Open Letter to the Los Angeles Times

Dear Editors:

I am posting this publicly because whenever I contact publications privately regarding factual inaccuracies, they ignore me and never correct anything.* 

I’m honestly not trying to put LA’s paper of record on blast (for the record, I am a subscriber myself and read the Times every single day). I just want greater awareness of the facts.

I am writing to ask that the Times please issue two corrections to an article published on May 3rd, regarding the origin of some local place names.**

I am not in any way faulting the writer of the piece; her work is excellent and I enjoy reading it each week. However, two errors still somehow made it to print. 

Mary Agnes Christina Mesmer Griffith was not, and could not have been, a Verdugo descendant. Her parents Louis Mesmer Sr. and Katherine Forst Mesmer were both immigrants from Alsace, France.

There is no record of the Mesmer family having any ties to Jose Maria Verdugo’s native Mexico. There is no record of the Verdugo family having any ties to eastern France or western Germany (Alsace changed hands while the Mesmers were alive). I have spent considerable time exploring Ancestry.com and there is no real indication that the Mesmers could possibly be related to the Verdugos.

Additionally, while Louis and Katherine Mesmer were indeed land barons, they did not inherit their properties from ANYONE, let alone the Verdugos. The Mesmers were very successful entrepreneurs who invested their earnings in land. 

Mrs. Griffith did inherit a significant amount of real estate, but it had belonged to Andre Briswalter, a friend of her father’s. Briswalter was also from Alsace.

As to the second correction, Mrs. Griffith was not blinded in one eye. The bullet destroyed her eye and what was left of it had to be removed. The veil she wore for the rest of her life also hid scarring from gunpowder burns (Griffith shot her from approximately two feet away).

Again, I am not faulting the writer of the piece. I happen to know that someone else is entirely to blame for spreading the myth of the Alsatian-born Mesmers somehow being descendants of an early Californio family.

Mary Agnes Christina Mesmer Griffith went through quite enough when she was alive and has mostly been forgotten. I believe we owe it to her to be as accurate as possible when mentioning her life.

Merci,

C.C.

*Sole exception thus far: the good people at Mental Floss, who promptly corrected an inaccuracy regarding the number of generations between Louis XIV and Louis XVI.

** May 10, 2022 - one week since the errors ran and no correction has been made. This is why I post the facts!

Romaine Grand and the Brick Victorian

1030 East Cesar Chavez Avenue is tucked away in an odd little pocket of industrial Los Angeles fenced in by the 101, the 10, some rail yards, and the river. Is it Boyle Heights? Is it Lincoln Heights? Is it Aliso Village? Sources disagree. Heck, Zillow thinks it's in "North Alamo".

That odd little pocket is mostly made up of auto shops and auto parts vendors. The presence of a nightclub and a high-end linen store on the same block hint at the possibility of encroaching gentrification. 

Halfway down the block, 1030 hides behind a mature tree and a black brick-and-metal fence. This house, a very rare single-story brick Victorian built in 1890, has been Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #102 since 1972. It was landmarked not for its long-ago owner, but for its architectural significance.

The house's long-forgotten owner was Romaine Grand, a French blacksmith born in 1844. By 1875, the city directory listed him as both a blacksmith and a wagon maker on New Aliso Street (or at 106 Aliso, later at 476 Aliso). 

Romaine, sometimes written as Romain, Roman, or Ramon, was married to Gracieuse (sometimes written as Gracious or Grace) Bayonne, a French speaker from the Basque provinces. It's rumored that the Grands had a longer, Basque surname and changed it, but I have not found conclusive evidence of this.

Romaine's letters and advertisements in La Cronica indicate that he could speak Spanish well enough to cater to Spanish-speaking customers. 

Advertisement for Romaine Grand's wagon works in La Cronica, 1883.
Side note: in modern Spanish, "carroceria" means "bodywork".

In 1890, the little brick house went up at 1030 Macy Street. No, it didn't move - the street name changed in 1994.

The house isn't big - 5 bedrooms and one bathroom in 1736 square feet. The oldest Grand children were already young adults when it was built, and census records suggest at least one was living in a boarding house. It's rumored that the Grands originally intended to build a two-story house, but ultimately only built the ground floor. A single-story Italianate house is highly unusual for Los Angeles, and it is one of only a few surviving brick Victorian houses in the city.

There are a few other residential buildings on this block, but all of them date from the early 20th century and don't have the same charm.

1030 Cesar Chavez Avenue, Google Maps, January 2022

Comments on an old Big Orange Landmarks post suggest that the house's current owner intended to convert it into apartments, which conflicts with the house's landmark status. The house, as you can see from Google Maps, is currently fenced off and not in the best repair. Blogger Floyd Bariscale's photos of the house, taken in 2007, show it in much better condition.

