Originally Posted by Noircitydame (Post 6621159)

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/k...efuneral57.jpg http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics43/00041028.jpg

Sept 29, 1957: The LA Junior Chamber of Commerce held a mock funeral for “Smokey Joe” the backyard incinerator. City leaders had been after him for years as a scapegoat for the smog problem. Oh sure, they knew it wasn’t entirely his fault, but unlike the other suspects, cars for example, Smokey Joe was short, concrete, slow-moving.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/k...LAT10-1-57.jpg LAT 10-1-57

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/k...cobelle/54.jpg http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics21/00030222.jpg

They’d already written his obituary, back in ’55. But Smokey Joe refused to go quietly. He told anybody who would listen that he was being set up by a powerful combustible-garbage collection racketeering syndicate. Over the next two years came allegations of corruption, bribery, blackjacking, guns, dire threats, mysterious witnesses who disappeared or were too scared to testify.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/k...AT-5-26-55.jpg LAT 5-26-55

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/k...AT-6-12-55.jpg LAT 6-12-55

Mayor Poulson and the Board of Supervisors clashed over Smokey Joe. The Mayor didn’t like smog either, but he figures, maybe Smokey could just clean up his act a little. He accused one especially anti-Smokey supervisor, Herbert Legg, of trying to “blackjack” cities into killing off Smokey Joe in favor of trash collection systems pushed by Legg. Legg denied the charges.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/k...e/00060244.jpg http://jpg3.lapl.org/pics21/00060244.jpg
(Police Chief Parker, testifying at Mayor Poulson’s “investigation into alleged rubbish collection racketeering,” June 20, 1955).

But……in October 1955, garbage dump proprietor Andrew V. Hohn testified before the grand jury that he’d paid Legg’s field deputy George Turner two $5k bribes in exchange for 5 county garbage contracts, and that Legg later thanked him for the “package.” Turner, along with “refuse operator” Theodore Hamlin, was indicted on bribery charges. While Legg “admitted the existence of a vicious and ruthless monopoly in the garbage disposal business,” he denied any knowledge of bribery. In early 1956 Legg was brought up on perjury charges for lying to the grand jury. George Turner, who was to have been the prosecution’s key witness, eluded the process servers, and Legg was ultimately acquitted.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/k...LAT1-31-56.jpg LAT 1-31-56

Turner and Hamlin came up for trial in March 1956, but the star witness for that case, Andrew V. Hohn, refused to testify, telling told the court gunman had broken into his house and threatened his family with death if he did. Without his testimony, the case collapsed.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/k...AT-3-19-56.jpg LAT 3-19-56

Then there was the Assembly “Interim Committee on Governmental Efficiency & Economy,” who in May 1956 conducted a week-long probe into corruption in the Southland’s “garbage, rubbish and trash” industry. There were more allegations of bribes paid and citizens threatened, but nothing came of it except people who had been using the words “garbage,” “rubbish” and “trash” interchangeably learned that they were, in fact, three different things.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/k...lat5-10-56.jpg LAT 5-10-56

With Smokey Joe out of the way, homeowners wondered what to do with the corpse. The City recommended it be “bashed into small pieces with a sledgehammer and dropped into a five gallon can That way the remains could be carted away by municipal collectors on regular trash days.” (LAT 10-1-57). “In other words, pay my enemies to haul me off.” Smokey Joe really smoldered over that one.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/k...e/00041026.jpg http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics43/00041026.jpg

This guy had a better idea. Why not turn Smokey Joe into a barbeque? Haul out your breakfast nook table and a rubber air mattress, your newspaper and you’re living the California dream, smog-free, baby. Back in Ohio, they’re still shoveling snow off the ground…

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/k...belle/1960.jpg http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics43/00041029.jpg

Some dames, though, couldn’t get over ol’ Joe that easily.

“What are you gonna do? Arrest me for smoking?”

***
And while some at city hall may have been breathing easier, scandals and inquires went on. Some people were starting to question why an incinerator been buried, not cremated. Others wondered why trash pickup was going to cost the city almost $1.5 million more than originally estimated. Then too, not everybody was happy about the willy-nillyness of L.A.’s garbage cans.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/k...nov13-57-1.jpg LAT 11-13-57

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/k...t-11-12-57.jpg 11-13-57

Plus, there was still smog…. But they couldn’t pin it on Smokey Joe this time.

http://i281.photobucket.com/albums/k...lle/smog58.jpg http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics27/00048416.jpg
1958

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality (Post 6621003)

:previous: Thanks for the additional information Tetsu. Why so few photos of his mansion with the ostentatious 'lighthouse'?



This is fun. (although it's a bit south of Los Angeles County)
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/842/sexr.jpg
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/320...0/840/aw17.jpg
ebay

__

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire (Post 6622966)

https://www.culvercity.org/~/media/I...Map%20gif.ashxhttps://www.culvercity.org/~/media/I...cad%20jpg.ashx

http://i.imgur.com/zIfQWu9.jpg?1?1872CHMA
The second location, above, is discussed here. The building was demolished in 1962.

