The Sunset Tower

Ah, the Sunset Towers Apartments. Home of Howard Hughes, Bugsy Siegel, and the second-best bas relief of a zeppelin in town.

Architect Leland Bryant’s friezes also include Adam and Eve, other mythological creatures, and radiator grilles; some wags have posited Satan himself resides amongst the cast flora and fauna. Look, the Baphomet!

The Towers was the first building in LA to have “all-electric suites” and central AC, and was the first built on rockers to sway with the quakes. Note the prominent mention in Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely and in its film adapt Murder, My Sweet.

After everyone and his brother tried throughout the 70s to tear down the 1929 landmark, it was finally renovated by the St. James Club in 1986. It became the Argyle in 1994 and was fitted with endless deco from top to bottom. The new owner, New York’s Jeff Klein, has stripped the interior of the hotel of all its renovations. As bad as I’m naturally inclined to make that sound, the new renovation is based on original photographs, and while a little cloying in its adulation of “Old Hollywood,” isn’t bad at all.

Air Error

August 10, 1947
Los Angeles

Ladera Park was filled with picnickers, friends and families enjoying a lazy Sunday afternoon. One group was comprised of co-workers from Douglas Aircraft. Among them, George Porter, 33, of 531 Richmond Street, El Segundo. Porter decided to leave the party, but not entirely-he returned to Ladera Park later in the afternoon in his two-seater plane and buzzed the ampitheatre down at tree-top level. Three times he circled the bowl, terrorizing those on the ground. Recreation Director George T. Blair squinted at the craft to get the numbers so he could report the reckless pilot. But there was no need: on the fourth go-round, one wing hit a branch and down into the ravine came George Porter and his flying death machine.

Instantly killed were Porter, Mrs. Eula Walters, 29, of 1731 West 51st Place and two-year-old Myrna Lynn Coffey, of 1135 ½ E. 68th Street. The baby was in her mother’s arms when wreckage from the plane hit them both. Also injured was Mrs. Walters’ 4-month-old, Kenneth Dale, whose baby buggy was spattered with engine oil. Mrs. Walters and Mrs. Coffey had just been on the croquet grounds, where their husbands heard the impact and raced to discover the horror.

Porter’s passenger, wife Brownie Belle Porter, survived the crash and is in fairly good condition at Harbor General, with a fractured collar bone, mild concussion, dislocated hip and possible internal injuries.

Captain Sewell Griggers of the Sheriff’s aero squad is attempting to determine from what airport Porter took off, while Vermont subdivision deputy Sheriffs James E. Christian and W.J. Grater examined the wreckage.

Suggested reading: The Illustrated History of McDonnell Douglas Aircraft : From Cloudster to Boeing

A Percher’s Tale


August 9, 1947
Los Angeles

For the past week, Smokey has been perching precariously atop a 75-foot palm tree at the home of her mistress, Mrs. Gilbert Waters, 145 W. 59th Street. It was this inauspicious spot that the little gray cat chose to go when it came time to have her kittens; three little ones fell dead from the tree.

But Smokey herself remained in the air, despite the cries of family and friends. Yesterday a brave tree climber from the SPCA scaled the palm, and Smokey promptly leapt to the ground and hid under the porch. A few hours later, she came out and permitted Mrs. Waters to feed and water her. “She was pretty hungry and dirty,” said her mistress, “but we’re so happy she’s down.”

145 To-day

Looking down toward the 100 block of West 59th, we see it’s the only one in the neighborhood with these cat-tempting trees. Did Mrs. Waters consider this before she moved in? Apparently not.

Here’s where Smokey (and before her, her kitlets) landed in the grass.

Sure, people talk about how rough and tough South Los Angeles is, and I’ve had some exciting moments down there, but I’ve also been in the ghettoes of Gary and Camden and New Orleans and DC, and I’ll take a shingled Craftsman with exposed roof beams and a separate gabled porch any day of the week.

“Crime Crusher” Blockade Status Studied By Court

August 8, 1947
Los Angeles

ACLU representative A.L. Wirin, an attorney, is asking Superior Judge Henry M. Willis to rule that those recent “crime crusher” street blockades are unconstitutional and must be stopped. The search and seizure of property belonging to people who just happen to be driving through a blockaded intersection is, Wirin states, “intolerable and unreasonable.”

Police claim a decrease of 18.2 percent in reported crimes in the blockades sections of the city, and seek to continue the practice. In an affidavit filed at the Court, Assistant Chief of Police Joseph Reed insisted that only cars containing “suspicious characters” were being searched, and that for law-abiding citizens, the stop was no more inconvenient than a traffic light. A side issue is the fact that public funds are being used to finance the blockades.

