Dateline>City of Angels

Cue the fanfare! Dateline>City of Angels is proud to debut its very first Podcast Report.

Dating to the 1850s, Old Savannah Cemetery is located in Rosemead, Calif., at the end of the Santa Fe Trial, making it one of our nation’s most historic pioneer graveyards. Over the last few years, preservationists have fended off a plan to remove and replace the tombstones with a Memorial Wall and city park. However, Savannah is still beset by a host of issues that threaten its survival.

Synopsis: In this podcast, I interview pioneer descendant and Savannah Board President Randy Wiggins about the graveyard’s past, present and future. Plus, there’s an added Halloween treat in the form of the ghostlore surrounding the Snoddy family plot (photo).

Title: Probing Old Savannah Cemetery
Episode: No. 1, October 31, 2008
Duration/File: 00:06:31; 3.1 MB, MP3 Stereo

Clicking the player icon above delivers a live audio stream of the podcast. Of course, visitors with podcatching software can also receive the podcast through this site’s RSS feed. More info about Savannah pioneers can be found at the cemetery’s Webblog.

One of L.A.’s favorite ghost stories is the Feliz Curse, a hex allegedly placed on Griffith Park by a young girl a century and a half ago. Each Halloween, the story inevitably pops up in some newspaper or blog.

I’ve written extensively on many aspects of the curse (for example, here and here), but a little-known chapter in the drama actually unfolded 117 years ago this week.

First, Some Background

For those who don’t know the legend as originally told by Horace Bell, the Reader’s Digest version goes like this…

Just before her death in 1861, Rancho Los Feliz owner Maria Verdugo divided her approximately 6,000-acre estate among several heirs, with the lion’s share of about 4,000 acres going to her son, Jose Antonio Feliz. A bachelor, Don Antonio remained on the family homestead with his sister Soledad and a young, beloved niece named Petranilla.

In 1863, Feliz contracted smallpox and Petranilla was sent away for safety. Meanwhile, family “friend” Antonio Coronel paid a visit to her dying uncle. An attorney, Coronel hastily drafted a will granting himself control of the ranch and coerced Feliz to sign it.

Upon Feliz’s death, Petranilla returned to find herself disinherited. Angered, she cast a vicious curse of ruin, misfortune and death on the land and all future owners. Then, for dramatic flair, she dropped dead.

A Legacy of Doom?

Of course, many historians scoff at the notion that subsequent owners were stalked either by Death or bad luck, but let’s examine the record…

• As executor, Coronel conveyed the ranch to C.V. Howard, a fellow attorney who promptly negotiated a lucrative sale of the land’s water rights. While celebrating his windfall at the town saloons, Howard got rowdy and was shot dead.

• Dairyman Leon Baldwin acquired the ranch next, but didn’t fare much better. He was murdered by banditos during a Mexican business trip.

• Next came Thomas Bell, a San Francisco financier. He held the tract briefly, then sold it to Col. Griffith J. Griffith. Bell lived to his 80s, but suffered a freak, deadly fall from his mansion’s banister. (Rumor had it his mistress gave him a push.)

And Griffith? Well, that brings us to today’s twisted tale…

When he purchased the nearly 4,000-acre heart of Rancho Los Feliz in 1882, Griffith at first planned on developing it into a suburb. As a marketing ploy, he allowed an ostrich farm to operate on the property to lure visitors from downtown L.A. When the attraction failed, he foreclosed on its owner, Frank Burkett, who swore to get even.

A 19th-Century Drive-By

Burkett’s opportunity came Oct. 28, 1891, when Griffith drove his wife Tina and her sister by carriage to Old Calvary Cemetery at what is now the site of Cathedral High School on North Broadway. While the women paid their respects to family, Griffith waited outside the graveyard walls.

Suddenly, Burkett pulled alongside in a wagon and leveled a double-barreled shotgun at Griffith’s head, letting loose the first barrel. Wounded, the colonel escaped a second volley by ducking into the cemetery.

Apparently thinking he’d bagged his quarry, Burkett then killed himself with a revolver shot to his own head.

