Author: Nathan Marsak

The hallmark of the American Child after the war was the deep imprint left by consistent indulgence: we fought for the freedom of the planet, and having won, damned if I’m not going to put my kid in the center of it. With a big spotlight on ‘em. But raising whiny, self-absorbed children into a generation of mefirst malcontents is the least of our worries: let those characters sit up nights pecking through eBay, searching for their Rosebud-slash-Stony Smith Sky Commandos. Not every kid was as lucky as you, Chip.

Some kids had to get dropped off with Mrs. Billingsley. Some kids will grow up to buy rope and duct tape instead of vintage action figures.

While tempting to picture a suitably gabled Gothic affair, what was likely a simple shingled nursing home has fallen to the industrial age of metal spinning and deep drawing.

1947-Chinatown’s Keno and Pan had passed into history, as had Cornero’s fleet of floating vice. But it’s also pre-Vegas, before lo-ball Bell and pai-gow Gardena, and long before where the Morongo. What’s a boy with betitis to do?

Hey, says your buddy. Book joint out in City Terrace. Wire room and everything, whole system of runners, jobbies and sheeties. So you call a comeback to lay a trey to show parlay on a high-stepper. Beats having to actually go out to City Terrace-that place gives you the heebie-jeebies, what with all the signs in Yiddish and all.

Evidence of the area’s Hebraic genealogy is now gone, as is the upholstery shop. (Also removed is the Pacific Electric line a block north, replaced by the 10; the traincars once headed to the mighty PE rail yard, where today stands Cal State LA.) As for those who currently manage the area’s funtastic activity, the men who make up CT13 do not, lamentably, make book.

In the epic struggle between ex-jockeys and war widows, my money’s on the dame every time.

Here we see the moll buzzard-prone driveway that gave Ginerva the willies. And rightfully so. Hollywood is lousy with the also-rans.

And now, with Hollywood Park being demolished – the beautiful 1938 racetrack in Inglewood, child of Jack Warner – LA will be flooded with out-of-work jockeys, attacking war widows like so many flesh-eating zombies.

One hundred acres of Hollywood Park has already been subdivided into gated communities. And yes, they’re building the Wal-Mart. The other 140 acres will be ten-story parking garages and sprawl-malls and endless Tuskan Townehomes. The people of Inglewood sure know what’s good for them.

How many more have to die?

Ladies, get your guns.

After the war the homeowner was free to indulge that American mix of fantasy and modernity. For those unable or unwilling to relocate to new tracts out in the Valley, it was of course possible to remake your stodgy bungalow a la what you saw overseas – a Mansard roof is always nice, or perhaps something Japanesque. And then there was always stucco. Oh, how you could get stucco.

But for the folks along Harold Way, where stood sturdy structures of lathe and plaster, there would be few remaining Sundays replete with well-intentioned if ill-informed home repair. Rather, some suit at the County Regional Planning Commission drew a line across a map. That suit had a brother in the demo business and a cousin who rolled in connivance with the rights-of-way agents. From hell’s heart, the dagger of Imminent Domain stabbed at Harold.

Today, those old palms stand as a faint reminder of the homes that once stood behind them. Of course, the shadow of taking still falls over Los Angeles. Caltrans remains a higher-up in LA’s pantheon; someday they’ll take South Pasadena. LAUSD is the drunken Zeus of them all, conspiring in a shadowy cabal with developers and their minions to take your home or business next. You know, for kids. Just like freeways.

The Hier’s tale should serve to remind one and all that we are merely tenants here in Los Angeles; the Powers That Be our overbearing, morally suspect, property-destroying landlords.

Take a trek up to 2019 Avon (behind those trees at the upper right) and you’ll see, it’s a formidable plunge down the hill for ol’ Ghost Cab.

Accolades to Mrs. Plantz for removing siding from her house-nice to see the Fates lending a hand. Of course, that runaway dimbox could’ve been headed for Myron himself. (Or perhaps its intended target was a prescient Mrs. Plantz; hence her eliciting Myron.) Such notwithstanding, don’t forget: however and whenever you work on your home, there’s always a friendly yellow 1946 Pontiac coming to pitch in.

Cruise down Echo Park Ave. Descend along with the numbers and shine your tear-drop spot at addresses painted on the curb until you hit the 500 block- oh. Who put that there?

When our unknown driver swallowed his last, perhaps the final image burned on his retina was of spires atop once-stately Victorian homes, pointing heavenward from the unmovable earth of Bunker Hill.

Skyscrapers mark those mansion’s end; Mr. Anonymous’ end on Echo Park is paved and rushed over by endless commuters. Freeways divide and destroy neighborhoods: adjacent streets like Lucita and London were wiped away by the 101. A few blocks east were streets like Centennial and Custer, also obliterated, there by the 110.

A police pursuit with a violent end? Would have made for fine live news coverage. Oh, that KTLA had seen fit to purchase Sikorskys.

The house that Rice built. The house that logorrhea won. Despite her penchant for henpeckery, one has to wonder, was “Mr. Beat” Larry Lipton driven mad by the structure of her incessant motormouthing, as it spewed from her in a surreal and inordinately complex form? This is Craig Rice, after all. Her next husband she met while in the looney bin, so we figure he could take it.

Rice, who outsold Christie and the noir boys (and made the cover of Time in ’46) is largely forgotten today. Like so many words into the ether, the house has since disappeared, replaced by this piece of 1970s architectural fancy.