Deranged L.A. Crimes
 

Today I stumbled across some info about the Louise Springer murder, and started searching around for any suitable-for-posting crime scene photos, or house then and now photos, or any images that were particularly noirish (there isn't much out there it seems, unlike some of the other notorious cases, which is probably why there wasn't already much here in this thread).

I did find in my searching Joan Renner's Deranged L.A. Crimes blog, which has some pretty interesting LA noir info. I guess she started her blog after becoming obsessed with Aggie Underwood’s work. According to her self-published profile there: So I wondered if anyone here knows much more about Joan or has spent any time reading her blog, or has any other opinions or info (the other name that comes up all over in the Springer search is Steve Hodel, but I'm familiar with his reputation already :) )

Flyingwedge, you answered my question and then some. Just an amazing post!

http://imageshack.us/a/img202/1992/aabjailfw.jpg
posted by Flyingwedge

...and I agree, the mortar and pestle pharmacy sign is very cool.
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My earlier post.

http://imageshack.us/a/img23/5738/aabjailfw1mypost.jpg
posted by ethereal_reality
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also..

"A sunken 10,000 gallon crude oil tank in the southwest corner of the courthouse lawn."

My God Flyingwedge, you have a knack for finding out these obscure details.

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As I'm sure you know, it's this little dead end that Sarah Bixby Smith remembered in Adobe Days, "The level street at Court and Hill, protected on three sides by grades too steep for horses, was our safe, neighborhood playground." (this was circa the early 1880s) A photo from that time has been posted here before.


Thank you for the above Flyingwedge. During this whole discussion I kept wondering where the actual cells were.

Well, all the building detail was on the Sanborn map. I guess the big oil tank was especially important to note on a fire insurance map! Looking for maps and pictures of these old buildings is a fun challenge.

But thank you, ER, not just for founding this thread, but for asking about that building in the first place. Had you not started this line of inquiry, today I would not have discovered, much to my embarrassment, that I didn't have an LA library card. Now I do. :tup:

Southwest Corner of 8th and Olive - 1927
 

http://img560.imageshack.us/img560/5177/00067457.jpg
lapl

1940 Los Angeles and Hollywood Sightseeing Map
 

Sorry if we have seen this one before:

http://img839.imageshack.us/img839/1193/map0038.jpg
lapl

Pan Right

I apologize if this has already been posted, but I recently stumbled across the 1931 newspaper pages showing the 1881 model re-creation:
http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/...pscea92567.jpg
University of California/Calisphere

Too small to read here all the info here -- individual buildings are numbered by block -- but the map is zoomable at the Calisphere website:
http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/...and=calisphere

Sunset Blvd. Overpass Of Silverlake Blvd.
 

I grew up in the Silverlake area on the hill to the right of the photo. The construction is the overpass of which will be Silverlake Blvd., this is looking west toward Hollywood. The building below the hill is still there, it housed the Elite Market and upstairs was the Club Zarape. There are typical , for the area, stairs behind the building going up to Westerly Terrace. The precarious apartment perched on the hill is still there also, I always thought it would be relocated to the bottom someday by earthquake.
One of the owners of the Club Zarape was gunned down in front of his home on Westerly Terr. in the early 50's.
[IMG]http://i597.photobucket.com/albums/t...psa40f12ec.jpg[/IMG]

Photo from Silverlake.org

Thanks to your great idea to use the Baist map, I have uploaded a more accurate overlay of St. Athanasius - sitting right in the middle of the street:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-L...thanasius2.jpg

How unfortunate!

Thanks, ER, but I am getting sick up and fed about hearing of the Cecil's "sordid" past from historically-ignorant local TV newsreaders.

It's an 85 year old hotel, located in a part of town that for decades has been a bit sketchy, to say the least. Is anyone surprised that among the hundreds of thousands of hotel guests there has been some deliciously noir behavior?

And people are "shocked" about this? Paging Inspector Renault.

Most of you are quite familiar with the wonderful On Bunker Hill.....which devotes I'm guessing half its entries to just this sort of noirish sordidness.

A terrible tragedy for the family (and we are as of yet still unsure how it all came to pass). But to Noirish Los Angeles readers - hardly surprising.

After all - The Noirish reader is far more savvy than the average schmoe :cheers:

http://www.onbunkerhill.org/

:previous:

Why do I think that local TV newsreaders are not targeting Noirish Los Angeles or On Bunker Hill readers but rather the average schmoe? And whether one's viewpoint is that of the average schmoe or of someone particularly interested in the underbelly, isn't the Cecil's past, like that of many downtown hotels, actually rather sordid indeed? And what's not great, in noirish terms, about Pauline landing on George?


http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/3188/ottong.jpgLAT

Wholly crap; since I’ve become addicted to this forum and have gone through all the pages I’ve filled up my desk top with so many links to all kinds of interesting sites that have begun to boggle my mind. I can’t even begin to keep track of them, but I’m having too much fun to care. Maybe my interpretation of norish is not in line with many of you and since I’m new here I don’t really understand all the background and thought processes each of you have about certain types of crime and the intrigue behind those that live up to this site. However the mean streets of LA that are plagued by gang violence are indeed a tragic problem, but I don’t see that as being “norish” simply because they have nothing to do with the old Los Angeles and the places and times I remember as a kid growing up – they are just turf wars and all about who’s the strongest. So a mysterious death of a young woman found in a water tank in a seedy hotel in a seedy part of town is not a mean street crime of control, but a true norish example of enticement into the realm of “who-don it” and a perfect excuse to make a B movie. So for those of you who created this forum – my thanks go out for a job well done!

