Author: Kim Cooper

The Better Business Bureau has issued a public service warning about three bold swindles perpetrated against city residents in the past week.

BEWARE: the door-to-door baby shoe bronzer, who will disappear with mama’s deposit and baby’s footwear, never to be seen again…

DON’T PAY: the frantic “exterminator” who rushes into a business with a sack of “the DDT the boss ordered,” demands prompt payment, and flees, leaving his hapless victim with a sack of ordinary flour…

AND TURN AWAY: the seller of off-brand vacuum cleaners, which are often not just unfamilar, but second-hand and overpriced.

As one of three (not two) hosts of the 1947project Crime Bus Tour savaged by Jon Hartmere in your pages recently, I’d like to ask why he felt compelled to so thoroughly fictionalize his experience while maintaining the pretense of reportage? The tour guides were myself (Kim Cooper), Nathan Marsak and Larry Harnisch, and we have the reasonable expectation that anyone who rides along on our tour with the intent of reporting on it would call us by name, and not conflate the three of us into “Ned and Jane.” The L.A. Times, Fox News and CBS News reporters on the bus all followed that basic journalistic rule.

Perhaps his last minute gift of the seat (on the weekend’s second sold-out bus) precluded his doing any research. Had he made a cursory web search, he would have discovered that the Crime Bus was developed by the bloggers at 1947project, a popular website that revives forgotten L.A. crimes of that year and pays visits to their scenes today, with side trips into subjects of historic preservation, local weirdness and yes, neon signage. These subjects are all familiar to and enjoyed by our readers, and the other passengers on Jon’s bus are already clamoring to attend the next tour.

The 1947project Crime Bus Tour exists for a very different audience than your reporter. Our riders know who James Ellroy is, are excited to explore unfamiliar neighborhoods, and could care less about visiting a recent, familiar crime scene like O.J. Simpson’s or the Menendez Brothers’. We wish he had asked a few questions before accepting the extra seat his friends offered, because there were a dozen people on the waiting list who would have loved to have his spot.

Tearing down Bixel Street towards Seventh came death in the shape of two teenage boys in a Jeep. Richard McCrary, 16, 1317 Connecticut Street, missed his turn and careened into a fire hydrant, then two pedestrians. Water gushed out over Cornelius Enright, 50, of 121 Manhattan Place and Camille Tendeza, 61.

Enright died at the scene, while Camille was rushed to Georgia Street Receiving Hospital in critical condition with head injuries and possible chest fractures. McCrary and his passenger, 15-year-old Fred Landerstein of 1260 Miramar Street, were unhurt.

Rare WW2 Jeep Photo Archive, 1940-1945

This is the scenario played out in the third week of marriage by tennis star Tom Falkenburg and his 21-year-old model bride, Bernice Allred Falkenberg, in their home at 523 N. Cahuenga. BTW, fellas, it’s a big red flag when your sweetie doesn’t just try to poison herself, but administers her own antidote!

Watch Tom’s sister Jinx with Rita Hayworth in Cover Girl.

If ConocoPhillips does not demonstrate greater respect for the the history and goodwill associated with the blue and orange 76 ball, we will be taking our business to other gas sellers. This petition is being launched on January 31, six days after ConocoPhillips posted fourth quarterly earnings of $3.7 Billion, and we call for a sincere response to our concerns before the announcement of their next second quarterly earnings.

To sign the petition, click here.
To buy various antenna balls (but not for Union 76), click here.
or get vintage 76 antenna balls here.

Gentle readers,

In the excitement of leading the Crime Bus tour, we inadvertently neglected to blog one of the stories that, when first reading the 1947 papers with an eye to writing a book ten years ago, made it obvious that I’d stumbled onto a very interesting shadow L.A. And so we bring you, twelve days late, The Hotfoot That Slipped Through The Cracks.

Thomas Gant, 40, and Thurman Dawson, 27, were prank pals–acquaintances who took great pleasure in torturing each other with increasingly annoying shenanigans. For the past week their activities had been constant and aggressive, with the agonies of the hotfoot featuring prominently in each man’s arsenal.

And so might it have continued, until all the shoes both owned were singed, but still wearable, had Dawson not been inspired to add a squirt of lighter fluid to yesterday’s performance. Gant said, “Enough already” (after he shrieked like a girl), and sought the aid of the homicide cops near City Hall. They looked at his scorched shoe, laughed and wished him well in his endeavors.

Furious, Gant strode back to the hotel where he and Dawson lived, at 236 E. Second Street, and retrieved a gun. From there, he went to the cafe at 245 E. Second and found Dawson at his afternoon meal. Gant shot Dawson in the gut, killing him, and awaited the arrival of the homicide cops, who obliged by taking him more seriously this time around.