Category: downtown

The Changing Face of the City

Jan. 17, 1907
Los Angeles

On a trip from Utah to visit his daughter, H.E. Gibson keeps getting lost as he wanders around Los Angeles. No, it’s not because Gibson is 80, for his mind is still sharp. It’s because he hasn’t been back since 1848 and things have changed just a bit.

Even the old familiar landmark of Ft. Hill is covered with homes, he says. About the only spot in town he recognizes is the Plaza, where he keeps returning to get his bearings.

Gibson came to California with the “Flash Emigrant Colony” to establish Mormon settlements. The group couldn’t raise the money to buy Rancho Cucamonga, so they bought a parcel of land in San Bernardino, The Times says.

Land was “dirt cheap” in 1848, with entire blocks selling for $500 to $1,000, ($9,910.34-$19,820.69 USD 2005), Gibson said. But instead of becoming a real estate speculator, he left for Utah to bring the news (published in a New York newspaper that came around the Horn) proclaiming that Brigham Young had been appointed governor of the Utah Territory.

Note: Today presented a difficult decision, but I passed on some incredibly offensive caricatures of an African American who had been arrested, accompanied by quotes in dialect: “Ah dunno nothin’ about no stolen chickens” indeed.

Lmharnisch.com
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Find The Dahlia, Win A Crime Bus Ticket

The 60th Anniversary Lost Weekend of the Black Dahlia is nearly upon us, and we have two new events to announce.

On Friday, January 12, from 6-9pm, a woman dressed as the Black Dahlia will glide eerily along Hollywood Boulevard between Argyle and Cherokee, the old stomping grounds of Elizabeth Short. Perhaps she will be found in the Frolic Room or Pig and Whistle, or just cruising the boulevard. This spectral figure carries a basket of flowers, and will give one to anyone who calls her by her true name, Elizabeth. One of these lucky flowers is valid as one free ticket on the Sunday morning January 14 Real Black Dahlia Crime Bus Tour, or for half off one seat on the VIP midnight tour and film premiere on Tuesday January 16.

And on Thursday, January 11 at 9pm, a candlelit vigil will leave Regent Galleries, 446-450 South Main Street downtown, site of the Black Dahlia-inspired art exhibition "Her Name Was Elizabeth." Those wishing to show their respect for Elizabeth Short and other souls lost to violence will walk from Main Street to the Biltmore Hotel, the last place she was seen alive, then continue south for a few blocks along the route that police believe she took before being abducted. The vigil will be led by Kim Cooper and Nathan Marsak, hosts of 1947project’s Real Black Dahlia Crime Bus Tour, and true facts and myths of the case will be shared along the way. The group
will then return to Regent Galleries for a 10:30pm screening of Ramzi Abed’s "Black Dahlia Movie."

The Lost Weekend is six days of art exhibitions, readings, film screenings, live cabaret and Crime Bus tours celebrating the life, myth and legend of Elizabeth Short, The Black Dahlia. For a full schedule, visit https://myspace.com/thelostweekendlosangeles

We have some openings on the Saturday 1/13 Real Black Dahlia tour. To reserve your seat on Saturday, Sunday 1/14 or the Tuesday 1/16 VIP night, please visit https://www.dumplinglab.com/crimebus

Good Doggie! Fight the Power!

January 4, 1907
Los Angeles

Patrolman Sanders arrived at 2521 West Temple Street today to investigate complaints that a bull terrier had been a naughty dog.  doggie

He was met at the house by a woman who insisted the dog was quite friendly and most quiet.  “I’ll show you,” said the woman, who opened the door…and with one bound the pooch leapt upon the patrolman, tearing his coat sleeve and trouser leg.  When Sanders drew his revolver, the fearless canine took the muzzle in his mouth and began a protracted game of tug o’ war with the interloper.

Sanders kicked the dog away, and the woman gathered the pup up in her arms and bore him away, weeping hysterically, crying “I’ll have you fired from the force you brute!”  To which the tattered Sanders replied “Go ahead—do anything but please don’t let that dog out again!”

terrier1

terrier2

The Times does not report on any further outcome of this encounter. 
 

More Mashers

November 17, 1907mashers
Los Angeles

 
levy'sMashers are at work across Los Angeles, although those at Levy’s Café certainly don’t have the cachet of a Caruso (or even of a Cazauran, I suspect) as reported on in Larry’s post below.

This time it was the work of ruffians, an all-too infrequently used word, which we at 1947project implore our readers to use at least thrice weekly henceforth. 

