No. 158 - Mary Andrews Clark Residence of the YWCA

Mary Andrews Clark Residence of the YWCA
1912 – Arthur B. Benton
306 Loma Drive – map
Declared: 7/7/76

Two decades before William Andrews Clark, Jr, bequeathed HCM No. 28, the 1925 Clark Library, to UCLA in memory of his dad, Clark Sr built this YWCA residence hall as a memorial to his mother, Mary.

Actually, the idea of building the Mary Andrews Clark Memorial Home, an “Institution of Comfort and Uplift,” can be credited to Clark’s sister, Mrs T.F. Miller, chairwoman of a special committee of the YWCA in Los Angeles, then on Hill Street downtown.

Clark, a former Montana senator, donated the cost of the project, about $200,000, chicken-feed, if you consider the stinking-rich Copper King was then living in his $10,000,000 mansion on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

Architect Arthur Burnett Benton (we ran into him at HCM No. 63), was already responsible for a few of the city’s YMCA and YWCA quarters when he created for Clark a very, very large building in the French Chateauesque style at the southeast corner of 3rd Street and Loma Drive. The memorial was “designed to afford a comfortable home and a protecting influence for working girls.”

From the Dept of City Planning website.

Did I mention it’s large? 200 x 132 feet including an open court of 100 x 112 feet. In fact, it’s so huge, it’s tough to get a shot of the whole thing (a little help, Martin Schall?). And don’t bother trying to get a good shot of the courtyard. I’m quite pro-tree, but it sure would be nice to see it opened up a bit.

In the early summer of 1912, while the building’s roof was being put up, the Los Angeles Times reported on what we’d find inside the building back then. The first floor originally held the lobby, administration offices, a large reception hall, two private parlors, a library, a lecture room to seat 300, a dining room for 200, and a gymnasium. The rest of the building held dormitories for about 200 girls, sleeping porches, sewing and workrooms, classrooms, a laundry, and a complete hospital suite.

After sustaining heavy damage in the Whittier Narrows earthquake, the building closed in 1987. Three years later, the YWCA sold it for $3 million to a non-profit developer, the L.A. Community Design Center. The group hired Killefer Flammang Architects to perform a seismic upgrade and renovation on the 76,600 square-foot landmark, turning the structure into an SRO with more than 150 rooms (had they not gotten to work when they did, the monument, in all likelihood, would’ve been lost in the Northridge earthquake). The Mary Andrews Clark Residence was rededicated in 1993 and re-opened in October 1994, with each floor having “a communal kitchen and lounge, and shower enclosures have been built into the hallways because most of the rooms have only half-baths.” Total rehabilitation costs ran to $16 million.

Killefer Flammang won a bunch of awards for their work, including a Merit Award from the AIA California Council and the L.A Conservancy’s Preservation Award. It was also in 1995 when the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Thanks to a security guard, I got a quick look inside, but missed out seeing many of the rich details heralded back in 1912. It still looked to be in good shape.

Oh, and check out this list of just some of the movies (including The Wedding Planner and The Ring 2) and TV shows (ER and Charmed, for instance) filmed at the Mary Andrews Clark.

Sources:

“Working Girls’ Home Now Taking Shape.” The Los Angeles Times; Aug 11, 1911, p II1

“Memorial Home Takes Shape.” The Los Angeles Times; Jun 30, 1912, p. V1

Berestein, Leslie “Old YWCA Home is Reincarnated” The Los Angeles Times; Feb 5 1995, p. 8

Up next: Ralph J. Bunche Home

No. 157 - Dibble Residence

Dibble Residence
c. 1880
3110 North Broadway, Lincoln Heights – map
Declared: 7/7/76

Okay. So if I were a novelist writing a book called The King of the Nerds, I might choose ‘Horace’ for the first name of my protagonist. Or, I might go with ‘Dibble’ as my hero’s last name. But there’s no way I’d use ‘Horace’ and ‘Dibble’, as that’d be just too farfetched. We should keep in mind, though, truth is stranger than fiction.

We should also remember you can’t judge a book by its cover, no matter how meek that book’s title may be. Horace B. Dibble, the salesman whose name is attached to this very old Queen Anne home in Lincoln Heights, stabbed to death a shipping clerk back in the 1890s.

It was during the hour of 7:00 a.m. on June 18, 1896, when Dibble, about forty years old, went to his job at the Pacific Crockery and Tinware Company at 226 North Los Angeles Street downtown where he worked as a salesman. It didn’t take too long before a heated argument broke out between him and a co-worker, shipping clerk James Wallace. The latter, according to the Los Angeles Times account, growled “he had a good mind to jump all over Dibble’s frame because he had given the wrong address for the delivery of a bill of goods.” After being proven wrong, Wallace got so rankled he went to bash Dibble’s brains with a hammer, but thought better of it.

