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.

September Serenade

September 12, 1947
Los Angeles

Finalized today was the divorce of one-time silent screen starlet and fruit company heiress Aileen Pringle, 46, and crime novelist James M. Cain, 55. The pair were wed three years ago in Santa Monica, but separated last year. In her complaint, Mrs. Pringle, who was formerly married to Jamaican aristocrat Charles McKenzie Pringle and romantically linked to H.L. Mencken, charged that Cain was a “moody, melancholy and grim” husband, who “built mental dungeons instead of castles in the air.” In a letter to Mencken in 1946, she quipped “If I had remained married to that psychotic Cain, I would be wearing a straight jacket instead of the New Look.”

Suggested reading: Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity, Mildred Pierce, and Selected Stories (Hardcover)

1947project’s Kim & Nathan on the BBC tonight

UPDATE:

RAVIN’ NATHAN ALERT: Hear the Podcast of the 1947project radio feature by Chris Vallance for BBC5

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You can tune into BBC 5’s bogging and podcasting show Up All Night this evening at 6:50PM PST to hear an audio tour of downtown Los Angeles that your cranky bloggers recently gave to visiting London journalist Chris Vallance. You can listen live here, or download for later podcasting from the station’s archive here.

Chris got a ton of our blathering on tape, so I can’t even tell you what topics will be covered, but Nathan was raving quite charmingly 90% of the time, so I reckon you will hear raving. Please check it out, and put any comments on the show in this post.

Tenants Say Power Cut Off To Evict Them

September 11, 1947
Los Angeles

Residents of the bungalow court apartments 8527-8531 West Third Street have filed a complaint with the City Attorney, claiming their landlord has cut off their electrical power in a bid to drive them out of their homes so he can rent them as business offices. For the past ten days, Dan Clough, Robert L. Springfels and Harry S. Bent have been living by candlelight and stocking their iceboxes with, well, ice.

James Hay, who lives uncomfortably close to his disgruntled tenants at 8517 West Third, previously attempted to raise their rents from $50 to $200 a month when the rent controlling Office of Price Administration (OPA) briefly ceased to exist last year. As soon as the new rent control went into effect this August, he served his tenants with eviction notices, and on August 30 turned off their power.

1947project & LA Time Machines invite you to Steak ‘N Stein

1947project and Los Angeles Time Machines invite you to join them on a voyage into the past. To a time when no one knew their cholesterol numbers, and rye was both a bread and a beverage. A time of girdles (and trusses), not of Pilates. A time of hair-dos, dancing shoes and carrying a dime in mad money. A time of fabulous independent restaurants run by well-dressed gentlemen who understood their customers’ needs and how to make every visit an occasion. Happily, we’re still in that time, and we’d like to share with you one of the region’s most extraordinary and little-known dining treasures.

Save the date: Saturday, September 17, 5pm.

The place: the lounge of Clearman’s Steak ‘N Stein Inn, 9545 E. Whittier Blvd. in Pico Rivera (3 blocks west of the 605).

The event: a gathering for fans and friends of the blog 1947project (https://1947project.blogspot.com) and the website Los Angeles Time Machines (https://www.latimemachines.com) to talk with others about historic LA crime, dining and culture.

We’ll start at 5pm with cocktails and conversation in the astonishing vintage 1946 lounge, a dim-lit symphony in shiny copper, stained glass and Adirondack chairs with arms wide enough for the fattest tumbler. Around 7, we’ll move on to dinner for those who wish to stay. Bring your appetite-and your wallet-as portions are huge but not cheap. Steak ‘N Stein is the first restaurant in the Clearman family chain, which also includes several North Woods Inns and Clearman’s Galley.

For more info about Steak ‘N Stein, including directions, see
https://www.clearmansrestaurants.com/steakandstein.html

For more info about this gathering, and to RSVP (not essential, but appreciated), contact Kim Cooper of 1947project, amscray@gmail.com.

Arrival of the Detroit-kies

September 10, 1947
Santa Monica

For nearly a week, a broken truck has been parked just off Wilshire Blvd. Inside it, always inside it, Mr. Samuel C. Pirkey and his five tots, ages 2 through 10.