I wonder what Romaine Grand, who owned a successful carroceria, or wagon works, would think of his house being surrounded by modern-day carrocerias - body shops - and auto parts stores. Grand passed away in 1900, before Los Angeles became overrun by automobiles.

If anyone out there has current information on Romaine Grand's poor little house, please let me know. It pains me to see this house facing such neglect.

The Barn is Back!

The Le Mesnager barn, long closed to the public, is finally reopening.

The stone barn, built long ago by Georges Le Mesnager, was converted into a house after it was damaged by a fire and a flood in the 1930s. Members of the Le Mesnager family lived in the converted barn until 1968.

The barn has been adapted into a nature center, and will reopen on March 19.

Little Houses on Bernard Street

Bernard Street is in Chinatown. That is, the short block of Bernard Street that concerns today's entry is in Chinatown. 

Bisected by the 110, Bernard has another short block in Elysian Park, and lends its name to an angled extension of Yale Street (shades of Bauchet Street). Many years ago, this was Jean Bernard's brickyard, which he subdivided into the Bernard Tract.

It's quiet in this upper corner of Chinatown. Despite its proximity to both Chinatown Central Plaza and Cathedral High School, the only sound is the soft whooshing of cars - on one end, getting on or off the 110; on the other, driving up or down Broadway. On the south side of Bernard Street, the neon-trimmed Royal Pagoda Motel (reportedly closed at the time of writing) reassures you that yes, you're still in Chinatown and didn't wander into a time warp. This is the side of Bernard that made a cameo appearance in "La La Land" - probably the only time most Angelenos have ever seen Bernard Street.

Sitting in the dark watching the film for the first time, I crossed my fingers, silently begging for the camera to pan to the north side of the street to show the little houses. It didn't.

"La La Land", which shows an incredible (if geographically improbable) checklist of locations in Los Angeles County, didn't show viewers the little houses on Bernard Street. But I will.

Fritz Houses on Bernard Street

Philip Fritz, born in France* in 1844, built three of these little houses between 1886 and 1892 to house his family - himself, his mother, his wife Louise, and their three teenage sons Philip Jr., George, and Fred. Two of the houses remain. The missing house, number 417, was moved to Wilshire and Normandie long ago, and the last time I checked, there were no Queen Anne cottages in Koreatown.

The Fritzes were from Alsace, which ceded to Germany in 1871. Tired of political upheaval and not interested in answering to the German government, hundreds of thousands of French speakers left the Alsace-Lorraine. Philip went ahead in 1873, secured work as a carpenter, and was able to send for his family ten years later.

411, 415, and 417 Bernard Street. Detail from 1894 Sanborn Map.

Philip became a railroad carpenter, working for Southern Pacific's Buildings and Bridges department, and eventually rising to the rank of Superintendent . Where Bernard dead-ends at Broadway (then called Buena Vista Street), a parking facility separates the street from Los Angeles State Historic Park, formerly "The Cornfield" (so named for volunteer stalks of corn that sprouted from loose corn kernels that fell out of freight cars). This was the home of the first Southern Pacific Railroad depot, and explains the Fritzes living a mile away from Frenchtown proper. In the 1880s, Chinatown was still Sonoratown.

When Philip and Louise became US citizens in 1888, land baron Louis Mesmer, who was also from Alsace-Lorraine, swore to their residency, moral character, and principles.

Philip Jr., also a railroad carpenter, was arrested in 1887 for resisting arrest in a riot (several unruly drunks had been throwing explosives to frighten horses), and suffered a seizure near Spring and Temple while being escorted to the police station. Instead of calling for a doctor, the police carried him the rest of the way. Per the Herald, "This started the cry that he had been killed, and cries of 'he's killed, shoot the officers,' arose and for a time it appeared as if there was danger of a serious riot." A few days later he was arraigned, but released, with the Herald noting that he was "considered a good boy" and chalking his arrest up to being in the wrong company. Another account indicated that he had in fact been pushed against the officer and did not deliberately assault him. Two months later, Philip Jr. suffered another seizure on Spring Street and was taken to the city jail for treatment.

Was Philip Jr. "a good boy"? Well...

In 1891, Philip Jr. was arrested for fighting with coworker Pat Murray (the newspaper indicated that one of them broke a cane over the other's head). In 1892, he faced battery charges twice. He was fined $10 after kicking a newsboy into the middle of the street for pestering him to buy a newspaper. His excuse was that he wasn't feeling well that day. The other battery charge was brought by a girl named May Clausen and bail was set for $100 (about $3000 today).

Philip was arrested for insanity in Goshen (Tulare County) in 1894. When it was discovered that he had been drugged and robbed, he was sent to the county hospital to recover, but remained afflicted for some time.

Philip Jr. had married Delphine Belaude, the English-born daughter of Alsatian immigrants, in 1890. Their daughter Louise, born in 1891, was raised by her grandparents at 411 Bernard Street. As for Philip Jr., he was only 27 or 28 when he passed away in 1896.