Dibble left the shop, but returned to polish his shoes. To guard against another outburst from Wallace, he callidly palmed a knife from a nearby sample case. With the courage of one carrying a concealed weapon, Dibble approached Wallace, called him a coward, and “a vile epithet.” Wallace, whose “eyes were sparkling like those of a demon,” sprung on Dibble, getting in a few good punches before the D-Man plunged the six-inch blade three times into Wallace’s side, “clear to the hilt.”

Wallace’s last words were, “Dibble has cut me all to pieces.” Around 31-years-old, he left behind a widow and child in Chicago.

Dibble, to his credit, promptly replaced the (now blood-covered) knife in its sample case.

At the inquest later that day, a number of witnesses testified to Dibble’s “jovial and good-natured disposition” and to Wallace’s being “a man of a very quarrelsome disposition and a bully.” Within a few hours, a jury determined the murder of Wallace was a clear-cut case of self-defense, and Dibble was freed on $5,000 bail. Justice was quick in those days.

Later that October, Dribble – er, Dibble – was discharged after yet another witness testified to Wallace’s being a notorious hothead.

The June L.A. Times account of the murder reported Dibble had lived in Los Angeles for nearly twenty-five years and “is well known and very popular, and lives with his wife at No. 110 Downey avenue [sic].” That section of Broadway was known as Downey until 1910.

As for the landmarked home, I should point out this site names the home for Horace P. Dibble, while our man with the knife was Horace B. Dibble. Going back, in the summer of 1883, these two transactions appeared in the L.A. Times:

Four years later, George S. Safford sold a lot in block 22, East Los Angeles, to H.B. Dibble for $1,750.

What am I trying prove with these transactions? I dunno, except there was an H.B.D., maybe an H.P.D., and if that lot in East Los Angeles was for this monument, that’d push the date of construction at least seven years later than most sources give.

When I was there to take pictures the other week, in the yard was a man who told me he had the place for just a few months and that the home was a single residence.

Investigative journalism at its finest.

Sources:

The Los Angeles Times; Jul 11, 1883, p. 0_3

The Los Angeles Times; Mar 1, 1887, p. 7

“In Self-Defense.” The Los Angeles Times; Jun 19, 1896, p. 13

“Dibble Goes Free.” The Los Angeles Times; Oct 23, 1896, p. 8

Up next: Mary Andrews Clark Residence of the YWCA

No. 156 - Fire Station No. 1

Fire Station No. 1
1940 - P.K. Schabarum and Charles O. Brittain
2230 Pasadena Avenue – map
Declared: 7/7/76

The current Fire Station No. 1, the fourth Fire Station No. 1, is so Art Deco, so Streamline Moderne, it seems to me, that it’s almost like someone in 1997 said, “Let’s build a firehouse that out-Streamline Modernes any Streamline Moderne building you can find.”

Like I said, this is Fire Station No. 1, No. 4. The first (and I’m getting this information from LAFire.com's Los Angeles Fire Department Historical Archive) was an adobe structure next to the old City Hall at Spring and Temple, lasting from 1871 to 1884. The next No. 1 was the one at the Plaza downtown. Of course, you can still get a look at that one today. Here ‘tis:

The third No. 1 had its run from 1888 to 1941. It was situated at 1901 Pasadena Avenue and was razed to salvage the lumber. That two-story frame structure originally housed “one steam pump engine, one hose wagon and a hook and ladder, the only other company at the time, No. 2, being stationed in Boyle Heights.” It also was home to a city jail. Courtesy of the afore-mentioned L.A.F.D.H.A., F.S.#1, #3:

At a cost of nearly $81,000 and built by the Work Projects Administration, the fourth No.1, the Art Deco beauty some of us know and love today, opened for business on March 6, 1941.

Since I first took pictures of this building on Memorial Day with one member of the Big Orange Landmarks staff (you can tell which picture was taken that day by the flag at half-staff), I’m determined to include it on any of the obligatory L.A. tours for out-of-towners, whether they appreciate it or not. I mean, really, how many towns are there that can lay claim to a building like this?

Again, thanks to LAFire.com, from where I got the b&w shots and the one of The Grapevine below.

Source:

“Old Firehouse Will Be Razed” Los Angeles Times; Feb 14, 1941, p. 3

Up next: Horace Dibble House

No. 155 - Memory Chapel

Memory Chapel, Calvary Presbyterian Church
1870
1156 North Marine Avenue, Wilmington – map
Declared: 5/5/76

Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 155 is the oldest Protestant church in the harbor area, maybe its oldest church, period.