In any course, Eugene Harrison, a “gentleman” by occupation, of 612 Figueroa Street, had taken his friends Mr. and Mrs. George Walters of 714 Figueroa, and one Miss Margaret de Baugh, a guest at the Hotel Ohio, 1104 East Seventh, off to Levy’s Café for some late-night comestibles and libations.

All was well until Harrison and Mr. Walters went off in search of a waiter so as to procure the group’s nightcaps, when in strolled a couple of rowdies.  When Harrison and Walters returned they found their lady companions engaged in a struggle for some deep lip-lock with the burly intruders.  Walters bravely ran off to find a policeman, whereas Harrison jumped upon the brutes, and by all accounts, put up a sturdy fight.

When Walters returned with a constable in tow, they found a supine Harrison, having received a broken nose and two black eyes for his trouble.  The smooch-mad barbarians had fled.

The Walters’, and Harrison, recent and monied émigrés from Pittsburgh, are anxious to have the whole sordid affair hushed, but stated they were willing to testify against the mashers if the pair were ever arrested. 

The former site of Levy’s Café now looks like this– overhead

 

….could this be an Edwardian-era building, remuddled into unrecognizability?  Well, it’s late on a Friday night, or early on a Saturday morning, and I’m not about to go out investigating.  But if it is an old building, I can conjecture with certitude that its interior no longer looks like this. levysinterior

Imagining the Future


Nov. 15, 1907
Los Angeles

Architect Charles Mulford Robinson has drafted a proposal for downtown Los Angeles that is stunning in its ambition. One portion calls for broad boulevard leading from a proposed Union Station at Central and 5th Street toward Grand, ending at a new public library and art gallery. The other, equally elaborate, calls for a grouping of civic buildings and terraced gardens around North Spring Street, including a new City Hall.

A Many Splendored Thing

hypnotized?
November 6, 1907
Los Angeles

When Mrs. Jenevieve Van Lakum, a well-to-do and refined 35 year-old widow from Manitou, Colorado checked into an apartment at 803 East Fifth Street with her four children and a black gentleman, it was assumed by the proprietor that the gentleman was her porter.

But a certain Patrolman C. H. Jones espied Jenevieve and the black gentleman about town, and made an investigation.  It came to light that the man, William Seay, was occupying the same apartment.  

Humane Officer Reynolds took the children into custody and the two adults face arrest.

After Mrs. Van Lakum was taken to Central Station and interrogated, she broke down and admitted that she loved the man, and “could not explain her affection for the negro.”  They came from the east to Los Angeles with the express purpose of becoming husband and wife, but the LA Powers That Be put the kibosh on that.  Police suspected that Seay held some “uncanny” influence over her, but Jeneivieve denied that she had been hypnotized.  Seay further stated that he maintained his relations with her only for the money she gave him, which to this point had amounted to about $500 ($10,261 USD 2005).

disappearedPostscript – on November 10, “Humane Officer” Reynolds confessed that the sextet had given him the slip.  After having secured Seay’s promise to stay away from the woman, Reynolds allowed Van Lakum to take the children in search of a cottage to rent—and disappeared.  

Says Reynolds:  “I believe that she has found a cottage somewhere in the suburbs and is living quietly.  Whether the negro visits her or not, I have no positive knowledge, but I am inclined to believe that he does.

“Information from the East states that Mrs. Van Lakum is the member of a prominent family in Chicago.  I think that she is irresponsible.  I believe she is mentally deranged.”

Let’s hope they found happiness somewhere, though where in 1907 Los Angeles that would be, I do not know.  Certainly not in Edendale.

Signs of the Times

November 5, 1907boozesign
Los Angeles

Just as an innocent toke of reefer leads to a lifetime of laudanum addiction, everybody knows that electric signs lead to…neon!

Neon wouldn’t be introduced to the United States until 1923 (specifically, at the Earl C. Anthony Packard dealership, 10th & Hope Street).  That first reefer toke, though…that was the electric sign…

Property owners of 1907 argue that electric signs, particularly those of the swinging variety which jut from the façades of buildings, make the streets look tawdry.  Moreover, they nullify the illumination systems on principal business streets, and will become eyesores and nuisances.

The Mayor, however, is outspoken in favor of electric signs.  They illuminate business thoroughfares, and are an ornament to the city.  A man of vision, our Mayor Harper.

But what to do, then, with the Jim “de champ” Jeffries’ new saloon sign on South Spring?  He has had one built and installed, swung over the sidewalk, “bearing in letters as big as one of his mitts the magic pugilistic name.”