But dumb luck had literally saved Griffith. When they investigated the incident, authorities found both buck and birdshot in Burkett’s wagon. The assailant had mistakenly loaded his shotgun with the non-lethal birdshot, which merely peppered Griffith’s face. The Colonel suffered no permanent damage, but the buckshot certainly would’ve killed him.

Oh, the Irony…

While Griffith may have survived his brush with the Grim Reaper, it appears Dona Petranilla got the last laugh. Like other owners before him, Griffith failed to maintain a profit from Rancho Los Feliz. Faced with mounting taxes, he donated the rancho to the city in 1896.

Then, in 1903, during a fit of “alcoholic insanity,” Griffith ironically shot his own wife in the face, maiming her for life. After serving two years in San Quentin for assault, he returned to L.A. a social pariah. Few mourned his passing from liver disease in 1916.

To be sure, several contemporaries of Griffith nabbed parcels of Rancho Feliz without misfortune. One example is James Lick, whose tract is now the east side of Hollywood. But Lick and his counterparts acquired the holdings of other Feliz heirs, so presumably Dona Petranilla’s malediction didn’t apply.

Oddly, with the exception of Antonio Coronel, you could argue that every owner of Jose Antonio Feliz’s tract was visited by some ill omen.

For me, a visit to this mission is always like a trip back in time.

Off the beaten track just outside Lompoc, La Purísima was founded in 1787 as the 11th of California’s 21 missions. It moved to its current site in 1812 after a huge quake destroyed the first complex, four miles away.

Now a California State Park, its nearly 2,000 acres include ranch animals, corrals and gardens reflecting the Mission Era, as well as more than 10 fully restored and furnished buildings, plus 25 miles of hiking trails.

It’s safe to say that few places offer a more serene (or  realistic) experience of Pastoral California under the Spanish flag.

Among the things I enjoy most about old graveyards are the many untold tales they contain.

Let yourself wander amid all the monuments to the rich and famous, and you’ll also find countless revelations about the life-and-death struggles of us common folk, whose stories would otherwise be lost to time.

A case in point is this riven marker at Angelus Rosedale for Lawrence A. Prudhont (1894 - 1913), whose epitaph reads:

“Died at Post of Duty as Wireless Operator on S.S. Rosecrans, During Storm at Mouth of Colombia River, Oregon. God Calls Away When He Thinks Best.”

Erected by the Wireless Operators of the Pacific Coast, the front of the obelisk features the chiseled image of a sinking ship. Above it, some sort of seal, or possibly an image of the deceased, has been torn away. On the back, there’s an anchor wrapped in a banner inscribed with the words Honor, Fidelity and Death.

The tombstone inspired me to Google up the Rosecrans, which I learned was an oil tanker wrecked off Cape Disappointment, Jan. 7, 1913, in an area known as the Graveyard of the Pacific. Over a 300-year period, more than 2,000 vessels and 700 lives have been lost in those deadly waters.

Thanks to a piloting error, the Rosecrans ran afoul a sandbar. Her captain then made the ultimately fatal mistake of dropping the ship’s anchors, dooming his vessel to flounder offshore beyond the reach of rescuers. Out of a crew of 33, the heroic Prudhont and 29 of his shipmates perished.

My fascination with Angeleno ghostlore is no secret. For the past several years, I’ve spent every spare moment I can “collecting” spooky legends, researching their roots, interviewing witnesses, and joining professional ghost hunters in their explorations of our region’s most historic haunts.

Recently, fellow blogger Rebecca Lacko asked me to recommend some “family friendly” locales with a reputation for ghosts.

The following are five popular sites I’ve personally checked out where kids and parents alike can relive history while watching for the supernatural. (Click on the headers for official info…)

1. OLVERA STREET, Los Angeles: The spirits of early L.A. live on, thanks to nightly Day of the Dead processions, Oct. 25 - Nov. 2, in which kids and adults don death faces to honor their ancestors (inset). Ask the right insiders, though, and you’ll learn that the really gruesome wraiths take in the sights after the tourists go home. Alleged hotspots include the Plaza Fire Station, Avila Adobe and Pelanconi House, now La Golondrina Restaurant, where prankish ghosts have irritated staff and repair crews. (Of course, during business hours, La Golondrina’s most popular spirits are its frothy Margaritas.)