Judge Willis took the case under submission.

Suggested reading: In Defense of American Liberties: A History of the ACLU

Shot On Phone Brings Help

August 7, 1947
Reseda

While chatting with his gal on the phone, Robert Davis, 21-year-old trucker, spun the revolver he’d been cleaning around on his finger. The gun discharged, expelling a bullet into Robert’s gut. Kay Hite heard the explosion, then silence, and raced from her home at 7461 Darby Ave. to Robert’s place, 7348 Jamieson Ave., where she found him lying on the floor. Currently, Robert is at Birmingham General Hospital in serious condition. He’ll be in worse shape when his brother Donald, a Valley Division cop, finds out what the kid did with his .38 Colt Commando.

A Legal Thorn

August 6, 1947
Richmond, VA

Before Valentine B. Lawless went off to war in 1944, he indulged himself in a little piece of fancy. At 36, he was still as romantic as his unusual name suggested. And so he left a special provision to his will, to be read only in the event of his death by his brother Edward.

After Valentine did die, in a plane crash at Linz in October 1944, Edward discovered that his brother had been hopelessly besotted with a girl who loved another. In death, he wished that his estate–$3600-be used to support the weekly delivery of one perfect, anonymous rose to his secret beloved. It was his idea, he wrote, “to furnish the girl with the pleasure of receiving the rose, not to have her think of me because I sent it to her.”

But just as Valentine’s personal name reflected his character, so did the familial surname reflect sister Margaret’s. She contested the will on the grounds that it was “not practical,” and in so doing caused Valentine’s secret wish to become fodder for the national press, as well as the local rags. It is reported that the unnamed lady of the bequest is married and living in the Virginia Tidewater section.

Youngster Kept Chained to Bed for Five Months

August 5, 1947
Los Angeles

Mrs. Edith Velasquez, 28, can’t handle her son, but her husband can.

Earl L. Daily is 12, and big and strong as a grown man-unfortunately, he still has the brain and impulse control of a child. When husband Florian, a laborer, is at work, Edith cares for her six other children-Marcellina, 11, Florian, 9, Geraldine, 6, Marie, 5, Winona, 4 and Dickie, 3. And she chains Earl, her child by a previous relationship, to a bed in their 3-room house at 19006 Wilmington Ave.

For the past four years, Edith has been trying to get Earl admitted to the Pacific Colony Home, but the institution hasn’t had room for the boy. Lately he’s taken to running away. So he spends his days padlocked to the bed in the room he shares with five of his siblings, with occasional visits to the yard. He’s only unlocked when his stepfather is home and can control him, and catch him if he runs.

It must have been one of those chained stays in the yard that led to the visit from the juvenile division officers, who came to inquire and learned that Earl and his 6-foot length of chain had been intimate for the past five months. They’re working on arranging a formal committal to an institution, which will leave the Velasquez family free to concentrate on their other children.

Edith expressed hope that Earl might fare better in his new home. “It will be so much better for him there. He’s never been to school, and maybe at the right place they can teach him something. Last year he’d try to get on the school bus with my other children. But the driver knew him and would always send him back home. He’s always talking about school.”

See also: A history of the National Association for Retarded Children (ARC)

Monkey, Free for Week-end, Brought Home


August 4, 1947
Pasadena

Monkey on the loose! Tiny Chris, a Panamanian Rhesus monkey recently mailed to Pasadena as a household pet, spent the weekend swinging around the 1100 block of Rose Avenue, ignoring the increasingly frenzied calls of owner Mrs. Ruby Whitehead. The little guy spent his freedom hopping from tree to tree, occasionally dipping down to harass a chicken in its coop.

Neighbor Pearl Scanlon spotted him at 1151 Vinedo Street and called the police. The cops turned the matter over to the Humane Society, but they couldn’t catch him, either.

Chris’ lost weekend came to a natural end when he got weak from hunger and hung listlessly from a eucalyptus. When Ruby came by, Chris permitted her to bring him home to 1103 Rose Ave., where he feasted on grapes and bananas and was repeatedly reminded what a bad little sweet wee rotten monkey darling he was.

Suggested reading: The Complete Adventures of Curious George

1103 Rose To-day

Here’s the house at 1103, whence came all the dingdang monkeyshines.

While any eucalyptus along the 1100 block of Rose seem to have disappeared long ago, there is no shortage of oaks for our simian brethren to cavort amongst. The absence of automobiles probably has something to do with the locals’ wish to keep hurled feces from spattering their cars.