While this type of signage violates numerous and sundry City ordinances, the Board of Public Works has ignored similar signs in the downtown area that advertise cafés and theaters, who are crying foul in that municipal authorities have allowed such signs to hang for the last year.  Because of Jeffries’ transgression, he and all other sign owners received letters from the City Attorney demanding the removal of any and all projecting signage, the worry being that should these signs become commonplace, “the sidewalks would be converted into tunnels darkened and obstructed by a covering of advertising signs.”

Moreover, a proposed ordinance shall prohibit signage advertising liquor.  Can this be?

Mayor Harper stands firm.  What will become of our city?

electricyouthHere’s a vision of the future:  electric signage along Broadway, ca. 1920, as pictured in, uh, this book.

His Bags are Being Sent

sewerratOctober 3, 1907
Los Angeles

During tonight’s dinnertime—the fashionable hour for society at the Hotel Van Nuys at Fourth and Main (Morgan & Walls, 1896) a furry friend decided to hobnob with the upper crust.  Strolling in through the Fourth Street entrance like the most gracious of chaps, of which there were many in the lobby, came a great husky sewer rat.  vannuys

Pandemonium ensued:  “Dainty Parisian lingerie and open-work stockings appeared on view.  Gallant gentlemen dropped their cigars and ladies jumped on chairs, but still the rat stood his ground.”

Porters and elevator boys descended, and Mr. Rattus fled the scene through a hole in some missing wainscoting (the Van Nuys undergoing some changes to the lobby).  Immediately the house ferret, kept in the engine room for just this sort of affair, was thrust into the opening.  

A loud, chilling three-round bout ensued inside the wall, and the ferret emerged bloody and beaten.  The rat stuck his nose out his hiding place as if to challenge all comers, and another ferret, this one less soft and over-weight, was sent in to dispatch the venturesome intruder. 

The story headline says the rat was killed, but the actual tale makes no such mention.  Without a body, I’d say Mr. Ferret merely bragged about besting his opponent, and Mr. Rat went off to the Rosslyn, or perhaps the King Edward.

(The Van Nuys became the Hotel Barclay in the 1930s [adding a magnificent art deco neon blade sign]. The Barclay is now one of the many “28-day-shuffle” transient hotels in the area, where monthly rent is $360.)

 

Another Way to Grieve

musitelle

sondeadSeptember 22, 1907
Los Angeles

A few days ago I posted about the Vance family who, having lost their young son, responded to their grief with solemnity and rectitude, though in a manner unusual to the dictates of the age.  More appropriate to the workings of 1907, perhaps, is the mayhem that ensued after the Musitelles of 812 Howard Street lost their little John.

Mr. and Mrs. John Musitelle have five children; four daughters, and their favorite, youngest child John Jr.  Musitelle, a fruit merchant, often took little John on the wagon ride between their ranch in Fernando and the fruit markets east of Chinatown.  The mother had admonished John Sr. to never let the boy out of his sight, but today, Musitelle entrusted the task to an employee, one Pete Gotelli.  Musitelli had to stay in Fernando on business, and the boy, who was exhausted from playing, pleaded with his father to allow Gottelli to take him home.  Musitelle consented.

Mrs. Musitelli waited at the corner of Macy and Howard for the arrival of her husband; when the Gottelli-driven fruit wagon arrived, Gottelli left the horses unhitched and fled (questioned later, Gottelli stated that he didn’t want to face the mother).  There, in the carriage, little John appeared to be sleeping.  It would be a long sleep—at the west end of the East Main Street bridge over the Los Angeles River, John had fallen from the wagon as it crossed the railroad tracks, and was crushed under its wheels.   Mrs. Musitelle carried John to the couch inside, where he passed away.

“They have killed my Johnnie!” screamed Mrs. Musitelle, who in her rage became violent at all who came near.  Neighbors had called the undertaker’s wagon from Pierce Brother’s, and as the boy was being loaded in, Mrs. Musitelle broke free from those restraining her and grabbed the boy back.

At that point Mr. Musitelle arrived home, and despite a desperate struggle, managed to stab himself in the chest, though without doing serious damage.  Mr. and Mrs. were taken to another house, where Mrs. Musitelle insisted she did not recognize Mr. Musitelle.  When she finally realized who he was, she accused him of killing the boy.  Mr. Musitelle has stated that he will end his life at the earliest given opportunity.

We can only assume that, unlike the Vance family, the Musitelles will imbue their son’s funeral with every possible trapping of black-clad mourning.