What, you might ask yourself, did Shriners do before the advent of those little cars and Harley- Davidson Electra Glides? The elaborately costumed men staged precision, close-order drills accompanied by marching bands.
The rough-necked gentry of the Seventh Ward are known for the signs in their saloon windows that read “No Colored Persons Served Here” or just “No coons wanted.” When the City Council decided to abolish race discrimination during Fiesta, the removal of these signs was of primary importance, so the powers that be got to work on the matter without the usual requisite public discussion. This made those in the bartending profession feel persecuted, and the number of these signs, especially in the many bars along East Main Street, greatly multiplied.
In response, black leaders began organizing “runs” on various white bars, wherein black patrons would mob selected establishments as an example and warning. One of our trademark race riots seemed imminent. Luckily, instead, black delegates from the Sixth and Seventh wards mobbed City Hall, where Mayor Harper and City Attorney pushed through an official legal ordinance banning race discrimination and making the signs unlawful.
Theaters, of course, remain segregated.
Lea Lion of the Los Angeles Downtown News rode along on the first Nightmares of Bunker Hill tour, and wrote a cool and moody piece about it in this week’s paper.
Nathan and I were appropriately thrilled when the legendary Gary Leonard took our picture, and we even made the front page (under the fold). You can pick up a copy most anywhere in the middle of LA, or read it online.
Thanks, Lea!
*****
Murder, an Acid Attack and More Downtown Fun ‘Nightmares of Bunker Hill’ Bus Tour Finds an Audience by Lea Lion
I sneak a peak at the other passengers on the bus and wonder why they are really all here. It is Easter Sunday morning and we’re idling in a deserted Lincoln Heights parking lot, waiting for a couple of latecomers to arrive.
Of course, I know exactly why we’re here, but there is still something a little strange about the fact that a busload of people have elected to pay $47 a head to devote five sunny Sunday hours to a tour of Downtown’s most notorious crime scenes of the past century. We’ve gathered for the provocatively titled tour “Nightmares of Bunker Hill,” and as we wait, I start to feel a little suspicious of my fellow crime bus riders and their hunger for tales of long-ago murder and mayhem. The whole thing reeks of a sensational headline, maybe something like, “Maniac Trails Reporter Home From Crime Tour!”
I’m trying to keep my paranoia in check, when the man sitting across the aisle, a fellow solitary rider, leans over and introduces himself. He’s Victor de Anda, a West L.A. native who works in the film industry. Soon he slides over to the comfy coach seat next to mine and starts telling me about the Jack the Ripper-themed walking tour he caught on a recent London vacation.
Eventually, the stragglers show up, and de Anda’s story of murdered prostitutes gives way to a bus rolling along the narrow, bungalow-lined streets of Lincoln Heights into Downtown. We stop in front of a police car graveyard on the outskirts of Chinatown and a man dressed in a 1940s broad-shouldered suit, complete with vest and pocket watch, stands up. This turns out to be tour guide Nathan Marsak, who delivers a rapid-fire account of a turn-of-the-century crime that occurred roughly 50 feet to the right of the bus.
“May 12, 1887,” Marsak states bluntly. He pauses dramatically before continuing. “Imagine a Victorian rooming house – Queen Anne with turrets and gingerbread – right over there.” He gestures towards the parking lot and then dives into the story of a woman who threw a bottle of acid in her lover’s face. Marsak ends the story with a descriptive edict: “Picture him tumbling down the steps grabbing his face.”
Without missing a beat, Marsak’s partner-in-crime and fellow tour guide Kim Cooper launches into another grisly tale. Dressed in a vintage printed dress, Cooper stands at the front of the bus and details the story of the longhaired “Sanchez girl,” who was starved to death by her parents circa 1900. Her ghost is rumored to haunt a stretch of Broadway.
Twisted Sensibilities
Self-professed (obviously) crime buffs, Marsak and Cooper are co-founders of the blog the “1947project” (1947project.com), which last year gained a fair amount of buzz as it documented that year’s most newsworthy crimes – from the heinous to the quirky – in a day-by-day account frequently accompanied by photographs. After completing the full calendar year of 1947, the duo has moved on, or, more accurately, turned back the clock. This year they’re blogging like it’s 1907, and the bus tour is a way both to promote the site and to share their enthusiasm and knowledge.