2. LEONIS ADOBE, Calabasas: While the current management prefers to downplay any talk of hauntings, this adobe’s ghostlore is well documented. In fact, a few years ago, I tagged along with a team led by ghost hunter Robert Wlodarsky that encountered some very odd phenomena in an upstairs bedroom. The place once belonged to Miguel Leonis, an ill-tempered ranchero killed in a suspicious 1889 wagon accident. The most active phantasm, however, seems to be his long-suffering wife, Espiritu, whose sobs and sudden appearances still occasionally unnerve visitors.

3. RMS QUEEN MARY, Long Beach: Personally, I’m somewhat dubious about most of the claims surrounding “America’s Most Haunted Ship.” After all, from a marketing perspective, what better way to keep a languishing attraction afloat than an ever-growing tally of ghostly manifestations? (More than 600 to date!) Still, the 1934 White Star Liner remains a favorite of paranormal experts, so who knows? You may see something. Of course, those willing to shell out big bucks are practically guaranteed chills and thrills, courtesy the ship’s Haunted Encounters Passport Tour.

4. DRUM BARRACKS, Wilmington: A Civil War fort right here in Southern California? Strange, but true. Originally established at the urging of Phineas Banning (left), the Union garrison once guarded L.A.’s fledgling harbor against would-be Confederate marauders. Apparently, however, some of the troops remain at their posts even today. Disembodied footsteps and voices, along with the odor of cigars and ladies’ perfume, supposedly permeate the old officers’ quarters. Meanwhile, outside, the sounds of phantom horses and military drills have been heard by neighbors. (Incidentally, the spirit of Banning himself is said to haunt his own former estate, which is also within walking distance.)

5. STAGECOACH INN, Newbury Park: Built in 1876, the Grand Union Hotel was a stagecoach stop halfway along the route from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles. In the 1970s, the structure burned to the ground in a mysterious fire. According to legend, during its reconstruction, lights inexplicably flickered from a corner room. Psychic investigation “revealed” that the spirit in question is Pierre, a Basque shepherd murdered in a card game. While no historical evidence has been found to confirm this, the hotel is worth visiting for its impressive collection of Victorian furnishings, as well as its peaceful grounds and nature trail.

Take a walk through the tombstones in Section 5 of Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery, and you’ll find this witty epitaph for a once highly popular lady:

Cora May Phillips
1872 - 1912
Gone But Not Forgotten

Yes, how could the City of Angels ever forget Cora May Phillips, one of its most notorious madams?

In the late 1800s, Los Angeles turned a blind eye toward vice laws, leaving enterprising women like Phillips free to operate brazenly glitzy brothels in front of God and everyone.

The sheer elegance of her Golden Lion Parlor on Alameda Street was said to be second only to Pearl Morton’s downtown bordello, which featured not one but two Steinway pianos, lavishly decadent furnishings, richly appointed mirrors and paintings, and of course, plenty of plush red carpet and drapes. After all, both ladies knew that when it came to attracting a steady clientele of civic leaders, court officers and wealthy businessmen, nothing but the best would do.

Mixing Business and Pleasure

Competitive as they were for the attentions of L.A.’s elite, however, Phillips and Morton apparently enjoyed a friendly rivalry. According to local history writer Cecilia Rasmussen, the two liked to let their hair down together at present-day Exposition Park, where they publicly flaunted themselves and their courtesans while wagering on races of those newfangled contraptions known as automobiles.

When the motorsporting ended, “the girls would climb into their carriages and race one another back Downtown, whooping and yelling and good-naturedly calling one another names.”

Even in early Los Angeles, it seems, girls just wanted to have fun.

But the laughs didn’t last. In 1909 citizen pressure finally prevailed on the city to close down Phillips, Morton and their lesser-known counterparts.

Morton went on to gain fresh notoriety in San Francisco, while Phillips, who died just three years later, literally remained planted here in Los Angeles.

