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| June 15, 2008 - June 21, 2008 »
Photograph by the Los Angeles Times
Police Capt. Earle Kynette before altering his appearance for his trial in the Harry Raymond bombing. |
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  erhaps it came as a shock -- at least to Police Capt. Earle Kynette, if no one else --that he was convicted in the Harry Raymond bombing. At the moment, the trial is in its final few days. Not to give anything away, but the jury is going to find him guilty quite soon.
We also have the third installment of Ed Ainsworth's series on traffic problems in Los Angeles, which included the illustration above.
For some reason, Ainsworth illustrates the problem of traffic by using three women who are running errands, which I'm not sure is entirely fair or accurate. His point is that surface traffic is prone to congestion: "Automobiles and streetcars were mixed in a jerky, slow-moving mass, all practically paralyzed."
Next, he explores the strengths and weaknesses of subways, particularly the cost of tunneling (sound familiar?) and Los Angeles' lack of densely populated urban areas that benefit most from underground transportation, he says: "In Los Angeles, the sprawling population is too spread out."
The conclusion, according to Ainsworth, is to build elevated transportation. To be continued...
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Wilshire and Westmoreland via Google street view |
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Lake and Hoover via Google street view |
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 ow if only research led in a straight line -- but thankfully, it doesn't. Research corkscrews and jets off at unexpected angles. Today's project was supposed to be about the home of the week -- in this case, the house built by Reuben Shettler at Wilshire and Westmoreland. At top, we have the home as it appeared in 1908 and the corner as it appears today via Google street view. (Bonus view: Hoover and Lake, the site of the other home of the week.)
Of course, it would be nice if I had a little information on Reuben Shettler, so I dug up the personal note about him and his wife entertaining Ransom E. Olds, maker of the Reo automobile, at 3100 Wilshire Blvd. It turns out that Shettler's son Leon was an early Los Angeles car dealer.
But in tracking down that information, I stumbled across new details on the Chinese massacre of 1871 -- on the society page, of all places. The woman being interviewed, Mrs. William LeMoyne Wills, says her father sheltered Chinese to protect them from the violence of the mob. This is the first I've ever heard of anyone offering sanctuary to the Chinese during this tragic incident.
Then, in researching the Chinese massacre, I came across a photo of our old friend the dragon in Chinatown that was once part of The Times' flagpole.
I really need to go looking for this thing to see if it's still there.
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 erhaps this isn't the most sophisticated illustration of how traffic evolved from caveman days to the mid-20th century. But the panels do tell a story. Times reporter Ed Ainsworth describes the rise of cities in the Middle Ages, sort of the way old Disney cartoons explain rocketry. "Most streets had been created haphazardly, primarily for men on foot." (And yes, we are still in the caveman days in terms of inclusive language.)
Now this sounds familiar: "Men discovered that because of the railway lines they could work in one place, live in another possibly miles away where they could have the rural atmosphere for which mankind has always seemed to yearn -- fields, flowers, livestock, fresh air, a retreat 'out in the country.' "
Ainsworth describes how human beings built rail lines radiating from a city core like the spokes on a wheel, with minimal traffic between the spokes. (This scenario, in fact, has been used to describe early 20th century Los Angeles.)
"As new subdivisions were laid out, there was provision, of course, for automobile roads. But these were not correlated with the roads of other subdivisions. Dead ends and blind alleys abounded. Bottlenecks were created on every hand," Ainsworth says.
And this was in 1938.
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 ow here's an interesting way to beat traffic, at least if you're Judge Leo Freund. It seems that Freund didn't care for being stuck while big dump trucks building the San Diego Freeway used Santa Monica Boulevard.
Freund decided that Benjamin Frank White was doing a poor job stopping traffic at the construction site. So he complained to police. Officers put White under surveillance, then complained to his boss, Robert Check, who fired White that day.
White's fellow members of Laborers Union, Local 300, complained that Check was being unfair. Finally, someone called Judge Freund, who said he didn't want White fired; he just thought the man was doing a lousy job. So White got his job back -- at a different location.