I can’t tell you much, but I can report Memory Chapel has been in its current location since the late 1930s. Without actually leaving the couch, it’s difficult for me to be more specific. Here’s why:

-- The Wilmington Historical Society says Memory Chapel was built at what is now F Street and Marine Avenue and that it was moved to its current location in the 1939.

-- John R. Kielbasa is quoted as saying Memory Chapel was built at Fries Avenue and G Street and that it was moved to its current location in 1937.

I didn't hear back from the Historical Society (are they even around anymore?). However, Lester Alitagtag, an elder at Calvary Presbyterian Church, of which Memory Chapel is part today (the Chapel sits right next door) was nice enough to respond to my email. He wrote:

The Memory Chapel is the building that first hosted Calvary Presbyterian Church. In 1913, a new church building was constructed to accommodate a growing congregation. This second building that hosted Calvary burned down on October 21, 1928 while the Memory Chapel stayed in tact. The current building was dedicated on November 4, 1929 which is where Calvary now holds its regular Sunday English Worship services.

Speaking of Calvary Presbyterian Church, it’s the largest Filipino Presbyterian Church in the country. You can read about the church’s history here.

The back.

Memory Chapel is still used for services, every Sunday morning at 8:00 a.m. The service is in Tagalog, so you might want to brush up on your language skillz (it is the official language of the Philippines, you know). Lester added,

From 9AM to 11AM, the Iglesia Agape Fellowship of Wilmington uses the Memory Chapel to hold their Spanish worship service. Then, at 11:30AM, the Memory Chapel is used to host one of Calvary's Sunday School rooms. On the first Friday of every month, a church-wide prayer meeting is also held in the Memory Chapel.

Mr Alitagtag also points out the windows of the Chapel were replaced and the entire building was re-painted in recent months.

Thanks, Lester.

One more thing about the Chapel. Although there’s just one today, you can still see where there were originally two entrances – one for the ladies and one for the gents.

Up next: Fire Station No. 1

No. 154 - Fireboat No. 2 and Firehouse No. 112 (Demolished)

Fireboat No. 2
1925 – L.E. Caverly
444 South Harbor Boulevard, San Pedro – map

Firehouse No. 112
1926, demolished 1986

Declared: 5/5/76

And now for something completely different – a boat, the first, but not the last, on the list of Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments.

October 9, 1925

Commissioned on December 2, 1925, the fireboat originally known as L.A. City No. 2 was built at the Los Angeles Shipbuilding and Drydock Corporation at a cost of $214,000. The L.A.S. & D.D. Corp., using a design by L.E. Caverly, constructed a 99-foot vessel, one of the country’s first triple-screw, gasoline-powered fireboats. The L.A. City No. 2 had a wrought steel hull (still does, I’d think), could reach speeds of 17 knots, held 2156 gallons of fuel, and boasted a pumping capacity of 10,200 GPM (later increased to 18,600).

March 23, 1941

Originally, seven 300 HP Winton marine engines powered the fireboat: one drove the center propeller; two handled the wing propellers and the after pumps; and the balance drove the four remaining pumps.

The L.A.S. & D.D. Corp. launched the fireboat at 10:15 a.m. on October 20, 1925. The boat was staffed with fourteen officers and crewmen.

L.A. City No. 2 and Firehouse No. 112

In 1926, the city built Firehouse No. 112 for the boat’s home base. It was located at Berth 227 on Terminal Island, near where the legs of the Vincent Thomas Bridge are today. "One of the few covered boathouses ever built for American fireboats", it was demolished on July 22, 1986, and replaced by a cargo container complex.

L.A. City No. 2 fought its first major fire on March 3, 1926, when the lumber schooner Sierra blazed away at the E.K. Wood Lumber wharf. It’s first major wharf fire was on December 28, 1926. That was at Berth 175.

On May 18, 1965, Fireboat No. 2 was renamed the Ralph J. Scott. Scott was the Chief Engineer of the L.A. City Fire Department from 1919 to 1940, and he oversaw the development of the fireboat. His wife had christened the boat forty years earlier.

In the late 1960s, the vessel was modernized and subsequently recommissioned on October 29, 1969. The remodeling resulted in lowering the crew number from fourteen to eight.

Fireboat No. 2 moved to Berth 85 in 1986 when the old, landmarked Firehouse No. 112 was razed.

The Ralph J. Scott was named a National Landmark in 1989 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

On April 12, 2003, the Ralph J. Scott passed command to a brand new, 105-foot, Fireboat No. 2, “the world’s most powerful fireboat.”

The Ralph J. Scott and the Job O. Johnny

Today, the new Firehouse No. 112 sits at Berth 86. It was closed the Saturday afternoon I swung by, but there’s a bunch of old photos and information in cases outside, including many of the fireboat in action. It’s from where I got most of this information. Behind the new firehouse is where you can find the old Ralph J. Scott.