While organizing my old digital files I stumbled across this detail shot of a dusk-lit Victorian porch on Carroll Ave. It was snapped about two years ago with my then-new Nikon D70s, just after I took up amateur photography.

Each fall I like to return to Carroll Ave. and take in its haunting Victorian homes. Part of the Angelino Heights historic overlay zone, the street dates to the 1880s and  boasts the highest concentration of Victorian residences in the city — not to mention great downtown views.

Designed by the architect Joseph Cather Newsom, the ornate, 12-room house depicted here was built in 1889 for dairyman Charles Sessions.

As promised last week, Dateline>City of Angels is introducing several special treats for the Halloween season. The first is “Cryptic Sights,” a series of visits to noteworthy tombs and markers throughout the Southland.

Ranging from the famous to the obsure to the just plain bizarre, you’ll find the first one, below, dealing with the rather strange 1897 funeral of a wealthy Angeleno heiress. Enjoy! More to follow soon…

They say you can’t take it with you.

Maybe not, but it sure can buy you one helluva sendoff.

Just ask Louise Maier, only daughter of the wealthy Joseph Maier, the Bavarian owner of L.A.’s Philadelphia Brewery in the late 1800s. When Lulu (as she was known about town) died in 1897 at the blossom age of 18, her final exit created quite a stir.

“For the first time at a funeral in this city, the corpse was not encased in a regular casket,” reported her March 28, 1897, Los Angeles Times obit. Rather, her funeral directors introduced a stylish catafalque “in the shape of a burial couch.”

Elaborate new death rituals were all the rage in Victorian Los Angeles, and Lulu’s didn’t disappoint. The Times went on to note that, after lying in state in her posh apartment “clad in a rich robe instead of the conventional shroud,” the “dead maiden” was conveyed to the cemetery “calmly sleeping” upon her comfy pink sofa, accompanied by a huge cortege of 120 carriages.

Upon reaching this family mausoleum at Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery, “a funeral chant was sung, a cover was placed over the couch and it was placed in the bier and conveyed to the grave.”

Tempting as it was to peer into the tomb the day I snapped this photo, I have to admit I was too afraid to look.

Just south of L.A.’s Elysian Park, along an unpretentious turn of Stadium Way, you’ll find a little street named for a once very big man about town.

Don’t blink, though, or you might miss it. After all, Coronel Street is a poorly paved, “substandard” dead end, merely 11 houses long. Not the sort of honor you’d expect for its legendary namesake.

A Man for All Seasons

Lawyer, politician and all-around man of letters, Antonio F. Coronel was born in Mexico City, Oct. 21, 1817. At age 17 his family migrated to California along with other Mexican colonists.

In 1838 he was made Assistant Secretary of Tribunals of the City of Los Angeles, as well as a Judge of the First Instance (Justice of the Peace). In 1844, Mexican Gov. Manuel Micheltorena appointed him Captain and Inspector of the southern missions. When Yankee forces marched on California during the Mexican-American War, he served as a captain of artillery against the invaders.

Once the U.S. took California, however, Coronel became a leading citizen in the New Order. Consider his resume:

• L.A. City and County Assessor, 1850-56.
• L.A. Superintendent of Schools, 1850-55.
• L.A. City Mayor, 1853-54.
• L.A. City Councilman, 1854-55.
• L.A. City Council President, 1857-59, 1861-65, 1866-67.
• L.A. County Supervisor, 1860.
• California State Treasurer, 1866-70.
• California State Assemblyman, 1870-71.

And Cultured as Well…

On the cultural front, Coronel was a member of the State Horticultural Society, president of the Spanish Benevolent Society, and a founding member of the Historical Society of Southern California. He briefly worked the California Gold Rush, and was a friend of Ramona author Helen Hunt Jackson, a fellow advocate of Indian rights.

In 1873, he married the significantly younger Mariana Williamson and together they romanced Los Angeles’ elite with social events featuring Early California music, food and costume.

In addition to politics and society, Coronel was also a master of the changing economic climate.

