L.A. Prepares for Olympic-Size Traffic Nightmare

July 1, 1984: Will subways work in Los Angeles? "But others say Metro Rail will not be heavily used by poor people because it will not take them where they want to go--to jobs scattered throughout the Los Angeles area," The Times' William Trombley wrote. "The traffic patterns of low-income blacks and Hispanics are diffused," said George W. Hilton, professor of economics at UCLA. "They are highly auto-dependent and are likely to remain so in the foreseeable future." Hilton also said: "We aren't going to run out of fossil fuels. There's no economic point in finding more than a 20-year supply at one one time. As prices rise, other sources will be found." Mr. Modular was working on these pages. They look like bento boxes. Well, of course, the subways work in Los Angeles, but nobody knew it in 1984. Tunneling beneath the city was not without problems, as anyone who recalls the partial collapse of Hollywood Boulevard during construction of the Red Line will remember. And people with long memories will recall that traffic congestion during the 1984 Olympics was much less than expected.

The 1984 Olympics united Southern California residents over a familiar topic--traffic. Bob Pool's story focused on concerns in the San Fernando Valley with the Games starting in less than a month. "We're going to have problems if 70% of the people going to the Olympics don't take the bus. If 50% of them go by car, we're going to have total gridlock," David C. Royer, senior Los Angeles city transportation engineer for the Valley, West Los Angeles and LAX, told a group of Encino homeowners. The worries weren't limited to the Valley, of course. Events were scheduled across the Southland so if you lived somewhere in Southern California, you were planning for the worst-case scenario.  Royer said residents should ask their employers for flexible working hours during the Olympics and people with tickets should start reserving seats on RTD buses. --Keith Thursby

Streetcar Kills Motorcycle Officer

June 16, 1920: Motorcycle Officer E. Peter Bradley is killed when he ignores crossing signals and is hit by an inbound streetcar at Ventura and Lankershim boulevards.

Nuestro Pueblo: The Pershing Square Mystery

"The Last Argument of Kings"

Sept. 20, 1953: The cannon was moved to Travel Town in Griffith Park.

This simple post about a cannon at Pershing Square has become ridiculously complicated. All I want to know is what became of it! A longtime gathering place for malcontents and the homeless, the site has been known as the New Plaza, 6th Street Park, Central Park, St. Vincent's Park and Pershing Square. To delve into its tawdry history is to read nearly countless stories of attempts to rid it of rats, pigeons and blackbirds. But I won't get derailed into all of that today. The cannon in Nuestro Pueblo (which I'll call "The Last Argument of Kings") was captured at Santiago de Cuba and given to Los Angeles by Maj. Gen. William R. Shafter on Thanksgiving Day, 1899. This is how The Times depicted "The Last Argument of Kings" cannon on Dec. 1, 1899. Although the artwork is unsigned, I would guess that it might have been done by Ted Gale, staff artist and cartoonist. And this is Shafter's presentation speech: According to a 1947 story, "The Last Argument of Kings" was placed at the northeast corner of the park, 5th and Hill streets. After World War II, Pershing Square was excavated to create underground parking and the mature landscaping and fountain were removed. Evidently "The Last Argument of Kings" was considered incompatible with the new landscaping and moved to Travel Town, where it was photographed for a Jan. 3, 1961, Times feature. Bonus fact: Victory House was built at the park during World War II as a USO facility for servicemen.   But one cannon wasn't enough for Pershing Square. On the Fourth of July, 1935, a second cannon was placed in the park, at the southwest corner, Olive and 6th Street. The "Old Ironsides" cannon remains in Pershing Square.

In the meantime, "The Last Argument of Kings" has become a plaything for children at Travel Town, as photographed by Boris Yaro, Dec. 11, 1975.  I may have to make a field trip to Travel Town and see if it's still there.

Love Triangle Killings at Burbank Trailer Park

"Everything's Okay, Honey, Go Back to Sleep, Huh?"

Nuestro Pueblo: Pumpkin Church

Below, Strangler Lewis vs. Toots Mondt at the Philharmonic, Aug. 14, 1924. Notice the byline: Braven Dyer, who retired from The Times in 1964 and died in 1983 at the age of 83.

Enemy Agents Kidnap Book Publisher, May 14, 1939

Publisher George Putnam, former husband of the late Amelia Earhart... ... releases a book titled "The Man Who Killed Hitler" ... ... and some mysterious men with German accents don't like it ...   ... They grab him at his home in North Hollywood and take him to Bakersfield.

Jordan's King Hussein Visits L.A.; Rams to Play Night Game, April 4, 1959

The Times' art department retouched Neil Clemans' photo of Marlon Brando giving the finger to photographers. Let's see if we can get a copy of the original.

At left, King Hussein of Jordan waves to photographers in Palmdale after flying a Lockheed F-104D over the Mojave Desert. The Times emphasized that Hussein was "Islam's sworn foe of communism" and said he "scorned Soviet aid to the Middle East and offered a three-point plan to save the cradle of religion from the 'sweep of atheism.' "  Communists and Peronists riot in downtown Buenos Aires ... Princess Grace's appendectomy is Page 1 news ... and Judge Martin Katz of Van Nuys asks a woman charged with advertising fortune telling whether she can predict his verdict. She couldn't. And Katz fined her $25. And the weather? "Smog today."

Elizabeth Duncan is sentenced to die.   Hey, it's "On Stage" by Leonard Starr. Haven't seen that one in years.

