Category: Kim Cooper

January 6, 1947
Burbank

The four boys who rented ponies for an hour’s canter from the Rocking Horse Stables at 470 Riverside Dr. seemed like nice kids to manager Roy Brown, but a day after they saddled up he’s yet to see the front of ’em. The names and addresses they left were false–one is a Van Nuys funeral parlor–and Brown can offer few clues save that one of the quartet walked with crutches. With the horses and their gear, Brown is out $6000–an expensive lesson in the low moral character of the youth of 1947.

January 5, 1947
Hollywood

The Nazis were afoot tonight, making yet another assault on the walls of the Temple Beth El synagogue at 1508 N. Wilton Place. Alert Hun-hunters will recall that the edifice was streaked with oil in a 1937 incident, and defaced with swastikas and graffiti reading “Heil Hitler” and “Viva Il Duce” the following year.

The modern anti-Semite works quicker, and in potentially more deadly fashion. Witnesses told investigating officers that a man pulled his car in front of the Temple and fired 14 rifle shots into the front door, then sped off. Bullets were later recovered from the back wall of the building.

January 4, 1947
Los Angeles

Bernard E. Schwartz died in his car near the intersection of Stocker and Baldwin Streets. He had run a hose from the exhaust pipe into the cab. When passing motorists discovered the body, they also found a note directing that Schwartz’ corneas be donated to someone who needed them.

Unfortunately, Schwartz had been dead too long for his eyes to be transplanted. However, his friend and executor Arthur Wasson has honored the dead man’s desires by arranging for all usable portions of Schwartz’ body to be used for the aid of science at Medical School of the University of Southern California.

Schwartz, a former Naval chief petty officer who lived at 3835 W. Seventh Street, left a poignant note explaining his passing as “a simple case of suicide, induced by my complete lack of desire to continue living.” He was thirty years old.

January 3, 1947
Echo Park

The two robbers, one tall, one short, both shabby-looking, entered the California Bank branch and Sunset and Alvarado during the afternoon rush. At first they waited for a turn at LaVonne Quigley’s window, then made a sudden switch to Edward G. Miske’s teller station.

It was a bad choice. For when the tall man slid the note reading “This is a stickup. Give the alarm and we’ll kill you. We want your money.” across the counter, Miske looked right down the barrel of an automatic pistol and snapped “You’ll not get any money!” Then he reached for the alarm and was promptly shot in the arm, severing an artery.

The two men rushed out of the bank, up Alvarado, to Reservoir and into a waiting Yellow Cab. But their bad luck wasn’t over. Gerald Hough had just parked behind the cab, and reported the license to police. By nightfall, hundreds of officers were searching the city for the men, while brave, foolish Edward Miske celebrated his 26th birthday at Georgia Street Receiving Hospital. Despite losing a lot of blood, he is expected to recover.

January 2, 1947
West Hollywood

When confronted by a would-be bandit in the 8900 block of Sunset Blvd., Miss Eleanor Falk, 30-year-old bookkeeper for a nightclub at 9039 Sunset, refused to hand over the sack containing $2000 in receipts. Instead, the clever girl dropped the bag and sat on it, then commenced to yell so forcefully that the crook hopped back into his accomplice’s car and took a powder. Then the unflappable miss continued along to the bank, where she made her deposit as planned.

January 1, 1947
Downtown

The lady on Bunker Hill saw smoke drifting and phoned the fire department. “Hurry! City Hall’s on fire!” All available trucks raced to the scene, and uniformed firemen scaled the steps with crowbars and axes at the ready, caught the express elevator and searched out the flames–but there were none. It seems the caller had merely seen a small cloud pass before the venerable tower, and the cloud had passed by, leaving no destruction in its wake.

Gentle reader,

We thank you for coming along on our nine month’s voyage into old Los Angeles, city of vice and foolishness, of sunlight and deep shadow.

Many of you have asked “What’s next after December 31?” The real question should be “What about March 13th?” You see, we somewhat arbitrarily began our blog adventure in March 2005/1947, and the plan was always to loop around at year’s end and finish out the 1947 calendar year.

So tomorrow, you’ll find us having super-charged our time traveling, rewinding further still to January 1947. Elizabeth Short, who will soon become more famous than she ever dreamed, welcomes the new year in San Diego, thinking idly of finding a ride back to L.A. W.C. Fields awaits burial after his sad Christmas death from a stomach hemorrhage. It’s 1947 all over again. Anything can happen.

Stay tuned for buttermilk skies and much more strangeness between now and March 12, and on March 13 an announcement of what fresh form 1947project will take.

yours,
Kim and Nathan
(and Larry, too–hey, you read the comments, right?)
1947project

December 30, 1947
Los Angeles

They met again in Superior Court, Douglas Ralford, electrical engineer of Long Beach, and Dr. W. R. Senseman, Lancaster hospital owner, and his nurse, Alma Carleton. The last time was November 4, 1946, when Vivian Ralford gave birth to an apparently stillborn son.

Alma told Vivian her child was dead moments after his birth; seven hours later, wrapped in paper in the morgue, baby was heard to cry. He was hurried back to the nursery, where he died two hours later of exposure.

The Ralfords were seeking $100,000 in damages, but reached a pre-court deal through Attorney S.S. Hahn and Senseman’s insurance company, believed to be in the range of $5000.

FLASH: Here’s the piece in handy MP3 format.

Nathan and Kim are back on the air this week in a moody mood piece scribed by KNX investigative reporter Michael Linder, the L.A. Press Club’s 2004 Radio Journalist of the Year. You can hear our spot throughout the hourly news round ups either on Thursday or Friday, and probably thoughout the weekend, on KNX-1070 AM.

December 28, 1947
West Hollywood

The peace of little Sharon Lee Christensen’s sleep was shattered tonight when a late model sedan crashed through the wall of the 5-year-old’s bedroom at 8852 Cynthia Street and came to a stop atop the child, with only her mattress protecting her from certain death.

The incident began when Lucille Bianchi, 20, a nurse, parked her car on a steep grade on Larrabee Avenue near Sunset Boulevard. The car rolled free and Lucille hopped onto the running board, struggling frantically to get inside and throw the brake. Before she could, the car smashed through the Christensen’s wall, with Lucille along for the ride. She was taken to West Hollywood Emergency Hospital with a possible broken pelvis. Sharon Lee, meanwhile, went to sleep in a less drafty part of the house.