Although he lost his own family’s land claims north of Rancho Verdugo, he wielded much influence in the land disputes that flooded American courts after California joined the Union. Keen to the Yankee notion of land as a commodity, he brokered numerous real estate deals for rancheros eager to cash out in the face of the 1860s cattle industry collapse.

For his part, Coronel kept a modest adobe near the intersection of Alameda and 7th. He also owned an adobe block at one end of Calle de los Negros near the town plaza, which became a flashpoint for the Chinese Massacre of 1871.

Maligned in Folklore?

Of course, as executor of the estate of Don Antonio Feliz, he was also the powerful de facto ruler of Rancho Los Feliz (now Griffith Park) for several years. The suspicious nature of the 1863 will that Coronel drafted for Feliz, along with his questionable activities as the land’s trustee during probate, helped inspire the Legend of the Feliz Curse — a tale that many historians insist unfairly maligns Coronel’s reputation.

In fact, local historian Abraham Hoffman has called Coronel one of the region’s most fascinating movers and shakers, writing:

“There is hardly a book on California or Los Angeles dealing with the Hispanic period that fails to include photographs or pictures of Don Antonio and members of his family… Antonio Coronel represents a transitional figure in Los Angeles, someone who was able to thrive even as he moved from one life style to a dramatically different one… someone whose life spanned most of the 19th Century but [is] known to us only in bits and pieces.”

Coronel died midnight, April 17, 1894, and was buried from the Plaza Church at Old Calvary Cemetery. After briefly highlighting his bigger accomplishments, his Los Angeles Times obituary concluded:

“For many years, Mr. Coronel, as a politician, was most influential, but of late years he has lived out of the political arena and given himself to his books, curios, and friends. His death will be deeply regretted by a wide circle of friends who have held him for many years in such high esteem.”

An understated tribute? No question…

But no more so than the obscure little street named for him.

Here’s a relatively easy one, straight out of the LAPL digital archives. Part of the California Historical Society  collection, the above image is the earliest known photo of a famous Southland landmark. So can you identify it? Click “Read More” for the answer (as if you don’t already know it). Read more

In light of the historic events shaping the national political scene both yesterday and today, I thought it appropriate to choose a video that illustrates how far we’ve come over the last century and a half. A remarkable figure in Angeleno history, Biddy Mason helped break barriers for African Americans as well as women in a day and age fraught with prejudice and obstacles. I only wish this short two-minute teaser delved deeper into her amazing story.

Today’s pop quiz is dedicated to Mission San Gabriel, which celebrates its 237th annual fiesta tomorrow through Sunday. Founded Sept. 8, 1771, it was fourth in California’s chain of 21 missions, and among the most prosperous. It can also be called L.A.’s Mother Church, since the pobladores set out from here to found the City of Angels. But the current site is not the mission’s first location.

The Question: Where was the original site of the mission? (Follow the “Read More” jump for the answer.) Read more

L.A. Metblogger Jason Burns has the perfect recommendation for the new downtown streetcars proposed by the Bringing Back Broadway initiative: Make them vintage, à la San Francisco’s famous trolleys and cable cars.

Burns makes an eloquent case for such vehicles in his full post, a snippet of which reads:

While the very notion of a new streetcar line in Downtown Los Angeles should excite all of us, L.A. would be missing a monumental opportunity by installing a modern streetcar line that pays no homage to our fair city’s past.

Here, here! This idea is one downtown initiative that Dateline>City of Angels can really get behind — as long as the underlying mechanicals are up to date. We wouldn’t want the trolley line doing to tourists what  Sinai and Olivet did in 2001.

Hollywood is known for countless oddball pairings: Laurel and Hardy. Spanky and Alfalfa. Sonny and Cher.

But in my mind one of the oddest has to be Rudy Valentino and DeLongpre Park. There is no historical connection between the two. Yet here in the pocket park commemorating the famous floral artist Paul DeLongpre, you’ll find not one but two statues of the silent screen icon who died 82 years ago today.

