Study Proves Ozone Lethal

How refreshing that we can now point to an 18-year-long study (a study that's come of age, iow) and say we have measured the impact of ozone exposure. Sounds so much more scientifical that just blurting out that of course, smog is bad for you.

The study is reported in the Los Angeles Times and many other places; the source is the New England Journal of Medicine.

Bottom line: Angelenos are 40% to 50% more at risk for respiratory ailments because of ozone.

Ozone is not smog. According to the Times ozone is colorless. But it is a component of the pollution that fills our skies, thanks to our famed inversion layer (cool air from the sea sneaking under the warm air, which should rise but can't because of high pressure. Therefore it traps the pollutants and keeps them from dissipating). I think ozone is included in the term smog. Here's a quote from the Times piece:

"Ozone is what is known as a secondary pollutant. It is not formed directly by the burning of fossil fuels. Rather, nitrogen oxides produced by such combustion react in the presence of sunlight to form ozone. It is thus the biggest problem in areas that are sunny and hot, Jerrett said.

"As an oxidizing agent, ozone reacts with virtually anything it comes into contact with. In particular, it reacts with cells in the lungs, causing inflammation and a variety of other effects that lead to premature aging."

Oh, yum. The word smog comes from London where it meant the haze created by fog and coal smoke. Here it means photochemical air pollution.

The lovely picture at left of Wilshire Blvd. was taken in 1986 by Chris Gulker. It's part of the Los Angeles Public Library's online photo collection. Type in "Smog" as a search term and you get eight pages, some of them going back to the 1940s.

In the 1940s, of course, thanks to wartime production, Southern California really emerged as a manufacturing hot spot for chemicals, aircraft, rubber, and all the rest. We already had an oil industry. And all our workers drove cars. Smog became a real hazard.

The Times itself was on the bandwagon, and thanks to its efforts, backyard incinerators were banned and an Air Pollution Control District was set up.

Who discovered the components of OUR smog? Dr. A. Haagen-Smit of CalTech, in 1950. He recreated smog in a lab from the gasoline vapor and chemicals produced by cars, identified ozone as a byproduct, and figured out a way to test the air quality by measuring said ozone.

He was the head of the first Air Resources Board in 1968, an organization that led to our current CA Environmental Protection Agency. Ironically (or maybe not), he died of lung cancer in the 1970s.

This photo is from 1968. As you can see, we didn't exactly jump on the bandwagon once Dr. Haagen-Smit id'd auto exhaust as 80% of the smog in our air.

It's Spring!

The equinox is nine days off and this has nothing to do with history, but it's spring and I finally got the squirrel--who has been playing peekaboo with me and my dog for a week--to pose!

What a handsome rodent.

Dearden's: A Century Old

The original Dearden's at 7th and Main has been in business--as Dearden's--for 100 years. How many other businesses in Los Angeles can say that? The Los Angeles Times listed five: Philippe's, Cole's, the Alexandria Hotel, and "a couple of law firms."

(If I were one of those law firms, I'd demand a little more respect.)

The Times published a story about Dearden's last week, with a great photo collection that includes the mural on the side wall: "Generacion tras generacion" by Eloy Torres, 1988. (This picture is from PublicArtInLA.) Torres' mural replaced a 1970's one that featured the pyramid at Chichen-Itza and other icons of Mexican history. That's Torres' wife, Margaret, holding the birthday cake. He also stuck in the pyramid (in a painting over the mantel) and a portrait of Frieda Kahlo, over on the right.

Another story from the Times' Daily Mirror blog details the whole corner (7th and Main) and the hunt for an elusive, 50-year-old plaque that supposedly commemorated the birth of the film industry. "Supposedly" because the fabled plaque has disappeared. It was on a corner of Dearden's--once. I do not know why 7th and Main is the place to commemorate the birth of LA's film industry, and I suppose that's a topic for another day. The blog has nice pictures, though.

According to the Times, Dearden's is keeping the celebrations very low-key, because "we've never seen anything that's as bad as this." Meaning the economy, of course.

Dearden's Operations Director is the great-grandson of the founder, Edgar Dearden. Couldn't find anything in the historical Times about the opening of the store, but I did find a building permit issued to E. Dearden in January 1909--for a six-room cottage on Budlong Ave.