Hollywood, this photo is at a place I know very well. I used to ride the Red Car past here every day on my way to Thomas Star King Jr. High from my home on Scott Ave. near Elysian Park. Of course that was c. 1954 long after the overpass was completed. I remember a small meat market just beyond the market on the right maybe even directly under the apartment clinging to the side of the cut. My dad would go there to buy horse meat to feed our cat. Also there was a place right about there that processed and sold turkeys at Thanksgiving time. I remember going there c. 1947 with my mom and grandmother and while they were making their choice I watched a worker stripping the feathers off a bird and removing some of the pin-feathers. I don’t remember whether she had to cut off the head but since the bird was already dead, I’d bet she did. When we got home my grandmother settled into the task of removing the rest of the pin-feathers. Haha – not going to happen today when all we have to do is buy a Butter Ball! or just call in a buy a complete dinner from Von's.

".......isn't the Cecil's past, like that of many downtown hotels, actually rather sordid indeed?"

Precisely, GW.......That's my issue. Zero context.

The newsreaders imply (Oh My Gosh!!!! Who Knew??!!) that there is this one singular Tower of Terror on Main Street......when we all know that just about any 85 year old hotel is going to have its share.

Every house dick knows that sooner or later he's gonna have a dead body in a hotel room on his hands.......;)

Re Pauline & George ---....The cops may not know the physics involved, but they know from experience the effects of a nine-story fall.

-----and as for the unfortunate George - of 440 W Third........that would put him up on the Hill, somewhere around Olive, wouldn't it?

Not unfortunate at all. There's something delightful about the lot becoming the street and the street becoming the lot.

Thank you again for your amazing work on this and your willingness and enthusiasm to make it as accurate as possible. Excellent work :-) I'm finally able to locate Poundcake Hill in my mind's eye. It was always maddingly elusive before. I hope you forward your version to Paradise Leased.

I'm convinced a book or web site of overlays of key buildings would be a huge hit, especially if focused on the more topographically-messsed-with parts of town.

When I was a kid, we lived at the Alfred Lee apartments at 3205 Descanso Drive, just up the street from here. We used to use Silverlake to go out to my grandparent's house in Eagle Rock. Over to the right in your pic, on the rise above Parkman which led down to Silverlake Boulevard, in that longish building there was a lunch counter where we'd stop from time to time. Once my mother's glass of water had a tiny little fish, a guppy, swimming around in it and she called the cook/waiter over to sort of complain about it being in her glass. The guy picks up the glass smiling, like he can't believe his luck, looks at the fish and very carefully puts it up on the pie case, kinda like a gold fish bowl! So everybody can see his fish. He got my mother another glass of water. My father thought it was hilarious. By the way, I remember the Zarape and I've heard there is some evidence Beth Short passed through it with some 'friends' in '46 or '47.

I was playing LA Noire and I was driving through the mile long subway tunnel all the way to Pasadena. My question is, what is the state of that tunnel today? It is to my understand that it is split in half because of the one of the skyscrapers foundation was directly over it, but of the two sections today, how is it? I saw a documentary that took place in 1994 but a lot could have happened in 19 years.

Superb, thank you! The way the curb and the slope of the road match in the two photos is really something. And I agree with tovangar2 that you should forward this to Paradise Leased. This really brings the little old church to life again!

This area is always worth a second or third look, not least of which because the area has so drastically changed. Here's Sarah's "playground" from around that time:

http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/925...0scourthil.jpg
1890s, LAPL

--

Also, I found another picture showing a sliver of the PE tunnel as it heads under Ft. Moore Hill, and it comes from the wonderful collection of photos by Arnold Hylen. But still no luck finding shots of the north portal!

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/163...3courthill.jpg
Arnold Hylen, 1953, Cal State Library

Found these gloriously faded photos on Flickr thanks to user JAVA1888, who reportedly found these "rolled tightly, shaped like a cigar up in the attic" of an abandoned house. No dates are given for any of these.

First we look south down Hill Street from the ledge over the tunnel in between Court and First Streets. The Highland Villa is already gone so that should help with dating:

http://imageshack.us/a/img716/8158/l...0sdthill1s.jpg

Another shot from the same vantage point:

http://imageshack.us/a/img826/8158/l...0sdthill1s.jpg

Street shot of Broadway and the old Times building:

http://imageshack.us/a/img801/6374/l...0sdtbwayti.jpg

And one of the Bradbury Mansion looking grown in but not rundown just yet:

http://imageshack.us/a/img26/4111/lo...0scourthil.jpg