The year 1907, said Marsak, “fulfilled our giddy enthusiasm for Edwardian-era Los Angeles.” He loudly exhaled a puff of cigarette smoke. “People always go on about the good ol’ days and so forth and so on and we serve as a gentle reminder that there was as much villainy and mayhem and dastardly deeds then as now.”
Marsak and Cooper dig up most of their crime stories from local newspaper archives. According to Marsak, all it takes is a little imagination and a lot of ingenuity.
“The papers were rather circumspect, so you have to learn to read between the lines,” Marsak said. “The ‘yellow’ papers were more sensationalistic, so when you want to get the full story you read the Times and then you have to go down to the archives and go read the Examiner and the Herald.”
Cooper describes her researching technique as “very improvisational.”
“I tend to do it in the witching hour,” Cooper said with a laugh. “I get into the online L.A. Times archive and I start coming up with words that might trigger an interesting story. I’ll use a particular keyword like ‘gruesome’ or ‘ghastly’ or ‘severed’ or ‘weird’ or ‘gun’ or ‘police’ and just see where it takes me.”
The division of labor has Cooper looking through old newspaper files, while Marsak drives around locating historic crime sites and documenting the “what’s there now” aspect. It’s a tactic that has an intriguing tie to modern Downtown Los Angeles – 99 years ago, before the extensive sprawl of the city, most of the action occurred around Downtown.
Cooper and Marsak’s shared fascination dates back to when they met as undergraduates at UC Santa Cruz. In the past, the pair has done a noir-style radio show called “Manny Chavez” and hosted a Black Dahlia-themed bus tour that also included many stops in Downtown. The “Nightmares of Bunker Hill” tour was a quick sell-out, and the duo has scheduled another one for June 10.
“I think Nathan and I both have pretty twisted sensibilities, but we are not dark people,” Cooper said. “We are much more colored by the Addams Family than by Charles Manson.”
Back on the Bus
During the five-hour tour, we do in fact learn that Downtown has an often gruesome past. Surprisingly, a whole slew of sometimes horrific, sometimes humorous acts took place in the early 1900s around New High Street in what is now Chinatown. According to our tour guides, the area was a hotspot for bar brawls, gambling houses and opium dens. It was also the site of at least one gypsy kidnapping and an out-of-control goat (in separate incidents).
Countless brutal murders, fake s
On Sunday, April 16, a merry busload of crime geeks boarded our stretch hearse (actually a plush touring coach, courtesy of our pal Dennis at American Transporation Systems) for a five-hour tour into the weird crannies and freaky nooks of downtown Los Angeles and Chinatown. From the O’Connor Electroplating Disaster to the hairy ghoul gal of Old Sonoratown, severed hands to rotting panhandlers, deadly Xmas gifts to fake mediums, it was a delightful dip into the weird old L.A. that’s not there anymore.
Here are a few photographic impressions to mark the day. And if you’d like a spin on the Crime Bus, please note: Nightmares of Bunker Hill rolls again on June 10.
April 20, 1907
Los Angeles
Pity Miss Alice Chevallier, native of this city, who took too powerful a sleeping potion a few evenings past, and now lays rotting in her grave in New Calvary. She follows her mother and her brother, but unlike them, her death brings with it unwelcome notoriety.
Alice was a longtime cashier at the Ville de Paris dry goods emporium on Broadway, between 2nd and 3rd Streets. At some stage in her career, she developed a system by which she could bring home with her a portion of the day’s receipts. In recent months, it is believed this was as much as $300 a day. A clever girl, she invested her takings in real estate, and built a handsome portfolio.
But her ingrained nervousness and peculiar disposition–she did not care for men, and perhaps not coincidentally suffered ovarian tumors, neuralgia and insomnia–proved the thief’s undoing. She found it necessary to escape to Catalina to rest following an operation, although she must have realized that her absense from the place of her crimes would make discovery likely. And that is precisely what happened.
Alice returned to her home at 226 West Jefferson, distraught from a sustained bout of sleeplessness and the anxiety of meeting the Ville de Paris’ lawyers. Although her real estate holdings were now sufficiently valuable to cover any restitution required and more, she languished in a state of abject horror.
