July 30, 1907
Avalon, Catalina Island
Who owns the sea, the islands and their calm coves? Is it god, or man who lays claim upon places of value in the world?
On Santa Catalina Island, a consortium run by the Banning family has seized control of most of the landable sections of the Avalon cove, and demands a 12 1/2% cut of all ship’s profits for the privilege of using the wharves. Most of the island’s boatmen agreed to pony up for the Santa Catalina Island Company surcharge, but a few rebelious sorts sniffed they’d find their own landings, thankyouverymuch.
Pity the unfortunate passengers who go out fishing with these rebels, quite unaware that permission to land on dry wood does not come with the price of passage! At Avalon today, an independent boatman named "Chappie" returned with a party of four and sought to land at the wharf, as a lady was aboard. He got into a physical altercation with an officer of the SCIC, and clouted the man with his gaff hook, then was swatted with a billyclub and knocked unconscious for ten minutes.
The lady was allowed to disembark onto the wharf, where is was discovered she had suffered a nasty wound straight through the web of her hand, from someone’s swinging blade unseen. The punchy "Chappie" meanwhile put his male passengers ashore along the beach, a most ignoble end to a day’s sport fishing.
She was out carousing, divorced, jobless, though with, I’d wager, a mind still keen and ticking, before she was found nearly nude, beaten, and dragged for some way, near the Ducommun Street railroad right-of-way, here: 
Evelyn, homeless, now has a homeless encampment on her site. So, then there’s this Tiernan character. 
He’s twelve years Evelyn’s junior. A former employee of the Angelus Bowling and Billiard Recreation Center, 
which is now a parking lot: 
(for more on prewar bowling alleys, go 
(Sanwa Bank Plaza, AC Martin, 1990) Never did find a vintage image of the Albany; some flavor of the wiped-out neighborhood–one block west: 
And one block east: 
But why the hotel room? We don’t know. Tiernan didn’t live at the Albany. He lived at the Armondale, at 728 South Flower. 
Its site today: 
First off, what, already, is up with the Armondale Hotel? It has that “built on Indian burial ground” cachet that money can’t buy. Perhaps it was simply built over one of those giant magnets. The kind that attract ne’er-do-wells. The place had trouble attached from the get-go. Dale Carleton, developer and proprietor of the spanking-new 1914 Armondale, is sued by wifey Marie for a sizable share of his $250,000 net worth. Mrs. Carleton names a Ms. Helen Williams–Armondale telephone girl whose duties apparently went above and beyond the working of switchboard–as correspondent. 1919. Wilbert Garrison, 28, son of a wealthy publisher in New York, drove across country with a buddy and they holed up in the Armondale. A week later Wilbert left in his room his money, valuables, and a note indicating that he did not want to be a burden on others, and as such was ending his life. Despite the best efforts of the Nick Harris detective agency (who calls the cops in 1919), Wilbert is never found. 1930. Mrs. Louis Valenzuella, 40, ex-wife of Deputy Sheriff Valenzuella, is found dead in the Armondale of a suspected drug overdose. 1939. Washed-up boxer Louis Menney, 22, Armondale resident, is tackled by a priest after he sexually assaulted a 62 year-old woman in a church at 9th (now James M. Woods) and Green. Turns out he’d–moletsed? raped?–the papers will only mention “morals offenses”–a nine year-old in the church as well. Moreover, he’d done his business with a six year-old girl on the corner of 11th (now Chick Hearn) and Georgia, and also kidnapped and robbed an Agnes M—– and sexually assaulted a Margaret L—– in a church on West Adams; since the kidnapping charge is death penalty territory, we can only hope the Armondale’s most famous resident ended up in the proper hands. 
1948. Francis Sylvester, of the Armondale, works across the street at the Western Union at 741 South Flower. Sylvester wires untold sums in care of himself to small outlying towns, where there are no Western Union offices, and destroys the records of the transactions. And 1965. Percy Hatch, 65, who had been in the hotel since 1957, started talking crazy-talk. As in, a loggorhea of obscenities for two straight weeks. Behind the Armondale registration desk was manager Nancy Furlow, 62, who, finally fed up with her repeated warnings, reached for the phone, and was shot dead by Hatch with one bullet. Hatch therewith turned the gun on himself. Shortly thereafter the Armondale was felled and a rather ill-advised Broadway was built on the site. Now a Macy’s, it resembles a Dawn mall on a slow day. For more on this exercise in brown, please go