So it seems that we've seen the site of the second PMA here before, just before it was built:

http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...ps75600e28.jpgUSCDL
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...ostcount=16614

Originally Posted by BrysonWilshire (Post 6625506)

The August 1915 edition of the "Los Angeles Tourist" described itself as "a free guide book for the traveler and pleasure seeker"; the publication's release coincided with "The Painted Desert Exhibit" at the San Diego Exposition. Accommodations in Los Angeles packed the publication's pages, including a full page ad on page 38 for the Burlington Apartments, managed by the owner, Charles F. Kinnucan:

Originally Posted by Albany NY (Post 6622383)

Wow, Michael, you're a man after my own heart! (Did that sound creepy, at all?) Anyway, my biggest interest in all of the photos of old LA has always been the people. The long-since-gone faces of ordinary people who happened to, by simple chance, appear in photos of old buildings and neighborhoods in Los Angeles. I also wonder what happened to these blurry people. Some may have become famous (or infamous). Did any of these street scenes catch an image of the Black Dahlia's murderer? Or maybe a simple laborer whose grandchildren still live in LA? In these old photos, the "real" Los Angeles emerges....the very people who designed, built, envisioned, lived in, or were simply held captive by, the great expanding metropolis. And every single tiny, blurry image of every background person tells a story, unknown to us. Every single one of them had their own hopes and dreams and demons stalking their every waking hour....just like the rest of us. The more things change, the more they remain the same.

Originally Posted by Beaudry (Post 6623472)

Am certain I'm not alone in saying Urban Diachrony is one of my all-time favorite blogs. Glad there's cross-pollination here!

Originally Posted by Martin Pal (Post 6624095)

I first thought that the sailor in the photo was a woman.

On the other hand, on Martin Turnbull's site he lists all sorts of places mentioned in Los Angeles that he's come across in books.

On page 60 of Sheila Graham's book The Garden of Allah, 1970, she talks about The Waldorf as a Gay bar…on a seedy stretch of Main Street…near Harold’s…since their glamour days as early as the 1930s, both bars had grown shabby.

In the book George Cukor: Double Life by Patrick McGilligan, Harper Perennial, 1991, on page 11 is a note about The Waldorf that says And if you looked at the downtown bars like the Waldorf, the Cellar, the 326 – it was so goddamned open.

The last one indicates the Waldorf and Cellar might be two different places? Anyway, it's interesting.

Originally Posted by Beaudry (Post 6618103)

It is with a heavy heart I must report the loss of one of our children. The ModernCraft, RIP. 1930-2014...

Esotouric writes similarly on their Facebook page: "We believe there needs to be an organized mass effort by preservation groups like ADSLA to nominate landmarks. Teach-ins, editing sessions, etc. Enlightened individual property owners are doing the majority of the HCM applying, for single family homes, and paying professionals to help them. These are not the buildings we need to worry about. Let the loss of Mole-Richardson be a wake up call. HCM nomination is hard work to do alone--why not crowdsource and simplify it?"

Originally Posted by esotouric (Post 6625985)

...and buy you a beer.[/URL].

Originally Posted by MichaelRyerson (Post 6626252)

What kind of beer?

Originally Posted by Martin Pal (Post 6624095)

In the book George Cukor: Double Life by Patrick McGilligan, Harper Perennial, 1991, on page 11 is a note about The Waldorf that says And if you looked at the downtown bars like the Waldorf, the Cellar, the 326 – it was so goddamned open.

The last one indicates the Waldorf and Cellar might be two different places? Anyway, it's interesting.

Originally Posted by MartinTurnbull (Post 6625882)

From the reading I've done, the impression I got was that they were all different places. It's the Waldorf name that comes up the most frequently (including "Open Secret: Gay Hollywood, 1928-2000" by David Ehrenstein)

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire (Post 6626405)

http://i.imgur.com/gpjfP2V.jpg?1?9181unitedartists.com/






Looks like it started out as the Waldorf in the Waldorf Hotel, at 521 S Main, later becoming the Waldorf Cellar, as it was listed in the '56CD, and seen in the pic at top. Bohemian Los Angeles by Daniel Hurewitz--a good read, btw--mentions in a footnote that 'The official Waldorf liquor license was denied in 1936 on grounds that the business ran 'contrary to public welfare and morals.'"

Originally Posted by esotouric (Post 6626298)

Period appropriate to the building, wherever possible.

Originally Posted by CityBoyDoug (Post 6626617)

In May 1959 Los Angeles Police invaded Cooper Donuts, which was located between the Waldorf Bar and Harold's Bar 555 South Main St., and roughed up the patrons who were mostly transgenders, gays and hustlers.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...ps0a75c476.jpg CD

Originally Posted by esotouric (Post 6625985)

Thanks for the shout out, Br'er Beaudry. The loss of such a prominent and fine building, and the complete failure of the organized preservation establishment to see the wrecking ball around the bend is heartbreaking.

But yes, this is an opportunity for folks who care, and there are plenty of them reading this, to organize to protect what is not yet lost. And we're putting our money where our mouth is by offering some swell prizes for community members who make the effort to landmark Los Angeles buildings. To wit: for every HCM nomination submitted to the Cultural Heritage Commission by a subscriber to our newsletter, we'll give you and up to three collaborators a free ticket on the Esotouric bus adventure of your choosing. For every successful landmark nomination, we'll feature you on our podcast, and buy you a beer. More here.