Middle brother George Fritz, who lived in the lost house at 417 Bernard Street, became a railroad engineer and was considered one of Southern Pacific's most trusted employees. One day in 1904, he was working in the roundhouse and was crushed between two locomotives. George was rushed to Sisters' Hospital, but died from his injuries hours later. He was just 32 years old. 

Fred, the youngest Fritz brother, was also a railroad carpenter. He married for the first time at age 45 - to a 21-year-old bride named Pansy. They had a son, Walter, and the 1920 census shows them living at number 417. By 1930, Fred was divorced and living in the house alone.

411 and 415 Bernard Street, with 417 long gone.
Detail from 1950 Sanborn Map.

Louise Fritz - Philip Jr.'s daughter - lived in number 411 until she married her first husband, Clyde Henry Stone, in 1917 and moved to number 415 next door. Their son Philip Stone died mere days after his birth, and when Louise sued for divorce in 1924, it was on the grounds of adultery and extreme cruelty. 

Louise then married firefighter Louis Vernon Parker, continuing to live at 415 Bernard Street. Unfortunately, Louis was a habitual - and violent - drunk. Their divorce was finalized in 1935. 

In the 1930s, when the Arroyo Seco Parkway onramp was built, the street had to be widened. 411 and 415 were moved 15 feet. The lost house, 417, was moved to Wilshire and Normandie, where it was used  to model housing modernization in a program co-sponsored by the Federal Housing Administration and the LA Times.

By this time, Old Chinatown and portions of the Plaza area had been demolished, displacing Chinese Angelenos, who began to move into Sonoratown. At a time when many Angelenos still didn't care to have Chinese residents living nearby, Louise got along well with her Chinese neighbors and often patronized Chinese restaurants. One story claims that when two Chinese children were not permitted to keep two cats in their boarding house, they asked Louise to take care of the cats (she reportedly did). 

Angels Walk stanchion with photo of Louise Fritz Whiting

Angels Walk stanchion with picture of 411 Bernard Street

Louise married for the third and final time in 1937, to letter carrier Otta Ira Whiting. He passed away from natural causes in 1950. 

Philip and Louise Sr. had both passed away by this time (Philip in 1932 and Louise in 1941), and Louise moved back into number 411. She lived in the house until her death at age 100 in 1992.

The Chinese Historical Society bought the property from surviving relatives of the Fritz family in 1994, turning the little houses on Bernard Street into the Chinatown Heritage Center. As with the French Hospital several blocks away, an Angels Walk stanchion outside references the property's history. In total, the Fritz family owned the houses for 108 years.

Time marches on. Cars whoosh by. Chinatown continues to gentrify. The Cathedral High School Phantoms play on athletic fields built over Old Calvary Cemetery. Shutterbugs take pictures of downtown from Los Angeles State Historic Park, posting them to Instagram and Reddit. Somehow, the little houses are still quietly standing on Bernard Street.

Chinese Historical Society at 411 Bernard Street

*Some sources, including Philip's passport application, list his birthplace as Germany. Preuschdorf, the commune (township) where Philip was born, was part of France until the Franco-Prussian War and is well within its current borders. Despite the German-sounding surname, the Fritzes were native French speakers. It's not a coincidence that some DNA tests don't distinguish between French and German ancestry.

Why The Taix Battle Isn't Really (Just) About Taix

Dear Readers:

I know, I know. I’ve written quite a bit already about the Taix situation. I have been researching an entry on a different family, but their surviving property isn’t in any imminent danger, whereas Taix is.

Spread this entry far and wide. Share it with the people who make excuses for bad development and the people who don’t know or care about developers’ misdeeds or City Hall corruption. Enough is enough.

Although the initial Taix landmark approval, with substantial alterations, was rescinded (the city violated the Brown Act), the battle is far from over.

Due to time limits at the 12/7 meeting, the nomination will be re-heard on 1/18.

As you consider your statements for public comment, I ask that everyone consider this: the Taix battle aims to save Taix, but it isn’t solely about Taix.

PLUM, or the Planning and Land Use Management Committee, wields considerable power in Los Angeles. Whether they have too much of it is a subject for another time. 

This is the case of a unique legacy property, sold off-market to an out-of-state developer with a questionable track record in LA, slated to be replaced with a development that has changed considerably from the original renderings. The nomination, altered to the extreme by City Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell at the developer’s request, essentially turns landmarking into salvage. 

The whole thing stinks like a week-old serving of salmon dropped in the gutter on Sunset Boulevard and left to rot in the sun.

Exactly how much say should developers, especially non-local ones who aren’t invested in the community, have in Los Angeles, a city constantly losing the things that make it Los Angeles and also a city stuck with the results of irresponsible development? 