Entertainment, 50 Years Ago

March 8, 1959 was a Sunday just like today, so I've putzed around the Los Angeles Times for that date, wondering what might be in the Calendar. Of course, there was no Calendar section in the 1959 Times; the section was called Entertainment.

And here's a depressing tidbit: the Sunday paper had 504 pages.

Anyway, the lead movie story in Entertainment was an interview with Jack Lemmon. Some Like it Hot was coming out by the end of March, and Lemmon was already a big star with an Oscar for Mister Roberts. Here's what writer Cecil Smith had to say about the advance buzz for Some Like it Hot:

"I have heard that Billy Wilder's new movie, "Some like it Hot," is the funniest piece of work in hears. In other circles, I've heard ... the picture [is] dull, overlong (2 hours) and "one joke stretched all out of proportion."

Another story, about the upcoming Academy Awards, noted that Burl Ives and Gig Young had been demoted to supporting actors so that they'd have a better shot at an Oscar. Ives eventually won, so I guess the strategy worked.

If you wanted to see a movie that Sunday, your choices included Some Came Running (Sinatra, Dino, & Shirley MacLaine), Auntie Mame at the Chinese Theatre (12th week! 6 nominations!), Disney's Sleeping Beauty, and The Shaggy Dog with Fred MacMurray.

The Times' regular book reviewer was off in New York for the National Book Awards, which had just been announced. The awardees were:

• For Fiction: The Magical Barrel, by Bernard Malamud

• For Non-Fiction: Mistress to an Age, a Life of Madame de Stael, by J. Christopher Herold

• For Poetry: Words for the Wind, by Theodore Roethke

What a fleeting thing is fame! I've never heard of any of these, although Malamud wrote The Natural, made into the best baseball movie ever. But Roethke's collection won all sorts of awards, and he already had a Pulitzer, so the fact that I haven't heard of Words for the Wind reflects more about me than him.

Marian Anderson performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic on March 15, 1959. Wonder what tickets cost back then? $4.50 for the best seats, $1.50 for 'way, 'way back.

Bob's Big Boy

A few years ago, I could not find out anything about the original Bob's Big Boy. Now, I stumble across information all over the internet. Technology is wonderful, except when it's toxic.

This picture is of the original Bob's Pantry Restaurant, started in Glendale in 1936. Robert C. Wian, the original Bob, had two years of restaurant experience when he sold his car to pay for this 10-seat lunch counter (then abandoned) on Colorado Blvd.

After six months, some tipsy band members stopped by in the evening and wanted Bob to make them something "special." He split a bun in half the hard way and invented the double-decker burger.

The fancy burger got the name "Big Boy" a few weeks later when a pudgy kid came in. Bob almost said, "Hi there, fat boy," but changed it to "Hi there, big boy," and a lightbulb went on over his head.

In 1949, the Bob's Big Boy at 4211 Riverside Drive was built. Wayne McAllister designed it, and Bob Hope was a regular. That place is now the oldest Bob's Big Boy around, and it's made screen appearances in Heat and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. (this picture is from Wikipedia.)

Not that this matters so much to L.A. historians, but according to the FindaGrave website, Wian's fishing boat made it into the movies, too. It was featured in The Wackiest Ship in the Army, starring Jack Lemmon.

By the time Wian sold his chain of 600 restaurants to the Marriott Corporation in 1967 for $7 million dollars, he'd become notable for a few firsts: the first double burger, the first restaurateur to offer health insurance and profit sharing to his employees. In fact, when he incorporated Bob's Big Boy in 1946, he offered his employees stock in the company at $10/share. Some of them became millionaires.

Just for giggles, Wian was also elected Glendale's youngest mayor (age 34) in 1948.

City of Seekers Tour

What unites these sites?

• Angelus Temple (right), built in 1923 for Aimee Semple McPherson. This is the home of Sister Aimee's Foursquare Gospel Church, it seats 5300 people, and it's a National Historic Landmark.

• Self-Realization Mother Center on Mt. Washington above Highland Park, founded in 1925 but using a hotel building that went up in 1908.

• Chapel of the Jesus Ethic in Glendale, part of the Niscience Foundation of Ann Ree Colton.

• The Mayan Revival library and complex (right) of the Philosophical Research Society --a group founded in 1934 to be "free of ecclesiastical control" in the Los Feliz area.