Judge Leo Freund died Sept. 29, 1976, but was reelected to the bench because the ballots had already been printed. He was replaced by Nancy M. Brown.
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 he unidentified Times photographer who took this picture at Wilshire Boulevard and Alvarado Street in 1938 had no idea we would be dissecting it today. My best guess is that this is looking south on Alvarado rather than west on Wilshire, which has that gentle curve in it at MacArthur Park.
So what do we notice? Well, in 1938, there was curb parking in both directions ... and there's one 1902 model streetcar (1938 - 1902 = 36 years) in a line of vehicles. Realize that the streetcar would be stuck if the tracks were blocked by a stalled auto or an accident.
Now look at the modern picture from Google's street view ... There's no parking allowed at the curbs -- at least at the corner, although we have parked vehicles farther down the street.
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And we have a bus, which can maneuver around a stalled vehicle or an accident because it's not on tracks embedded in the street. What if we had a mass-transit vehicle on tires that was powered by an overhead wire? Well, we had a few of them after World War II. They were called the "trackless trolleys" and enjoyed a brief popularity in Los Angeles.
As for The Times' series on traffic, as you might expect, Part I states the problem: Los Angeles' streets are congested. Compared with the 1938 photo, traffic on Alvarado today doesn't seem so bad, does it? Of course, we don't know exactly when Google cruised the streets, although it was apparently early in the morning. You might wonder whether our grandparents managed to solve Los Angeles' traffic problem -- or at least this particular traffic problem.
And in case you are wondering about the Earle Kynette case, it's Sunday and the court is dark.
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 ou may (or may not) be wondering why the unfortunate Edson S. Fancher, at left, was sprinkling the street when he had an encounter with a streetcar at Darwin and Avenue 20 (see above). I would presume that this was to keep the dust down because the street was unpaved. I always find it startling to see the early photographs of Broadway with some of the same familiar buildings and dirt streets. (Bonus factoid: The home at 1929 Darwin Ave. was built in 1903, according to Zillow and Property Shark.)
Also: Henrietta Brown has no interest in young British nobles traversing America in search of adventure ... Salvador Malacara, formerly a tax collector in Mexico, is arrested at 114 N. Hope on charges of "extensive monetary irregularities" ... Two employment agents are charged with fraud for taking money from prospective workers in exchange for nonexistent agricultural jobs in the Imperial Valley ... And a police officer shoots an African American man who stole a hat from a store and threw rocks at the officer when he was ordered to stop running.
Speaking of Broadway, it was my great pleasure to hear Bob Mitchell at the organ of the Orpheum Theatre last night before the showing of "Goldfinger" in the L.A. Conservancy's Last Remaining Seats series.
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Photograph by the Los Angeles Times, 1911
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seem to have antagonized some people by having the audacity to
question the notion that Los Angeles' streetcar system
was anything less than a shining glory and by poking fun of the idea that it was the victim of a
shadowy cabal (think wheels within wheels of corruption). In Los Angeles, this is, of course, heresy of the worst sort. (And here are the results of a Google search for cabal, shadowy, conspiracy, streetcars, "Los Angeles") |
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OK, let's go reality. Above, here's a photo of the Los Angeles streetcar
system on Main Street in 1911, with a detail at left. Note how the streetcars are flowing with
clocklike efficiency. Notice that the streetcars aren't backed up at
the intersection. Yes, the wonderful old streetcars are gliding along
the shimmering tracks, whisking passengers to their destinations quickly and
safely without a care in the world. (It's a bit difficult to tell from the photo, but I believe these are the "Huntington Standard" cars of 1902).
Don't take my word for it, read The Times editorial (Aug. 19, 1911) at left about the wonders of the city's streetcar system.
Let me quote a bit of it:
"Each car clings tenaciously to its overhead wire, waiting like a sailing vessel in the doldrums to catch some favoring breeze; "as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean." Once in a while a barnacle is detached and creeps painfully and laboriously from its resting place on the corner of 2nd and Main to another snug berth prepared for it between 2nd and 3rd. Then the great calm returns, the delicious peace of eventide settles again on the motorman and the conductor. The yellow and red dragon wags its tail and goes to sleep once more."
