Twelve Gelatos to Honor the Black Dahlia

The following is from our latest 1947project press release… even if you don’t ride the Crime Bus, you can still enjoy these treats at Scoops at 712 N. Heliotrope Dr., just north of Melrose, on Friday 9/15 and Saturday 9/16 from 12pm-9pm.

LOS ANGELES- All Elizabeth Short wanted in life was to be someone. Now, nearly 60 years after her death, the victim of L.A.’s most notorious unsolved murder is honored with a new film, a citywide tour, and twelve unique gelato concoctions from distinguished ice cream artisan Tai Kim. Short joins the ranks of celebrated people with foods named for them, like opera star Nellie Melba (Peach Melba), chef Alfredo de Lelio (Fettucine Alfredo), Brown Derby owner Robert Cobb (Cobb Salad), Jerry Garcia (Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia) and Napoleon Bonaparte (Napoleon pastries).

To coincide with the September 15 release of Brian De Palma’s “The Black Dahlia,” the 1947project Crime Bus offers a guided luxury tour to dozens of sites that played a part in the real life and death of Elizabeth Short, as well as locations figuring in her posthumous myth.

On The Real Black Dahlia Crime Bus Tour, Kim Cooper and Nathan Marsak guide their passengers to more than two dozen scenes from the real and imaginary history of the Black Dahlia case. Along the way, they’ll explore the social history of postwar Los Angeles, several Black Dahlia killer theories will be debunked and a little known but likely suspect will be introduced. The tour will bring to life the real Elizabeth Short and some of the peculiar characters who knew her in life or become obsessed with her in death.

As the Crime Bus winds it way towards its downtown conclusion, the passengers will coming closer to a very special treat. The 1947project asked avant-garde gelato maker Tai Kim of Scoops in East Hollywood to create a new flavor, named after the Black Dahlia, to honor her memory and provide sustenance to the brave Crime Bus passengers. Tai responded by developing not one but twelve unique flavors, each of which reflects Elizabeth Short and her time and city: 1947 Los Angeles. These special gelatos will only be available on Friday 9/15 and Saturday 9/16, and on Sunday 9/17 for Crime Bus passengers exclusively.

So what does the Black Dahlia gelato taste like? According to Tai, like White Licorice (an anise and lemon blend), Black Tea and Rosewater, Blackberry and Orange Blossom, Pomegranate and Poppy Seed, Blood Orange Sorbet, Black Currant with Blueberry and Anise Sorbet, Dark Chocolate and Raspberry, White Chocolate and Black Sea Salt Mousse, White Chocolate and Cranberry Syrup, Vanilla and Whiskey and Jasmine Tea and Raisin. An additional offering is Chunky Apple Rum, a flavor that was popular in the 1940s and which Elizabeth Short may have enjoyed in life.

Twelve Gelatos to Honor the Black Dahlia

The following is from our latest 1947project press release… even if you don’t ride the Crime Bus, you can still enjoy these treats at Scoops at 712 N. Heliotrope Dr., just north of Melrose, on Friday 9/15 and Saturday 9/16 from 12pm-9pm.

LOS ANGELES- All Elizabeth Short wanted in life was to be someone. Now, nearly 60 years after her death, the victim of L.A.’s most notorious unsolved murder is honored with a new film, a citywide tour, and twelve unique gelato concoctions from distinguished ice cream artisan Tai Kim. Short joins the ranks of celebrated people with foods named for them, like opera star Nellie Melba (Peach Melba), chef Alfredo de Lelio (Fettucine Alfredo), Brown Derby owner Robert Cobb (Cobb Salad), Jerry Garcia (Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia) and Napoleon Bonaparte (Napoleon pastries).

To coincide with the September 15 release of Brian De Palma’s “The Black Dahlia,” the 1947project Crime Bus offers a guided luxury tour to dozens of sites that played a part in the real life and death of Elizabeth Short, as well as locations figuring in her posthumous myth.

On The Real Black Dahlia Crime Bus Tour, Kim Cooper and Nathan Marsak guide their passengers to more than two dozen scenes from the real and imaginary history of the Black Dahlia case. Along the way, they’ll explore the social history of postwar Los Angeles, several Black Dahlia killer theories will be debunked and a little known but likely suspect will be introduced. The tour will bring to life the real Elizabeth Short and some of the peculiar characters who knew her in life or become obsessed with her in death.

As the Crime Bus winds it way towards its downtown conclusion, the passengers will coming closer to a very special treat. The 1947project asked avant-garde gelato maker Tai Kim of Scoops in East Hollywood to create a new flavor, named after the Black Dahlia, to honor her memory and provide sustenance to the brave Crime Bus passengers. Tai responded by developing not one but twelve unique flavors, each of which reflects Elizabeth Short and her time and city: 1947 Los Angeles. These special gelatos will only be available on Friday 9/15 and Saturday 9/16, and on Sunday 9/17 for Crime Bus passengers exclusively.

So what does the Black Dahlia gelato taste like? According to Tai, like White Licorice (an anise and lemon blend), Black Tea and Rosewater, Blackberry and Orange Blossom, Pomegranate and Poppy Seed, Blood Orange Sorbet, Black Currant with Blueberry and Anise Sorbet, Dark Chocolate and Raspberry, White Chocolate and Black Sea Salt Mousse, White Chocolate and Cranberry Syrup, Vanilla and Whiskey and Jasmine Tea and Raisin. An additional offering is Chunky Apple Rum, a flavor that was popular in the 1940s and which Elizabeth Short may have enjoyed in life.