Even in Southern California, football fans deal with the weather. The Rams announced plans for a Saturday night game to open the 1959 season. "For the last four seasons the Coliseum temperature has been in the high 80s," general manager Pete Rozelle said. "We feel that Ram fans would prefer a night game while the weather is still warm." You have to wonder if Rozelle, the future commissioner, also was envisioning a future of night games and prime-time television audiences for the NFL. --Keith Thursby

Body of Girl, 16, Dumped at Burbank Hospital

Half a century cannot dull the tragedy. Her name was Brenda. When they found her lying in the grass outside St. Joseph Hospital in Burbank they guessed she was 21, but she was only 16. A man called to say she was there. He didn't give his name. Brenda was still warm and fully dressed in a black coat, cream-colored blouse and red print pedal pushers. All the labels had been removed.  She was wearing a 14-karat gold wedding band and an engagement ring, a gold locket and a cheap wristwatch. Her pink shoes were nearby. She was identified by her uncle, Sheldon Grossbart, as Brenda Blonder Emerson. She was a bride of nine months who eloped to Arizona with Stephen Emerson, 20, against the wishes of her parents, Mr. and Mrs. William Blonder, 9606 Cresta Drive, Fox Hills. She had a needle mark in her arm and another in her buttocks.  The medical examiner found that she died from 3.4 grams of sodium pentothal, administered as an anesthetic before undergoing an abortion. A preliminary examination suggested a false pregnancy, but later tests determined that she was pregnant, The Times said.    Brenda and Stephen had been living at 9645 1/2 Olympic Blvd., Beverly Hills. He wasn't working and it's not clear what she did for a living, but Brenda managed to get $600 ($4,223.87USD 2007) for the operation, The Times said.  And somehow she found Ruth Haskins, 42, a hard-boiled pro of the business who had worked with her brother, osteopath Philip Victor Ames, until he ran off to Mexico in 1957 to avoid being sentenced for nine counts of performing abortions. Haskins' career dated at least to 1936, when she was sentenced to a year in jail for illegal operations. With her brother in Mexico, Haskins had begun working with his former chauffeur, Edgar Schrater, alias Edgar Salgado. On the day she died, Brenda apparently claimed she was going to a family reunion at her parents' home. Stephen told police the last time he saw her was in Hollywood at 4 p.m., three hours before her body was found. The Times said Brenda's mother took her to a rendezvous with Mrs. Michael Smythe for the trip to Burbank, where the abortion was to be performed. Because it was unclear whether the LAPD or Burbank police had jurisdiction in Brenda's death, Los Angeles homicide detectives joined the investigation.  LAPD homicide Detectives Danny Galindo and Paul LePage, accompanied by Haskins' son-in-law, Bob Kane, went to Tijuana to find her. The detectives arrested her after Kane pointed her out at the Tijuana Airport, where she was en route to Mexico City to join her brother, the Mirror-News said. Haskins was carrying $945 in cash and an address book "containing numerous names," the Mirror-News said.  When another woman was wrongly indicted, Smythe admitted her role in Brenda's death and received 75 days in jail. Haskins pleaded guilty and was sentenced to prison, although The Times didn't report the terms. Schrater surrendered to LAPD homicide Detective Herman Zander in the Hollywood office of attorney Jules Covey and was booked on suspicion of murder. He served five years after pleading guilty to manslaughter and was arrested in 1968 on charges of running an abortion ring in the Chicago suburbs.  Brenda was given a pink casket and buried in a beige satin dress at Mt. Sinai Memorial Park. At her funeral, Rabbi Jacob Pressman of Temple Beth Am said: "Oh God, we do not pretend to understand the reason of thy ways .... She was little more than a pretty child playing at the grownup game and now she suddenly lies in our midst in the stillness of death." Although the details of her death were known only to God, he said, "the vivid present must give way to the sweet memories of her happy past." The Times said: "In the tearful graveside rites, the girl's father, near collapse, joined Rabbi Pressman in singing the Kaddish, the mourner's prayer. At the conclusion, Brenda's maternal grandmother, Mrs. Rose Beim, threw herself on the casket and kissed it. "And then they left Brenda on the slope ..."

Burbank Time Capsule Revisited

Cinda Cates, Burbank public information specialist, passes along the images that were recovered from the 1959 time capsule placed in the Magnolia Boulevard Bridge. The anonymous photographer recorded the city's civic buildings (City Hall, a fire station, etc.) and took quite a few pictures of the new bridge. Spend a moment on the predictions of Kenneth E. Norwood of Burbank's Planning Department. He envisioned a city where only 12% of the people lived in single-family homes, with 88% in multi-unit garden apartments made of plastic that were incorporated in commercial complexes. "These complexes are supposed to be the ultimate in urban living, combining offices, hotels, apartments, shops, restaurants, etc., in one continuous complex of buildings, malls and arcades," he wrote. There would be no overhead wires or antennas, he said. Instead, Burbank would use underground atomic power with electricity distributed by waves. "Rapid monorail routes connect metro centers, with pickup stations at the Lockheed Air Control Center, and at each of the main malls in Burbank," Norwood wrote. "Unlike auto parking in 1959, there is no parking on streets or open lots but in fully automatic parking units located at each main destination point."

Nuestro Pueblo -- March 1, 1939

Above, a quirky sentinel welcomes visitors to Sylmar. Below, a 1949 feature on the Olive Festival.