No. 164 - Glendale-Hyperion Bridge

Glendale-Hyperion Bridge
1928 – Merrill Butler
From Ettrick Street to Glenfeliz Boulevard – map
Declared: 10/20/76

Man, this Glendale-Hyperion Bridge is huge and not a little complex. In fact, the whole thing is treated as six different structures: there are two chunks of Hyperion Avenue bridge, spanning Riverside and the I-5; in between, the viaduct portion over the L.A. River; don’t forget the two Glendale Boulevard sections – north and south, each twenty-eight-feet wide and about 400 feet in length; finally, included in the group is the Waverly Drive Bridge, crossing over Hyperion near the landmark’s western edge.

Top shot taken from Waverly Drive Bridge, bottom shot from the city's Dept of City Planning website.

Merrill Butler, Engineer of Bridges and Structures for the city’s Bureau of Engineering from 1923 to 1961, gets the credit as designer of the monument. The total length of the main portion is close to 1,400 feet. Crews used more than 35,000 cubic yards of concrete and 6,000,000 pounds of reinforcing steel in the total construction. They also drove about 1500 wooden and 3200 concrete piles to support the piers and abutments. There are thirteen arches: two are 135-feet each; eight are forty-eight feet; one is sixty-eight feet; and two stretch 118-feet.

Top picture is the bridge over Riverside Drive, the lower is courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library Photo Archive.

The Board of Public Works received construction bids on March 31, 1927 for the project, building a new bridge to replace an old wooden trestle. By May 18, the only contract outstanding was “the one for the separation of the grade structure between Glendale avenue [sic] and Riverside Drive.” I’ve seen several different financial figures attributed to this bridge, but, that spring, the total project cost was pegged at close to $2 million, with the county chipping in $660,000 and the Pacific Electric Railway and the city dividing the rest. Construction began May 27, 1927.

Courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library Photo Archive. Dated December 4, 1928.

Speaking of the P.E., the Glendale-Burbank line ran over the L.A. River just south of the bridge. Go to Tom Wetzel’s page here and scroll down to see a fantastic color shot of the Red Cars crossing the river. The tracks are long gone, but the old cement piers still stand:

That October, the L.A. Times was reporting officials were still promising the span would be finished no later than May 28, 1928, the date originally planned for completion. That date wasn’t chosen at random, I’m guessing. The bridge was scheduled to be a memorial to those who died fighting in World War I, and 5/28/28 was Memorial – or Decoration – Day. The bridge, though, wouldn’t be near ready by then.

As construction dragged on, opening day was pushed off time and time again. For a while, it looked as though it’d be ready for traffic by Armistice Day, November 11, 1928. However, it wasn’t until the end of February 1929 when the Glendale-Hyperion Bridge was completely completed.

On May 30, 1930, four days after Decoration – or Memorial – Day, the Glendale-Hyperion Bridge finally got its official dedication with hundreds of folks turning out for the to-do. Harry A. Towers of the American Legion dedicated the future monument “to the memory of the heroes of the World War who paid to their country the last full measure of devotion.” The Firemen’s Band and Mrs John Wise, soprano, belted out a few tunes. Among the speakers on hand with the designer Butler was Hugh McGuire, the president of the Board of Public Works. Here’s a bleak picture of the memorial, on the viaduct’s south side, just west of the river:

On Riverside Drive.

Just north of the viaduct is one of the few pedestrian bridges to cross the L.A. River. This one is the Sunnynook Footbridge. I had to cross not once, but twice. My crossings were the two least pleasant experiences I’ve had since starting this blog. Here’s a picture of the footbridge, with a photo taken from said structure below it:

Speaking of footbridges, there’s one that spans the 5 freeway, too. You’d think it would’ve been as disconcerting crossing this as the Sunnynook, but it wasn’t to me. This shot was taken from there above the traffic (obviously):

Looking west from the Atwater side.

On June 9, 1928, Mr Harry Sperl, a SoCal distributor of Gardner cars, was the first person to drive over a section of the bridge. “Not even a truck had set wheels on the first unit of the new span,” trumpeted the L.A. Times. He was accompanied by A.M. Troxsan, superintendent of the bridge construction, in a Trojan roadster. In September, though, MGM starlet Dolores Brinkman nabbed the credit as the first person to drive across the whole span. She drove a Packard Eight Phaeton, for those of you keeping notes. Both of these incidents reek as the work of savvy p.r. men, and I wouldn’t bet Harry and Dol truly deserve these honors. Scope Ms Brinkman’s gams here.

The black and white shot, above, from the USC Digital Archive, is interesting for a couple of reasons. First, most obviously, it's pre-5. The freeway would go on to plow under one of the bigger arches shown, the one on the right. Also, you can see the Pacific Electric bridge at the far right.

Today, the bridge is targeted for a whole bunch of improvements including widening and replacing walkways, on-ramps, off-ramps, and the bridge itself, adding railings, dropping in a center median, and lots of seismic improvements. I’m glad to see there’s talk of adding a pedestrian crossing over Glendale Boulevard north, just east of the river. I am, however, disappointed there’s no mention of removing the human poo on the steps leading from the viaduct down to the riverside (no, there’s no picture).

Sources:

“Bridge Will Link Cities” The Los Angeles Times; Feb 28, 1927 p. A1

“Contracts for Bridge Work Given” The Los Angeles Times; May 19, 1927, p. A5

“Work Rushed on Bridge” The Los Angeles Times; Oct 9, 1927, p. E7

“Glendale-Hyperion Viaduct Rapidly Progressing” The Los Angeles Times; Jun 10, 1928, p. G12

“Glendale-Hyperion Span Complete in November” The Los Angeles Times; Aug 26, 1928, p. H6

“First Car Crosses Span” The Los Angeles Times; Sep 30, 1930, p. G9

“Bridge Traffic To Be Speeded” “Glendale-Hyperion Span Complete in November” The Los Angeles Times; Nov 4, 1928, p. E5

“Bridge To Be Open By New Year” The Los Angeles Times; Nov 19, 1928, p. A18

“Hundreds at Viaduct Ceremony” The Los Angeles Times; May 31, 1930, p. A1

Up next: Fire Station No. 27

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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

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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

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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)

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