On Sunday evening, Alice told her sister-in-law that she intended to take a sleeping powder, but in fact she took laudanum and chloroform, two drugs with which she had significant past experience. This time, the dose was too much for her weakened system, and the girl lingered until Wednesday before expiring. Her doctors stress that although it might look like a suicide, the true cause was congestion of the brain–the same organic disorder that lead her to steal in the first place.
April 15, 1907
Pasadena
As criminality reaches epidemic proportions in sleepy Pasadena, the citizenry grumbles about Chief Pinkham’s skills as police head, and makes noises about replacing him.
The latest outrage was visited upon George Syer, a public carriage driver who was called out to 876 Lincoln Avenue this evening, ostensibly to take some women to a train. The address should have been found north of Mountain, in an unlit area. He did not find the house, but while looking was acosted by a man with a thick Irish brogue who demanded his money. Syer parted with a dollar in change, but kept the contents of his other pocket. No mention was made of a weapon being brandished, but it is well known that one can’t be too careful with Irishmen!
April 29, 1947 Hollywood
We interrupt our regularly scheduled turn of the century to follow up on one of the more striking cases from the first year of the 1947project, the attempted carjack and kidnapping of Ginevra (note corrected spelling, though she prefered to be known as Ginger) Knight, an 18-year-old war widow who surprised her would-be kidnapper Thomas Housos by having a gun of her own that she wasn’t at all shy about using.
We were recently contacted by Ms. Knight’s son Ian, who was a toddler in the house on Courtney Avenue at the time of the fatal incident, and who wanted to share with our readers some images of his brave mama.
It’s always interesting to hear from the family members of people featured in our stories, and we’ve been fortunate that everyone we’ve heard from has recognized that our aims are not exploitative. In this particular case, we were startled to hear not only from the children of the victim, but from the son of the attempted kidnapper who she killed, as well. Just a little reminder from the universe that these shocking incidents leave ripples that flow outward for many decades, leaving wounds and curiosity in those who come after.
Thank you, Ian Knight, for the photo gallery that follows. And here’s to Ginger Knight, who courageously faced her would-be kidnapper’s brother in court, and made quite a life for herself in the years that followed. RIP, brave lady.
ABOVE: 1515 Courtney Ave., circa 1947. At right, the driveway where Housos grabbed Knight.
ABOVE: Ginger (top) at work with a friend, BELOW: the New Elysian Theater marquee
BELOW: The inquest
ABOVE: Wee Ian Knight, with Dee.
BTW, Ian let us in on a little secret… Ginger was carrying her gun that night, and she didn’t have to go into the living room to get it, despite what she told the police. You see, she carried the theater receipts home every night, since the banks were closed. Maybe Thomas Housos knew she was carrying lots of cash. Anyway, she wasn’t about to lose it, and she didn’t.
BELOW: Ginger at the helm of the fishing boat she later built by hand
April 8, 1907
Los Angeles
R. Crawford Smith, a wealthy Cincinnati bachelor who died in February, aged 61, spent the past several years living amongst strangers in Los Angeles. For a long while, he called the Hotel Melrose on Grand Avenue his home, and more recently had lived with familes on McClintock Avenue and South Olive Street.
His two brothers, William E. and A. Denniston Smith, have come from the east after Crawford’s death to inquire how it is that his will, which was to have split his $100,000 fortune equally between them and two sisters, acquired late codiciles leaving $17,000 to three females, rumored to be practictioners of Spiritualism, all residents of this city. The Smiths have hired Attorney Charles Cassat Davis to handle the challenge.
E.Z. Barrett, husband of the woman willed $10,000, says his wife Dora befriended a sad old man, and was repaid for her kindness with the posthumous gift. Mediumship had nought to do with it–though Dora is a popular lecturer on the subject, who has been known to give public demonstrations of her ability to commune with those who have “passed over.” Mr. Barrett stresses however that Dora is not a medium of the typical type.
Pasadena high school teacher Miss Lottie Livingston was willed $5000 from the Smith coffers, and Mrs. Lola Swilling, whose husband is said to be an Army officer stationed in Cuba, has a $2000 gift promised her.
Smith’s few local friends recall him as a lonesome, ill and melancholy man, a believer in Spiritualism who sought out Mrs. Barrett and frequently visited her home in his last days, apologizing for being a burden but saying how much he appreciated being among friends.
The late man’s estate was largely held in property, including a hotel at the southeast corner of Hope and Sixth Streets here.
