Blood & Dumplings Crime Bus Tour (March 17, 1pm-6pm)

If there’s one thing we at 1947project love even more than uncovering
evidence of an incredibly weird forgotten crime, it’s Chinese
food–especially dumplings! Whether fried or boiled, stuffed with
shrimp, pork, pumpkin, fish, scallions or sometimes a little dollop of
soup, nothing is more comforting and delicious.

With Blood & Dumplings, we’re combining our favorite things to bring
you the first new Crime Bus tour of 2007, a a grim and gleeful descent
into the criminal history of the San Gabriel Valley, including the battling Nazis of El Monte, the chilling (and probably incestuous) Case of the Buried Bride, missing Salvador Dali paintings, the dark history of the Lions Club’s lion meat BBQs held in eye- and nose-range of hundreds of the lovely beasts, the Man from Mars Bandit (his mystery revealed!), plus Phil Spector, neglected Manson victim Steve Parent, Geneva Ellroy and a peculiar East L.A. link to the JFK assassination, concealed Black Panthers and the coolest trailer parks in the Southland.

Included in the $55 ticket price is a special stop for Chinese comfort food at one of the best dumpling joints in Monterey Park  and an afternoon picnic surrounded by real sea monsters.

Click here to buy your ticket by paypal, or email to reserve a seat that you will purchase with a money order or check.

We hope to see YOU on the Crime Bus!

your hosts,
Kim Cooper & Richard Schave

Soccer Returns


Feb. 23, 1907
Los Angeles

The Scotch Thistles beat the English Victorias 3-2 in Southern California’s first soccer game since the Caledonians and the Pasadena team met at Agricultural Park in 1890, The Times says.

Despite the poor condition of the field, the players displayed excellent skill and teamwork. The Times said the teams were only formed three months before and notes that more teams were expected next year.

“As a good, healthful sport, requiring both athletic training and skill, ‘soccer’ seems to have a place to fill here as elsewhere. Apparently, however, it is even less qualified than rugby to take the place of American football,” The Times says.

Lmharnisch.com
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E-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com




Speaking of the Weather


Feb. 22, 1907
Los Angeles

Here’s how The Times weather stories read a century ago:

“For all the daylight hours yesterday, the rain drizzled down, much of the time like a heavy Scotch mist, but toward nightfall the storm deepened and the rain began to fall in earnest. For two hours in the early part of the night there was a constant downpour that soon set the gutters running full and brought about the usual results to the streets near the hill district.

“The wash from the highways intersecting the hills poured down onto the streets of the business section and deposits of sand and gravel caused much inconvenience to electric cars. At several of the intersections on Broadway and Hill streets, men were stationed with shovels to keep the tracks passable for cars.

“The rain disarranged schedules for several of the car lines and much trouble was experienced on both the Belt line and the Brooklyn Avenue line to get the cars around the numerous curves overwashed with gravel.”

“No special damage was done by the storm in Garvanza, although the streets were cut up in some cases. At Highland Park, a swift current flowed down Pasadena Avenue, cutting that street badly in several places.

“Right in the midst of yesterday’s rain, a water pipe on Broadway in front of the Ville de Paris broke and when workmen made excavations to mend the pipe, the water got beyond control and shot up into the air on a level with the fourth story of the building. Hundreds of pedestrians stopped in the rain to watch the great fountain play and it added much to the waters rushing down the street.”

Normally, I don’t like to merely copy what ran in The Times, but sometimes it’s impossible to rewrite the stories and preserve the original flavor.

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
E-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com




Worst in Show


Feb. 21, 1907
Los Angeles

Someone who hates animals is at work in Angeleno Heights, having poisoned 10 valuable dogs and several cats, The Times says.

The killer has an eye for purebreds, the paper says, avoiding mutts and mongrels.

“Detective George Home of 901 Carrillo St. lost a fine bulldog and Patrolman C.L. Johnson of Bellevue Avenue lost a trained birddog which he had for 15 years,” The Times says.

The killer’s methods remain a mystery. Many of the poisoned animals were never allowed out of the yard and one Saint Bernard was always kept chained up, the newspaper says.

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
E-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com




1907 Centennial Celebration Line Up

The proposals for the 1907 Centennial Celebration are in, and what wonderful performances they’ll be! We are so very pleased to host some of our favorite folks in a night dedicated to remembering the Los Angeles of one hundred years past.

When you join us at Bedlam on Thursday night, March 22, this is what you’ll being thrilling to, in order of appearance:

The invocation of Zuckerman the Potato King (Kim Cooper and Kelly Kuvo)
The strange tale of  A. Victor Segno, Mentalist with Beautiful Hair (Larry Harnisch)
A description of life in 1907 L.A. (George Garrigues)
The song stylings of Miss Figueroa Daguerre
Witty period readings from George Ade’s "Fables In Slang" (Brooke Alberts)
J. Stuart Blackton’s comic short film "The Starving Artist, or: Realism in Art" (American Vitagraph Company, 1907, live accompaniment by Laura Steenberge, presented by Ross Lipman)
Fortunes told in Madame Pamita‘s Parlor of Wonders
And the lovely Miss Janet Klein accompanied by Tom Marion revealing the next secret year to be blogged at 1947project, in song and patter.
 