Don't get me wrong. I support mass transit and I use the Red/Purple Line almost daily. But history shows that congested traffic in Los Angeles is a century old and that the city's streetcar system was problematic at best.
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s difficult as this may be to believe (and I'm sure it is), traffic is not a new problem in Los Angeles. The city's streets were congested 50 years ago, they were congested 70 years ago and, yes, they were a mess a century ago. As regular readers of the Daily Mirror know, proposals for elevated trains, subways, one-way streets, bans on curbside parking and prohibitions against large, cumbersome vehicles have been kicked around for decades.
So here we are in 1938, taking yet another look at the city's impassible streets. You might find yourself asking why people living 70 years ago didn't adore our sainted streetcar system, because this is before (according to conspiracy theorists, anyway) the shadowy cabal of bus companies and car manufacturers plotted the postwar demise of the beloved Red Cars.
And there's an update in the trial of Police Capt. Earle Kynette in the Harry Raymond bombing, in which the defense, out of desperation in a doomed case, throws everything imaginable at the jury in a vain attempt keep their client out of jail.
Above left, apparently all one needed for a dialect joke in 1938 was an African American and a mule. Incredibly enough, this gem of ethnic humor appeared on The Times editorial page.
Really.
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ook, if you dare, into the mysterious disappearance of a fisherman on Santa Catalina Island named Tony the Greek, obscured not only by the details, but further muddied by the convoluted account in The Times. Toss in a private detective (Paul Blair of the Blair Detective Agency) who's approaching the disappearance as a case out of Sherlock Holmes and it's a good day's work merely to untangle the facts.
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Also: Plans for an incline railway up Mt. Washington, starting at Avenue 43 and Marmion Way (above). As the story notes, the railway was designed as a funicular, like Angels Flight, with two cars counterbalanced so that one descends when the other ascends.
On the jump, a race war between whites and Japanese in the Imperial Valley over picking cantaloupes.
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There are times when the old newspapers absolutely leave me speechless--and not in the good way. Yes, I realize this is a comic strip ("Tarzan") and yes, I realize it's 1938 and not 2008. But good grief, I still find it shocking that something like this could be syndicated in the mainstream media. And to think that the comic books of the 1950s were persecuted because they supposedly warped young minds.
"Reprints of Rex Maxon's Tarzan strips in the USA have been a rarity." --Dale Broadhurst.
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e have a very newsy day in Los Angeles. At left, the Shriners convention winds up with floats and Hollywood stars in the Motion Picture Electrical Pageant.
This kind of writing is hard to duplicate: "The West's largest arena--Memorial Coliseum--was transformed for the night into a gargantuan jeweled brooch such as Cellini might have been proud to have fashioned.... The electrical giants on the Colorado River groaned and whined as switches were thrown, hurtling the entire load of one high-power line direct from the dam power houses to the Coliseum."
The host is Jack Benny and the parade features Harold Lloyd, Mary Pickford, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, Boris Karloff, Mickey Rooney, some starlet named "Movita.," My favorite moment? Leo Carrillo on a "white neon-lighted horse." Of course there are elephants... and Eastern potentates ... and Nubian slaves...
Franklin Pierce McCall is arrested in the kidnapping and death of 5-year-old Jimmy Cash. McCall's mother says: "The boy has been in no trouble before in his life."
And Luise Rainer and Clifford Odets are splitsville.
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Photograph by the Los Angeles Times
People line up to get into the trial of Police Capt. Earle Kynette in the Harry Raymond bombing.
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n the case of the Harry Raymond bombing, defense attorney George Rochester attacks witnesses' credibility, especially George Sakalis, who is getting $100 a month from the district attorney, Rochester says.
Rochester also charges that John Fisher, who said Police Capt. Earle Kynette tried to buy pipe that would shatter easily (presumably for a pipe bomb), was once a member of the KKK and might be prejudiced against Kynette, a Catholic.