• The 1896 Bonnie Brae House (here's a history at LAist) where Pentecostalism in LA was born in 1906. William J. Seymour stayed with the Asberry's, who owned the house, when he was locked out of a church for speaking in tongues. This picture of the house is from that time.

Starting to sense a theme? Like, oh, sites rich in the search for spiritual awareness? Bingo!

On March 14, the LA Conservancy will lead a one-time tour titled "City of Seekers," stopping at all these historic spots. You can get more info or order tickets at their website, or call the Conservancy at (213) 623-2489.

Here's more stuff from the announcement: "There will be a series of related “City of the Seekers” events in March including the art exhibit Within Heaven’s Earshot: Religious Album Covers beginning March 13. The lecture A Visionary State: California’s Spiritual Legacy on March 15 and the multi-media show Mystic Los Angeles on March 17, both feature the work of Erik Davis."

Rebuilding Together in Los Angeles

People are more important than the homes that shelter them, but it is wonderful when saving a classic home and improving lives coalesce.

Rebuilding Together is a national organization that helps homeowners in dire need with repairs. The homeowners' income must meet a minimum, and preference is given to veterans, the elderly, disabled, and families with children. The requirements pinpoint the most vulnerable people, who truly need a warm, dry home.

All that being said, Rebuilding Together has started helping local homeowners and hopes to repair one hundred Los Angeles homes this year.

The Los Angeles Times wrote up the reroofing, rewiring, replumbing, and refurbishing that went on to save a 107-year-old Craftsman style home on East 41st Place. The Times has pictures of that, but this photo comes from the Rebuilding Together SoCal website.

Ancient History, Los Angeles

Dig up a parking lot and what do you find? Mammoth bones!

How come my brother and I never found anything like that when we decided to excavate our back yard?

Well, for starters, we were probably a little too far from the Tar Pits. And the parking lot being dug up belonged to the old May Company on Wilshire, right down the street from said Tar Pits. The site is called "Project 23" and you can see pictures and details here, courtesy of the Page Museum.

You can even read the Excavator's Blog! Or you can view KTLA's story and photo gallery, or the Los Angeles Times story.

BTW, it's not called Project 23 because the chief paleontologist is a big Jim Carrey fan. No. Because the construction schedule doesn't give them a lot of time to excavate at the site, workers extracted 23 huge aspaltic blocks of material from the parking lot and crated them up in wooden boxes like those used to hold big trees and their roots. Hence the name. One of the crates weighs 56 tons! However, the mammoth skeleton is separate from those 23 crates.

What have the paleontologists found? The nearly intact skeleton of a Columbian Mammoth that they've named Zed, with tusks almost ten feet long. And if you go to the Page Museum, you can watch (through the big glass windows) as scientists remove the protective plaster from the bones and carefully, carefully, study them.

In addition, "The Project 23 excavation team has uncovered over 700 measured specimens including a large pre-historic American Lion skull, lion bones, dire wolves, saber-toothed cats, juvenile horse and bison, teratorn, coyotes, lynx, and ground sloths so far." Per the Page Museum site.

All this dates back to the Pleistocene Ice Age, up to 40,000 years ago. And while bits of at least 34 mammoths have been found at the La Brea Tar Pits, Zed (who stood about 10 feet tall) is the first fairly complete specimen unearthed.

What Used to Be Here?

Just something for the "How-Quickly-We-Forget" folder.

February 12, 1939

What were folks doing seventy years ago in Los Angeles?

Well, ten thousand of them crowded into the Gilmore Stadium to watch a stunt show put on by the Riding Actors and Hollywood Stunt Women Associations. The best news? Only one performer out of the hundred in the show was hurt--a man who broke a rib in a car crash.

Men threw knives and sharpened shovels and bathing beauties. Motorcycles flew threw burning hoops. Cars crashed into brick walls. Whoopee!

This picture of Gilmore Stadium was taken in April, 1939, when a crowd of 3,500 (ouch!) watched the Hollywood Stars defeat Portland. It's from the Los Angeles Public Library's Herald Examiner Collection.

Gilmore Stadium, btw, stood bounded by Beverly, Curson, Third, and Fairfax. It was torn down in 1952 so that CBS Television City could be built, but until then it hosted football games and other sports shows.