The fun starts at 9pm sharp, and we anticipate about one hour for the show, with a potluck party to follow. Please bring an old fashioned recipe to share, dress in period duds if you’ve got ’em, and join us as we bid a centennial adieu to this great and endlessly surprising year of 1907 and welcome in the next year which we’re certain will prove every bit as worthy of obsession. Will it be 1967? 1887? Shhhh… you just have to come to Bedlam to find out!

Where: Bedlam Arts, 1275 E. Sixth Street, downtown L.A. 90021
When: Thursday, March 22, show starts at 9pm sharp
Cost: Free, but it would be neat if you brought an old timey potluck dish to share (recipe links are here)

See you then!
Kim & the 1947project gang 

Skeet Shoot


Feb. 19, 1907
Los Angeles

A quick trip to the Thomas Bros. will show that Los Angeles County doesn’t look like this, but it’s not for lack of trying. The wealthy men of Los Angeles and Orange counties are furious with one another over an attempt by Assemblyman Phil Stanton to give Los Angeles County a strip of coastal communities as far south as Newport Beach.

The arguments in favor are simple: Los Angeles County money built those communities and Orange County is, at least as far as the Angelenos are concerned, poorly run.

The Orange County faction accuses its northern neighbors of a land grab and notes the distance people would have to travel to serve on juries, for example. The Orange County businessmen say wealthy Los Angeles members of the Bolsa Chica Gun Club are seeking revenge after losing a lawsuit in Santa Ana against local peat farmers who were hunting ducks in the area.

Bonus fact: The Times says that Los Angeles has abandoned its efforts to annex San Pedro. (For now, anyway).

The rising city: Brentwood.

Lmharnisch.com
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E-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com




Architectural Ramblings

Feb. 18, 2007
Los Angeles

The buildings featured in The Times for this week have been torn down, but in glancing through the listings, I found the sale by the Althouse brothers of a lot at 3006 S. La Salle.

3006 S. La Salle

I can’t say the house was particularly remarkable, although it’s nice and I was happy to find it still standing. Even so, it was an interesting neighborhood to visit and the house at 2921 S. La Salle cries out for rehabbing.

This house is in the 2900 block; I didn’t get the exact address.

2921 S. La Salle

3015 S. La Salle

3027 S. La Salle

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
E-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com




12th Street Ragged

Above, a vanished landmark: The Schermerhorn Inn, at Potter Park, a street that has disappeared.

Feb. 17, 1907
Los Angeles

West 12th Street between Main and Hoover is maddeningly crooked, but how to fix it? One set of residents has agreed to cut the boulevard through front yards because having the street as straight as an engineer’s ruler will raise property values. The other set says that homes will be ruined and that residents will be assessed too much to pay for the work.

Those in favor of the improvement include W.H. O’Melveny (hm. Isn’t that a familiar name?) while opposition is led by Mr. Kincaid, the developer of the Kincaid Tract.

“When the matter was brought up before the City Council several weeks ago, there was a merry tussle, but the side favoring the proposition won out,” The Times says.

Alas, city planners in 1907 failed to anticipate a large sports arena blocking traffic.

Lmharnisch.com
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E-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com




Shattered Lives


Feb. 14-15, 1907
Los Angeles

An 11:30 a.m. blast caused by an accumulation of gas shattered the Rawson building at 114 W. 2nd St. in an explosion blamed on a gas company employee who struck a match to check the meter. Four people were killed immediately while three more died of their injuries and 30 were hurt, some of them so badly that their crushed limbs were amputated.

The explosion killed two waitresses, La Von Meyers and Annie Crawford; retired farmer John W. Main; and tailor J.M.C. Fuentes. Charles G. Haggerdy, who worked in a tailor shop, died a few days later of his injuries, as did janitor Ferdinand Stephen.

Waitress May Anderson, 25, who also worked at the Anchor Laundry, lingered for months before she died. “Although she suffered excruciating pain, she bore up bravely,” The Times said. “The doctors and nurses said that only her grit kept her alive. She realized that she could not live, however, and her great regret was that she would have to part from her mother, a devoted and constant attendant at the hospital cot.”

Mr. Cressaty, the restaurant proprietor, said it was only after he made a series of complaints to the Los Angeles Gas and Electric Co. that Harvey A. Holderman came to inspect the meter and called for assistance.

“It is at this point that stories conflict,” The Times says. “It was asserted by some of the restaurant employees who escaped that [Charles J.] Blumenthal or Holderman lit a match to make an inspection under the floor of the supposed leaky pipes. They had already turned off the gas at the main.”

Although gas company officials denied that the workers struck a match, one company employee testified at the inquest that inspectors sometimes used matches for illumination because they didn’t have flashlights.

A fund drive to aid victims of the explosion raised nearly $10,000 ($205,235.70 USD 2005).

Lmharnisch.com
Lmharnisch.blogspot.com
E-mail: lmharnisch (AT) gmail.com