Stranger still, the fleshly rendition of Valentino at the center of the park was originally sculpted by Roger Noble Burnham for a planned tomb for the actor. When that tomb failed to materialize, the memorial was instead placed here on Valentino’s birthday in 1930 — against protests of residents who found it a bizarre addition to a park honoring DeLongpre. (A second bust, below, was added in 1979.)

Ghost of the Town…

Not surprisingly, over the years there have been persistent rumors of paranormal activity around the graven monument, along with several mysterious incidents of vandalism. In fact, Valentino, who is buried in a borrowed crypt at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, remains one of the Southland’s most ubiquitous ghosts. Ever restless, his spirit has allegedly been sighted hundreds of times at numerous “lifetime haunts,” including:

• His former Falcon Lair mansion in Beverly Hills.
• Downtown L.A.’s Alexandria Hotel.
• Hollywood’s Musso and Frank Grill.
• The Paramount Studios wardrobe department.
• An apartment court at Hollywood’s Valentino Place.
• Mission San Fernando, where he once shot a film.
• An Oxnard beach house and an inn at Santa Maria.
• Riding an Arabian horse in Glendora and driving a roadster through Hollywood’s Whitley Heights.
• And of course, hanging about his final Hollywood Forever resting place.

As if that’s not enough, the spirit of Valentino’s faithful dog Kabar is also said to invisibly nip and lick at visitors to his L.A. pet cemetery grave.

As usual, many of these hauntings are highly suspect. For instance, historical research shows that, local legends notwithstanding, the actor had no actual link to Valentino Place.

Neither did the Latin Lover ever work on the present-day Paramount lot. He made his films at the Lasky Studios near Sunset and Vine before they relocated and became Paramount in 1926.

Still, even in death, Rudy continues to bask in the immortal limelight. To learn more about his career, legacy and supposed afterlife exploits, visit the following links/entries:

• Wikipedia on Rudolph Valentino
  
• Rudy’s IMBD Filmography
• You Tube Tributes and Film Footage
• Troy Taylor’s Haunted Hollywood

They say turnabout is fair play…

Having argued for years that their company has legally appropriated characters in the public domain for its cartoons (i.e., Bambi and Peter Pan), Disney officials may soon be in the uncomfortable position of fending off challenges to their own copyright on none other than The Mouse himself.

According to an extensive article in today’s L.A. Times Business Section, legal technicalities surrounding the earliest “Steamboat Willie” renditions of Mickey (pictured above) may have inadvertently left the trademark rodent in the public domain.

But first, a legal disclaimer of my own: Before anyone accuses this blog of copyright infringement, please note that low-res images reproduced for the purpose of non-commercial commentary on a work are commonly considered fair use under U.S. law. Moreover, for now at least, Steamboat Mickey remains the property of Disney and may not be reproduced from this site for any other purpose. (There. You are warned.)

Even so, if legal experts are correct, Dateline>City of Angels and other would-be copyright violators may have nothing to worry about.

“That ‘Steamboat Willie’ is in the public domain is easy. That’s a foregone conclusion,” says copyright scholar Peter Jaszi in the Times piece, which adds:

The issue has been chewed over by law students as class projects and debated by professors. It produced one little-noticed law review article: a 23-page essay in a 2003 University of Virginia legal journal that argued “there are no grounds in copyright law for protecting” the Mickey of those early films.

The essay apparently sent Disney suits into a tizzy, and their blustery reaction makes for comical reading in the full article.

Birthplace of the Controversy?

Meanwhile, while the lawyers and scholars duke it out, your humble blogger went in search of a “neighborhood angle” to the story — and found it in L.A.’s nearby Franklin Hills district.

Call it the House the Mouse Built. In fact, the home pictured at left could very well be the birthplace of the newly contentious cartoon character.

About 1925, as Uncle Walt was preparing to open his first studio along Hyperion Ave., he purchased two lots at the corner of Lyric and St. George, within walking distance of his new enterprise. The following year, he completed the construction of two $8,000 houses, one for him and wife Lillian, and the second for brother Roy. Although Mickey made his celebrated debut in 1928, film historians say the Disney brothers had been at work on the character as early as 1925, with Walt possibly tinkering on preliminary sketches in his garage studio.