The family came out from Detroit in their “covered wagon” in hopes of finding work and housing, but the truck broke down before they found either. Mom was able to get a temporary gig at a cannery in the Valley, leaving dad to putter with the truck and watch the kids all day. By night, they all cram into their wheeled studio apartment, and dream of the California paradise they imagined while on the road.

Oh, Mother!

September 9, 1947
Santa Monica

Three cars full of cops hid on the dark highway just outside of town, waiting for the trio who’d robbed a Ventura cafe of $26 earlier in the evening. Around midnight, the fly was snagged in one of the lawmens’ webs.

Pulled from the car was 14-year-old Mrs. Beverly Lynch, blonde-haired mother of a 2-year-old daughter and 7-month-old son, all residing at 723 1/2 W. 8th Street. Also her husband Robert David, 19, and their 20-year-old accomplice Leroy Ulrey, Jr. of 806 S. Westlake Ave.

It’s believed that in this as in four previous robberies in the Los Angeles area, the Lynches stayed in the car while Ulrey went inside and held up victims with a .22 caliber revolver. Wonder how much of the loot went to pay the babysitter?

Further reading: The Encyclopedia of Robberies, Heists, and Capers

Lucky Lady

September 8, 1947
Inglewood

Flora Killingsworth, 18, has only been waitressing for three days, but she’s already hit the food service jackpot when a customer put a hundred dollar bill down on her counter and told her to keep the change. His order: ham and eggs. Flora ran after the guy to see if he realized what a big bill he’d dropped, but he was nowhere to be found.

Officers said a man matching his description had been freely passing hundreds for small services in the Hermosa Beach area. There was, they hastened to add, no law against it.

The House of Bosko Goes Boom

September 7, 1947
Beverly Hills

A smoldering fire in the basement of a motion picture stock storage house burst into open flame yesterday, blasting out a fire door and injuring six men, among them city firemen. The blaze, beneath the Harman-Ising cartooning studio at 9713 Santa Monica Blvd., caused acculumated gasses to explode even as firefighters attempted to break inside to quash it.

The fire made multicolored smoke to pour from the building’s vents, causing traffic policeman C.J. Verhaar to quip it was the first Technicolor fire he’d ever witnessed.

Firemen wore gas masks as they fought the acrid flames.

Meanwhile, out on the sidewalk, displaced alterations gal Mrs. Natalie Nikitin calmly mended some trousers, which she said she had promised to a nice man whose name she did not know.

Smoke and water damage to the first floor shops has yet to be calculated, but appears extensive.

Recommended cartoon viewing: Uncensored Bosko Vol. 1

No deposit, no return

September 6, 1947
El Monte

Bicycling home with a basket full of pop, 10-year-old David Jensen wiped out in front of 3353 S. Double Drive, a couple blocks from his home at #3502. The bottles broke in the fall, and punctured David’s belly, prompting Sheriff’s deputies to drive him to Alhambra Hospital for an emergency operation. The boy is in satisfactory, but serious, condition at press time.

Further research: Petretti’s Soda Pop Collectibles Price Guide: The Encyclopedia of Soda-Pop Collectibles

It’s really hard to quit

September 5, 1947
East Los Angeles

It was midnight when 24-year-old Richard Durant of 340 1/2 N. Kern Street sent wife Mary, 25, out for cigarettes. When she returned, she found him making love to her younger sister, Marjorie. Afraid of what she might do, Mary called the sheriffs. And waited. Waited…

And after a while, she got out an icepick and stabbed Richard just beside the heart. So Richard spent the rest of the night in General Hospital and Mary in custody, while the luckless Marjorie watched the Durants’ four kids.

When Richard realized his wife was in stir, he checked himself out against doctors’ orders and went to the Sheriff’s Station, where he told officers he didn’t intend to file charges. And the Tiger Lady wants her man back, so it seems like it’s going to be all sunshine back on Kern Street, at least for the moment.