Also, 178 girls from the Los Angeles Orphan Asylum get a day at the beach ... Britain is buying 400 airplanes from Southern California's manufacturers: 200 bombers from Lockheed and 200 trainers from North American Aviation ... Eleanor Holm, who was suspended from the Olympic swim team for drinking, and bandleader Art Jarrett are splitsville. No, I've never heard of them either.
And you can get this hairdo at the Broadway.
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ow this is what I'd call an extremely gray page. Even electronic "zipotone" doesn't help much. But what great stories....
First of all, Mrs. D.C. Caloo is freed after being held as a prisoner at 732 W. 9th St. by Edna D. Wilkins. Caloo's husband and a sheriff's deputy went to the home in search of Mrs. Caloo. When Wilkins refused to admit them to the home, the deputy went around back, where he saw Mrs. Caloo standing at a second-story window. The deputy climbed up a back porch, got into Caloo's room and broke down the door to free her. Mrs. Caloo is insane, according to Wilkins, who was holding her to settle a debt, The Times said.
And there's a story about the "bedroom lobby" planned for next week's Republican National Convention in Chicago to be staged by delegates' wives to ensure that there will be a plank for women's suffrage.
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June 9, 1968
By Keith Thursby
Times staff writer
  on Drysdale's string of scoreless innings and consecutive shutouts finally ended in a 5-3 Dodgers victory over the Phillies.
Tony Taylor scored on a sacrifice fly in the fifth for the first run against Drysdale after 58 2/3 scoreless innings. Drysdale's streak would stand until 1988, when Orel Hershiser was on the mound and Drysdale in the broadcast booth for the Dodgers.
The game featured a protest by future Angels Manager Gene Mauch, who was running the Phillies in 1968. He wanted Drysdale checked to make sure he wasn't putting anything on the baseball. Umpire Augie Donatelli looked at Drysdale's wrist and hair and warned him not to touch the back of his head the rest of the game.
A few days later, The Times published photos of Don Sutton and Drysdale being checked by umpires. Manager Walt Alston complained that his pitchers were being singled out. After Tom Seaver and the Mets blanked the Dodgers, 1-0, Alston wondered why Seaver wasn't given the same treatment Drysdale and Sutton received.
"[Umpire Ed] Sudol said it is up to the umpires as to who'll they'll check," Alston said. "He said it's up to them to decide whether a pitcher is throwing a sinker or a splitter.
"They had better get some experts umpiring behind home plate if they're going to distinguish between the two pitches. I don't think they're qualified to do it."
keith.thursby@latimes.com |
Photograph by Larry Harnisch / Los Angeles Times
Speaking of watering troughs, at least one has survived in the Los Angeles area. This one in South Pasadena, on Meridian just south of Mission, was built across from the train station so people could water their horses when they made trips to the depot. |
 Los Angeles Times file photo
Well?
Everybody guessed Eve Arden. (Banner software was first). The gentleman on the right will be more of a challenge. He is not, as someone guessed, Brooks West, Arden's husband. The young fellow on the left is named Carlos.
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 bove, yes, such things really happened. Anybody who thinks the past was a "kinder, simpler time" needs to revisit their history lessons ... At left, an interesting figure is back in the news: The late Robert S. "Rattlesnake" James, the last man to be executed by hanging in California.
On Aug. 4, 1935, James tried to kill his wife, Mary, by putting her foot into a box of rattlesnakes after tying her to a table in their La Crescenta home. Although the snakes bit her, she didn't die, so James drowned her in a backyard fish pond. (Does the fish pond part sound familiar?) The man in the news is Johannssen C. Houtenbrink, alias "Snake Joe," who sold James the rattlesnakes that were to be the murder weapon. Houtenbrink was bitten by one of the 200 snakes he kept at his home, 2414 N. San Gabriel Blvd., South San Gabriel. (Note: Google maps doesn't like this address). Snake Joe recovered, only to be bitten again in 1959.
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eople sometimes ask me if I'm related to the Rev. J. Lester Harnish, above. The answer is no, but here he is. Folks tell me he was quite a good preacher.
