Dateline>City of Angels

As long as we’re still celebrating the Christmas season, remember the famous Bridge Scene in It’s a Wonderful Life? Had the film been set in Southern California, Jimmy Stewart certainly would’ve considered hurling himself from the spans of Pasadena’s Colorado Street Bridge instead of some snowy old trestle.

Built in 1913, the overpass towers 150 feet above the Arroyo Seco, a historically dry ravine that trickles toward the L.A. River. Thanks to its Beaux Arts charm, the 1,467 foot roadway has become the “Gateway to Pasadena.” But scores of people jumping from the structure over the decades (nearly 50 during the Great Depression alone!) have given it a more morbid nickname: Suicide Bridge.

Archway of Doom?

Predictably, lots of ghost stories dog the bridge. The oldest involves phantom workers allegedly buried alive during its construction. There are also reports of a woman leaper in a wispy gown disappearing over the railings, and disembodied cries from the canyon floor that several ghost hunters claim to have captured as EVPs.

As I snapped these dusk photos, however, the only chills enveloping me were the wintry breezes nipping through the footings. Despite the cold, I opted to linger after sunset for a few night shots. But when darkness descended on the grim arches, the whole atmosphere suddenly turned foreboding.

So much so, that for the first time in photographing a SoCal haunt, I actually got the creeps — an ominous feeling that the dead were just waiting to materialize. Heeding my own inner voice to get the bejeezus out of there, I quickly packed up my equipment and left the Arroyo’s ill-fated spirits in peace to do whatever it is they like to do after nightfall.

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/Download: Probing Old Savannah Cemetery
Album: Dateline>City of Angels Podcast Reports
Episode: No. 1, October 31, 2008
Duration/File: 00:06:31; 3.1 MB, MP3 Stereo

Clicking the blue player tab above delivers a live audio stream of the podcast, which can also be downloaded via the title link. 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.

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.

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.

What better way to enjoy the waning summer than a late-night outing to Pink’s?

Probably the most popular hot dog spot in all Southern California, Pink’s has plied its trade near the La Brea and Melrose intersection since 1939, drawing huge crowds for its world-famous chili dogs well into the wee hours.

Of course, waiting in lines that sometimes stretch halfway down the block is all part of the adventure, with occasional celebrity sightings always helping to pass the time.