There are lots of pictures of the Ralph J. Scott on the web, like here, here, and the L.A. Fire Department Historical Society page here. A big help was this post from LAFire.com, it’s from where I plucked the black and white shots. Oh, and sorry, but Code 3 Collectible’s Ralph J. Scott model is sold out.

Up next: Memory Chapel, Calvary Presbyterian Church

No. 153 - (Site of) Lincoln Park Carousel

Lincoln Park Carousel
1924 – Spillman
Destroyed 1976
Lincoln Park – map
Declared: 4/21/76

So of the three carousels which have spun in Lincoln Park, numbers one and three still can be found (although one is close to 400 miles NNW). The second, the one designated a City Landmark in 1976, is gone just as long, I’m afraid.

In 1914, the Davis brothers – carpenter Oliver Funk and carousel broker Ross R. – installed a 1912 wooden Herschell-Spillman merry-go-round in what was then Eastlake Park. (This is three years before voters chose to change the name of East Los Angeles to Lincoln Heights.) (Another parenthetical aside: Griffith Park is the home of another Herschell-Spillman carousel today.) A ‘menagerie carousel’, it has a tiger, a lion, a stork, a deer, a goat, a camel, a dragon, two frogs, a pair of zebras, two dogs, two roosters, two mules, a pair of ostriches, two pigs, and twenty-eight horses. I write 'has' because this merry-go-round still exists. In 1931, Ross Davis sold the carousel to a man named Speed Garret. Garret shipped it up to Lotus Isle in Portland, OR. Two years later, Ross repossessed the merry-go-round and put it in Oregon storage. By the end of the decade, George Whitney bought the carousel and installed it on Treasure Island in San Francisco. In 1940, it was moved to its current home in Golden Gate Park. For pictures of the 94-year-old merry-go-round, visit this National Carousel Association page. (Word is this 1914 carousel includes a goat by German-American Gustav Dentzel, which, in the world of merry-go-rounds, is a pretty big deal.)

Back to L.A. The building that housed the carousel in L.A. was designed by the Los Angeles Bureau of Architecture. Early on, the structure's dome needed to be raised and a new foundation was poured when the land beneath the carousel was found to be too swampy.

The Lincoln Park Carousel Band Organ

In 1931, to replace the original 1914 carousel sold to Garret, the Davises bought a 1924 Spillman merry-go-round in operation at the nearby failing Luna Amusement Park. This one, too, was a menagerie, according to Oliver’s son, John Oliver, “but with fewer menagerie figures than the first. It had lion [sic] and a tiger, as I recall, a couple of goats and a couple of giraffes, but mostly horses.” It was an 18-section carousel, 50-foot four-abreast. This is the one declared a Historic-Cultural Monument in April 1976.

The tragic news is, on August 25, 1976, just four months after the city chose to designate the 1924 carousel, vandals chose to burn it down.

Okay. So here's a picture of the site of the old carousel followed by a shot of the old carousel itself. I tried to match it up somewhat - you can sorta tell by the curve in the macadam in the lower left-hand corners. Close enough for government work, I always say.

Another shot of the site. The merry-go-round stood where the tennis courts' parking lot is:

A VERY big thanks to Javier Arevalo who, along with his cousin, David, was nice enough to show me around Lincoln Park the other week, specifically to the exact spot where the old carousel stood. Without them, I would still be wandering around the park, clueless. Javier is the owner of the very best website on the history of Lincoln Heights. If I’m late posting this, it’s because I’ve spent way too much time on his site, reading about the Indian Crafts Exhibition, Luna Park Zoo, and the Alligator and Ostrich Farms. (He also provided me with all of these black and whites pictures; they're from the Davis Siblings Collection.) Every community should have a supporter like Javier.

For pictures of the carousel a year before it was torched, go to Javier’s page here. And for one picture of a salvaged, charred horse, click here and scroll down.

During my Sunday visit, Javier introduced me to Frances, the operator of the new Lincoln Park Carousel v 3.0. Rides are a buck (cheap!), so do your kids and Lincoln Park a favor and let them take a spin on the new merry-go-round. Who knows? Maybe, fifty years from now, it’ll be City Landmark No. 1942.

Here's the new ride. Note, in the top shot, the filly with the pink roses is the lead horse.

Because you've made it this far, I shall reward you with a few bonus shots of Lincoln Park, Los Angeles.

And, finally, a pair of Lincoln Park statues: Florence "Handless Flo" Nightingale by David Edstrom, 1936-1937; and Lincoln the Lawyer by Julia Bracken Wendt, dedicated July 4, 1926.

Sources:

McGrew, Patrick and Robert Julian Landmarks of Los Angeles Harry N. Abrams, Incorporated 1994 New York

Up next: Fireboat No. 2 and Firehouse No. 112 (Demolished)