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Gorgeously lurid... with an introduction from James Ellroy.

Collection of photos from the tabloid Herald-Express.

A deft fictional imagining of the dark circumstances behind starlet Jean Spangler's unsolved 1949 disappearance.

Widely recognized as the best non-fiction book written about Southern California for the period 1920s through the 1940s... packed with fascinating material on the region and its galaxy of personalities.

an exceptionally well-done resource, and a welcome addition to the shelves of any Los Angelaphile, scholar, or visitor who seeks a self-guided tour.

An elegant, A to Z compendium of Marlowe's ever-more-relevant observations about crime, women, work, sex, good, evil, and life in the big city.

In 1949, photographer Don Normark walked up into the hills of Los Angeles, looking for a good view. Instead, he found Chavez Ravine, a ramshackle Mexican-American neighborhood tucked away in Elysian Park like a "poor man's Shangri-la." Enchanted, he stayed for a year amidst the wild roses, tin roofs, and wandering goats of this uniquely intact rural community on the city's outskirts. Accepted by the residents, Normark was able to photograph a life that, though bowed down by poverty, was lived fully, openly, and joyfully.

"Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles"

Jim Heimann is the man to see in Hollywood if you are making a movie that is set in Southern California in bygone times--he combines the skills of an archivist, a cultural anthropologist, a designer and a historian, and he knows where to look for a dusty photographic relic that shows what any corner of byway of Los Angeles looked like on a particular day in the past. Heimann's remarkable skill set is put to good use in this beguiling collection of black-and-white photographs that depict the demimonde of Los Angeles from the '20s to the '50s. What the photographer Weegee did for New York in his classic "Naked City," Heimann now does for Los Angeles.

True Crime Blogroll

schools

No Christ in Christmas? Good Lord!

Submitted by larry on Thu, 2006-12-14 08:54.

Dec. 14, 1907
Los Angeles

The madman who calls himself the superintendent of the Los Angeles schools has touched off an absolute firestorm of anger by ordering teachers not to mention Christ during Christmas pageants or other festivities.

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Pi Phidelity

Submitted by larry on Mon, 2006-10-30 07:24.

Oct. 30, 1907
Los Angeles

The young men of Los Angeles High School have issued a direct challenge to the Board of Education, defying its authority by enlisting fraternity members despite a ban issued last year.

The chief offenders are the Pi Phis, who just added seven members, The Times says.

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A Page From Dickens

Submitted by larry on Thu, 2006-03-23 10:02.

For some time, the teachers at the Casco Street School had been concerned about the pupils from the nearby Christian Orphanage. But finally the problems became too great to ignore.