Back then, he called his would-be star Mortimer, but when he shared his creation with Lillian, she suggested the name Mickey instead. Disney made the change and released two animated shorts starring the mouse in 1928, neither of which was picked up by distributors. Undeterred, Walt took another stab that year with “Steamboat Willie,” the first animated cartoon to synchronize sound and action, performing the voices of Mickey and Minnie himself. This time the magic clicked, propelling Mickey and his creator to fame and fortune.

Four years later, Walt and Lillian moved out of their Lyric Ave. home, presumably for a fancier private domain.

You’d think Sasquatch investigator Tom Biscardi would’ve seen this one coming. Certainly the warning signs were all there.

First, the two men who claimed to have discovered the over-seven-foot carcass in northern Georgia this past July couldn’t stick to a coherent story as to how they bagged it in the wilds, dragged it out, and iced it down in an undisclosed freezer somewhere.

Next there was Jerry Parrino, owner of a large Halloween store in Port Washington, NY, who warned that the beast in the photos closely resembled a costume his company sells (pictured left).

Finally there was that matter of the “finders fee” (rumored to be in the neighborhood of $50,000), which the pair negotiated for turning their frozen friend over for examination.

But noooo… Biscardi went ahead, paid the gents, and scheduled a Palo Alto press conference last week to announce to the world that the creature’s unveiling was imminent.

Of course, with the money in their hot little hands, the guys who “found” the corpse beat tracks faster than the elusive beast ever could, leaving behind a slowly thawing hoax that left Biscardi and an associate good and frosted.

As this past weekend has again reminded us, fires have long been the scourge of Griffith Park. Devastating as the 2007-2008 fire seasons have been, however, the worst disaster in the park’s history remains the Great Fire of 1933, seen in this vintage AP photo sent by a Dateline>City of Angels reader.

Like the recent spate of burnings, arson was the suspected cause of the firestorm that erupted almost 75 years ago, with several witnesses saying they had seen a suspicious man running from a rapidly rising column of smoke at the blaze’s flashpoint.

The original Associated Press wire caption to this Oct. 5, 1933, photo reads as follows…

“Twenty Seven Known Dead in Brush Fire: A front line scene of fire fighters building breaks to stop the raging brush and timber fire in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, October 3. Twenty-seven persons were known to have lost their lives, and officials expected the death list to mount higher.”

Remembering the Tragedy

The official death toll did indeed rise to 29, but during the aftermath inquests some citizen groups challenged those figures, arguing that the number killed was almost certainly higher.

Being the Depression Era, there were more than 3,000 men in the park clearing brush and maintaining trails as part of a workfare program when the fire broke out. As the flames spread, the workers were pressed into service to battle them. Inexperienced in fire fighting, their foremen often barked conflicting and dangerous orders, and many found themselves trapped in canyons by wind-swept flames that suddenly turned on them. Assessing the missing, injured and dead took days.

To honor the victims, a memorial cedar tree and bronze plaque were erected Nov. 23, 1933, near the park’s Vermont entrance. That plaque has since disappeared.

A few decades ago, a SoCal day at the beach often meant a trip to Santa Monica’s Pacific Ocean Park (POP), a 28-acre seaside amusement extravaganza designed to rival Disneyland. Featuring a Sea Circus, pier, funhouses, thrill rides, and even a few outer-space themed exhibits, the park opened in 1958, attracting more than a million visitors its first year.

Despite its early success, 1965 redevelopment of the surrounding area curtailed street access to the park, strangling attendance figures and forcing closure two years later. Except for some underwater pilings from its dismantled pier, no traces of POP remain today. It has completely vanished into the sands of time, leaving us nothing but childhood memories.

As the world celebrates the Beijing Olympic Games, it seems only fitting to serve up a pop quiz paying tribute to the City of Angels’ Chinese community, which has overcome tremendous adversity over the last 156 years…

The Question: Centered around North Broadway, New Chinatown is among L.A.’s most popular tourist attractions. However, as the name implies, it’s not the city’s original Chinese settlement. So where was the first Chinatown, and what occupies that site today? (Click the continuation link to find out.) Read more