Author: Nathan Marsak

Christ in the desert never had such a forbidding landscape. Here we are spending all this money on schools, and we can’t even afford some decent plantings for wandering kids to sleep in. Giant rocks and cacti? Nice. Let’s plant some damn cushy ivy! It’s for the kids! If you hate ivy, YOU HATE CHILDREN!!!

The aforementioned liquor store may have been located in the brick building on the right. As for Gilroy Avenue, that disappeared completely. The child-beating evil that was Mrs. Pearl Cooke evidently sucked the whole street into Hell.

I couldn’t go shoot the Melody Lane building now. It’s a tough part of the world to visit. Can’t bear the destruction of Clements’ Mullen & Bluett. The loftivization of Desmond’s. The open pit that is Coulter’s.

Developers in cahoots with the Miracle Mile Association delight in tearing down original Modern strutures and replacing them with faux-Miami-Deco. What gives?

A shot of the Mile in happier times, despite the flames that lay in wait for the Melody Lane.

504 is pretty well off the street; Betty must have assumed she was beyond the prying eyes of the clap-shoulders. A gal & her pal “shooting fluid” in the wee hours with four men twice their age? Couldn’t it have been one of the wild Hollywood insulin parties so whispered about? Those diabetics and their hysteria.

Betty Thomas’ last known address. Her murphy bed and corner sink soon replaced by spa tub and skylight. Stuff that, as the slums of the future, won’t last nearly as long.

The house where Guillermina met her end:

I know what you’re saying. At least her untimely demise spared an unborn child from ever having to see this fake brick.

The streetcar line no longer goes to a church on Vermont and Adams. Please attempt penance, and suicide, elsewhere.

504 South Hill was two doors down, on the right side of the picture, here, ca. 1965.

This funny little building was the oldest remaining structure fronting Pershing Square when it was unceremoniously demolished. It’s too bad — it’s a first-rate little commercial block with a sorta restrained but sexy Jugendstijl air.

Pershing Square was sexy once, too. In 1947 it had a grand fountain and unbelievably lush vegetation and Communists bickering with one another. Sure, all that got torn out in the 1950s, but at least they replanted foliage and laid pathways. Thanks to Ricardo Legoretta and Laurie Olin, the late-80s cultural terrorists, Pershing Square is now justifiably known as the Worst Public Space in America.

A guard’s gate marks the entrance to the 400 block of South Boylston. Where once there stood an apartment building, one can now, should they be so inclined, shoot a recreation of the shooting on this soundstage.

Los Angeles Center Studios demo’d the block and rebuilt, even taking over the amazing diamond-shaped 1958 Union Oil Center by Pereira & Luckman seen in the background. Bill and Chuck gazed upon on the remnants of 1947 Los Angeles and envisioned glistening new world of aluminum louvers, glass walls and gleaming terrazzo lobbies. Get thee inside and bask in the Future!

-- while Cafe Society, former hotbed of reefer-related vice, stands today, as you might imagine, as a cornerstone of Azteca Taekwondo.

Apologies for failing to get a proper shot of the tastefully furnished apartment where Wiggins opened up on teen wifey with his .38; you can see the window peeking out at the far left. Mrs. Blattenberg is long gone — locals eyed me suspiciously as I snapped from my idling vehicle. Their nods and glances indicated that they were intending to question me intimately as to my purpose, so I waved like Roosevelt and ambled away.

Another shingled Craftsman home sprayed with pink stucco, its double-hung windows replaced with aluminum sliders. Purty gate, too. Special level of hell for all of them.

Having been to 39th and Norton more times than I care to remember, may I direct you here:

https://www.bethshort.com/articles/

3/24/05 UPDATED POST INCORPORATING COMMENTS

Larry notes: Hi. Despite what you read everywhere, Elizabeth Short wasn’t found at 39th and Norton Avenue. She was found between 39th and Coliseum, about roughly the midpoint of the block.

To which Nathan replies: Larry is correct. Here’s a shot looking north on Norton, with Coliseum in the distance. I would posit that the action is a bit closer to 39th than halfway up the block, but if so, not by much–Norton is a long block here. One source has her at “54 feet north of the fire hydrant at mid-block” so there you go.

While off-topic for LA47, I still have to ask this, as I’m sure one of you out there knows… Short was bagged in Santa Barbara in ’43 (whence came that famous photo, and her post-murder ID) for underage drinking, and what I want to know is, where was she popped?