It’s not development per se that’s the problem. There’s an ocean of difference between responsible development (loft conversions, affordable buildings, designing with safety and residents’ needs in mind instead of flashy aesthetics…or the cheapest materials possible) and irresponsible development (too many luxury units, not enough windows - Charlie Munger, I’m looking at you - no security, nowhere to do laundry, in some cases no kitchen, too far away from anything to walk, no green space, tearing down affordable units with no tenant relocation plan and refusing to replace them with an equal or greater number of affordable units, etc.). 

And, of course, there is the Kafkaesque nature of appeasing a deep-pocketed developer by illegally sabotaging a landmark nomination in a way that would set a legal precedent for destroying an untold number of very important places.

Must every important place in Los Angeles be placed in potential danger of demolition because a Washington-based developer is determined to tear one of them down?

Unsure of my ability to get through on the phone (like many of you, I wasn’t called on at either of the two previous hearings), I submitted public comment via the online portal before Taix was moved to the January 18 meeting. 

In part:

“Would you tear down the Chinese Theatre and only keep the signs and forecourt? Absolutely not. Would you tear down the Avila Adobe and only keep the porch? No way. Would you tear down Central Library and only save the sphinxes and globe chandelier? You wouldn’t.”

I deliberately mentioned those three landmarks for specific reasons. The first is that two of them were nearly lost, and one would be affected by a zoning change City Council has been pushing. The Chinese Theatre would be affected by the proposed zoning change (and is uncomfortably close to the recently ruined Pig ‘n Whistle). Central Library, threatened with demolition since the 1960s, was damaged in a 1986 arson fire and could all too easily have been lost. The Avila Adobe was condemned almost a century ago and came far too close to disappearing forever, along with what survives of the Pueblo.

Can you imagine Los Angeles without any of these iconic places, all of which played a role in making the city what it is? (That would be my second reason for mentioning them.) 

They aren’t just a bunch of old buildings. They are part of our rich cultural heritage as Angelenos.

And what about Taix, a rare survivor from what was formerly Los Angeles’ biggest ethnic enclave, and one of its oldest? Does it cease to matter because the city’s French population was outnumbered by Yankees after the 1880s and the French Colony ceased to exist long ago? Shouldn’t that make its significance greater?

Is it really “just a building”? Or is the battle for Taix a microcosm of the battle for the city’s heart, its soul, its people, and its future?

Los Angeles does not belong to developers.

Los Angeles does not belong to its elected officials.

Los Angeles belongs to Angelenos.

God bless us, every one…and God help us, every one. 

(Except for the guilty parties referenced above. I’m pretty sure they’re all going directly to the Ninth Circle of Hell to face a fate worse than living in the dystopian Los Angeles they are helping to create.)

Save Taix! Fundraiser THIS SATURDAY!

 Dear Readers,

If you’re reading this blog, you probably already know Taix is in danger. The site is large enough to develop without demolishing Taix (case in point: Dinah’s in Westchester or Santa Monica’s last Quonset hut). 

The Silver Lake Heritage Trust is kicking off a fundraiser for legal representation this Saturday, December 18. All donations are tax deductible. (Images and info courtesy of Carol Cetrone and the Silver Lake Heritage Trust.)

The fundraiser begins at 8pm Saturday at Luxe de Ville (no website), Pazzo Gelato, Spacedust, and Cosmic Vinyl.

No donation amount is too small - every little bit helps.

Do you know a good attorney who can help save Taix? Reach out to the Silver Lake Heritage Trust, or email me and I’ll relay your message.

Last Call to Save Taix: Tuesday, December 7, 2 PM

Regular readers already know that Taix French Restaurant is one of the final surviving links to the French Colony.

And that it was sold to a developer with a well-earned bad reputation. 

And that Mitch O'Farrell colluded with the developer to effectively gut preservation in LA. Said developer spent six figures on Mitch (this is a matter of public record, not mere rumor). The City Council blatantly ignored the Brown Act, too (granted, they do this more often than not...).

And that the LA Conservancy filed suit (along with Silverlake Heritage).

But there's still hope: the city has rescinded its previous vote, and will rehear the nomination next Tuesday, 12/7, at 2pm. (The Chili Bowl will also be on the agenda.)

As I've mentioned, I was not called on at either of the two previous meetings, and quite a few other people reported that they were also never called on in reference to Taix. 

So yes, flood the phone lines at 2pm on Tuesday. But don't JUST call in. 

Flood those inboxes, too. You can't make PLUM take your call, but they can't stop you from sending emails. Follow the LA Conservancy's list here. If you live in the City of Los Angeles proper, be sure to contact your Councilmember.

I'm not giving up. I hope you'll join me, and many others, by calling in on Tuesday and sending emails in the meantime. Echo Park CAN gain new housing WITHOUT losing Taix - or destroying legal protections for landmarks.