things just keep committing suicide."

Kindly click to read on.

The Crime Bus Lurches Out of the Fog

Join us, gentle rider, on the Crime Bus! We’re taking a break from our regularly scheduled Crime Bus touring in early 2006 to develop some new and very wild rides, but private tours can still be booked during this time. Typically, public tours run on both days of a weekend about once a month, and prospective passengers can subscribe to our email list– just click the link at right to be kept informed of all the details. Or watch this site for announcements.

Tours include… THE REAL BLACK DAHLIA… PASADENA CONFIDENTIAL… WEIRD WEST ADAMS… NIGHTMARES OF BUNKER HILL… HALLOWEEN HORRORS… with more to come.

The Oddest, Oldest Fellow

Carl Schmidt

October 9, 1907
Los Angeles

The nation’s most senior Odd Fellow, Carl Schmidt of 2729 West Pico Street, died at aged 95, after a brief illness. Schmidt was born in Germany in 1812, and  emigrated to Philadelphia at 18, where he was known as a locksmith of great facility. He joined the Odd Fellow’s Lodge No. 12 at 21, and in 1852 moved with his wife Joanna to Madison, Wisconsin, then a tiny trading post, where he co-founded Lodge No. 17. He maintained active memberhip in this lodge until his passing.

Joanna Schmidt died in 1900, and the following year Carl moved to Los Angeles to live with their daughter, Mrs. Gus Kleaman. A week before his death, Schmidt gained the distinction of being the oldest person to spend an hour under anesthesia, as surgeons attempted to repair a rupture he had suffered at age 8, which had lain fallow for eight decades before becoming an irritation. He appeared to rally from his surgery, but complications set in, and he died at home surrounded by his family. The funeral was held at his bedside, under the auspices of the Odd Fellows.

About the upcoming Halloween Horrors tour

LOS ANGELES- On Saturday October 21, with a repeat 10/22, the 1947project debuts Halloween Horrors, its most disturbing Crime Bus tour yet. This five-hour jaunt spans downtown, Hollywood, Echo Park and the Eastern San Fernando Valley while offering a grimly hilarious look at more than two dozen peculiar and long-forgotten crimes, including several with a Halloween theme. Vintage crime scene photos are featured, with passengers urged to BYOBB (bring your own barf bag), always a smart idea when Crimebo the Crime Clown is in attendance.
 
Following September’s three sold-out Real Black Dahlia tours, hosts Kim Cooper and Nathan Marsak have dug into the archives to uncover such terrible tales as the lady dope dealer left with her eyes gouged out on Echo Park’s Lovers’ Lane, the one-time silent screen star who died alone and was gnawed on by her doggy, the trick or treat murder of the handsome hairstylist, the unsolved Hollywood Boulevard "ape man" candy clerk slaying, an astrologer and a palm reader who didn’t foresee being killed by the women they loved, Silver Lake’s exploding gun shop, the poignant death of the bravest dog in Hollywood, plus visits to Bela Lugosi’s home, Crimebo’s tales of Halloween celebrations gone terribly wrong and history of holiday pranks in Los Angeles, plus light-hearted oddities like the mysterious midnight disappearance of thousands of cucumbers from a Hollywood farm.

Crime Bus passengers will make a pit stop at Tai Kim’s East Hollywood Scoops gelato shop, nicknamed Spoocs for the day and featuring a selection of scary Halloween-themed frozen treats like Bloody Mary Gelato, Black Current and Blueberry Sorbet, Kabocha (Japanese pumpkin) and more.
 
1947project has quickly built a reputation for the most eclectic and well researched crime history tours in the Southland, with its popular Black Dahlia, Pasadena Confidential and Nightmares of Bunker Hill Tours, and feature stories in The Los Angeles Times, Pasadena Weekly (cover story), LA Alternative Press (cover story), BBC News, Pasadena Star-News, KNX News Radio and a "best of LA" nod from Los Angeles Magazine.

Passengers on this eye-opening, funny and informative tour will leave with a new understanding of Halloween in old Los Angeles, and the promise of nightmares. It is highly recommended for natives and newcomers, crime and history buffs and anyone who likes to seek out the unexpected.

For more info, or to reserve your seat, drop us a line. 

And in Black Dahlia news…

You may think you’re up on your Black Dahlia lore, but you might have missed two recent books that take very different approaches to the case. First, there’s the memoir from Jacque Daniel, "The Curse of the Black Dahlia." Daniel was daughter and secretary to police psychiatrist Paul de River, whose involvement in the case was tinged with controversy. See her site for ordering info and her rebuttal of the claims in Donald Wolfe’s recent, worthless contribution to the genre.

Then there’s "Exquisite Corpse" by Mark Nelson and Sarah Hudson Bayliss, which takes as gospel the Steve Hodel theory of mutilation murder as homage a l’art moderne, and digs into the notion of the posing and abuses of Beth Short’s body as a Surrealist art piece. While not quite as loopy as Gareth Penn’s "Times 17" (Zodiac Killer as earthworks artist), it does sound rather outré.

Medium Image

A Tasty Tide

September 22, 1907
Venice 

Someone–perhaps a drunken and disgruntled cook who was fired last night–snuck into the larder of the Ship Hotel around midnight and brought forth a great quantity of luxury foodstuffs, which were cast into the surf. It was no easy job. Three whole loins of beef, 200 pounds in weight, 250 pounds of clams and a number of oysters from eastern climes were among the waste found on the sand with dawn’s light.

The Real Black Dahlia Tour pix

Courtesy of David Markland, here are some photos from Sunday’s sold out Real Black Dahlia Crime Bus Tour.

Above, hosts Kim Cooper and Nathan Marsak pose for a candid snap with gelato master Tai Kim, who created a dozen Black Dahlia-inspired flavors to honor murder victim Elizabeth Short. (The previous day, Brad Pitt came in to sample the Black Dahlia flavors while his lady friend waited in the car.  Brad’s picks? Vanilla and Whiskey for him, White Chocolate Cranberry Swirl for her. Miss Short would have been delighted.)

The Real Black Dahlia Tour Rolls on 9/23 with the American Cinematheque