The Little Devil



Sept. 5, 1907
Los Angeles

Poor old Mrs. Moore was ill, so instead of paying the grocer his monthly bill, she put a $10 gold piece in an envelope and told her 9-year-old son, Cecil, to take it to him. But Cecil, of 155 W. 51st St., tore open the envelope, found the $10 ($205.24 USD 2005) and got other ideas, none of them good.

First, Cecil treated his chums to sodas at a delicatessen, then he was off for trolley rides to see the city. For the last two days, he has kept one step ahead of police officers, telling his pals that he plans to visit all the local beaches and

There is a Balm in Gilead

August 31, 1907
Los Angeles

William Bradley, the “Singing Negro,” was arrested three times yesterday before performing an act of singular bravery today.bradley

Everyone likes the religious fanatic,  and because there is no law prohibiting a man from singing religious songs on the street, he’s been busting out camp-meetin’ aubades downtown in a voice “that would make the steam whistle on a New Orleans cotton-boat turn green with envy.”

When some motorman on the Temple-street car finally had had enough, and after his strenuous objection to authorities, a warrant was sworn out on Bradley for Disturbing the Peace.  Friends quickly put up bail and Bradley burst into spirituals on the steps of the station.  Arrested again as he marched down Spring, he was released and promptly arrested again as he belted out canticles on South Broadway.  He finally agreed to hold in his gospel long enough to reach home, though said he guessed he’d “might near burst open.”

Today, Bradley was walking along Temple, singing at top strength, when a runaway horse charged down the hill, bearing straight for two women and a little girl.  Men did not care to step off the sidewalk, but Bradley never stopped singing, his voice in fact rising higher in song, as he dashed into the street to throw himself upon and pinion the mad animal.  

Without waiting for thanks, he lifted his voice and trudged away.

A Nation of Vice

Aug. 31, 1907
Los Angeles

The ugly statistics should dishearten even the most ardent temperance worker. According to federal tax data for the last fiscal year, distillers produced 20 gallons of beer and 1.4 gallons of whiskey for every man, woman and child in America, a 5% increase and 8% increase respectively over 1906.

Cigar, cigarette and snuff production also showed similar increases.

Vice in Venice

August 30, 1907invadelair
Venice

Get talked up by a booster…wend your way through the hall…step on the special stair which emits a loud buzz, warning those you approach.  You’re one your way into the Venice Club, Windward Avenue, Venice, California.

The windows are covered in black oilcloth to keep out light and sound and prying eyes.  Inside there’s a roulette wheel, stacked high with gold and silver, emitting its seductive clicky whir, counterposed by the atonal, plangent clack of chips.  Verdant young society men huddle around the faro layout.  You may or may not notice—they’re all losing.  Certainly your luck can’t be as bad!

Your luck would be bad indeed this night, as Deputy District Attorney John North kicks in the door and announces that everyone is under arrest.  This would not phase the roulette dealer:  “He looked coldly at the officers and his slender gambler fingers toyed idly with the stack of chips at the edge of the table; his little, ratty, sharp face was a slight sneer, half of amusement.”

The Venice Club, run by an aggregation of Arizona sure-thing men, is as crooked as they come.  It is said that the reason the faro dealer has one eye is due to time spent having to look crooked at the bent ends of marked cards.

As the room was pinched, a sudden epidemic of sick wives befell Los Angeles.  But the cops would have none of it, and everyone was hauled in.  The gamblers were allowed to kitty their boodle—some $1486 ($30,498 2006 USD).

The club kept a register of all the tenderfoot gilded youth they’d fished, and, amusingly, the paper printed it in full:
listofbadmen
Ah, would that the story should end there.  The bust of the Venice Club opened wide a scandal that shed no new good light on the already suspect “beach towns.” 

crooksgive 

The Venice police were as fixed as the card games, and got fat from the brace games that lined the seashore.  (During Fiesta week, the same underworld figures who ran the Venice Club ran a crooked [and police protected] gambling hall downtown on Broadway between First and Second.)  Venice men “higher up” had cemented relationships with blind pigs, dens of ruination for young girls, and that special element adept in fixing elections.  Abbot Kinney and (Ocean Park magnate) G. M. Jones battled it out and the cops pledged their various allegiances in the war.

The corruption scandal lingered long and luscious…September 11, 1907: 
knifehilt

The Night Signal

coltonmad

August 29, 1907
Colton

An augur came to Mrs. John George last night as she meandered through the traumwelt, delivering the most terrible of presage: murder! The prognostication was that of her husband, Mr. George, standing over the bed. Choking her.

But Mr. George, long locked up in the secure confines of the State Hospital for the Insane at Patton, was certainly no threat. Or was he? On the strength of this omen, she fled her home.

Mr. George had in fact escaped. Not finding her at their San Bernadino home, he went late in the night to the home of her parents, and then to Colton, where one of his little boys was staying with an aunt. Before he could gain ingress, the bulls caught up to the fugitive, and threw him in prison.

This morning, Mr. George, having torn off his clothes and soaked them in water, and having ripped apart the mattress and bed quilts, fought violently the attempts of the attendants whose job it was to pack him up and ship him back to Patton.

That Mrs. George will sleep soundly tonight is of course a matter of conjecture, but we hope she does, lest she miss another harbinger from the other side.