L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America's Most Seductive City

As Mickey started to: Mickey’s claim to have driven all the way back to Wilshire without looking up seems implausible given the two miles of curves he would have had to traverse on San Vicente Boulevard.

Cohen didn’t report: Cohen, In My Own Words, 122-23; Jennings, “Private Life of a Hood, Part III,” October 4, 1958.

The evening of: Cohen, In My Own Words, 125-29. Muir, Headline Happy, 202-10.

By 3:30: Some accounts of the shooting mention only the shotgun (or two shotguns). See Muir, Headline Happy, 205, 207-209; Cohen, In My Own Words, 126.

Later that night: Muir, Headline Happy, 202-209; “Full Story of Mob Shooting of Cohen,” Los Angeles Daily News, July 20, 1949.

The papers, of course: Howser was actively attempting to organize and extort money from Northern California bookmakers, slot machine operators, and other gamblers. Fox, Blood and Power, 291.

Brown was a big teddy: Author interview with Daryl Gates, December 10, 2004; McDougal, Privileged Son, p. 194.

“I had gambling joints: Cohen, In My Own Words, 146-47.

Cohen arrived in Chicago: Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 418.

Chapter Two: The “White Spot”

“Wherein lies the fascination …”: Wright, “Los Angeles-The Chemically Pure,” The Smart Set Anthology, 101.

Other cities were based: Findley, “The Economic Boom of the ’Twenties in Los Angeles,” 252; “The Soul of the City,” Los Angeles Times, June 24, 1923, 114; Fogelson, The Fragmented Metropolis, 80; Davis, “The View from Spring Street: White-Collar Men in the City of Angeles,” Sitton and Deverell, eds., Metropolis in the Making, 180. The “white spot” metaphor began innocently, as a description of business conditions in Los Angeles in the early 1920s, but soon took on troubling racial connotations.

The historic center of: Percival, “In Our Cathay,” Los Angeles Times, December 4, 1898, 6. See also AnneMarie Kooistra, “Angels for Sale,” 25 and 29 for maps of L.A.’s historic tenderloin district, as well as 91, 174-75; Henstell, Sunshine and Wealth, 89; Woods, “The Progressives and Police,” 57; Sitton “Did the Ruling Class Rule at City Hall in 1920s Los Angeles?” in Metropolis in the Making, 309.

The city also boasted: Hurewitz, Bohemian Los Angeles and the Making of Modern Politics, 104; Mann, Behind the Screen, 89.

Congressman Parker’s position: “Col W. H. Parker Called By Death: South Dakota Congressman Passed Away Yesterday—Speaker Cannon Expresses Deep Regret,” clipping from Deadwood newspaper, William H. Parker Foundation archives.

As a child, Bill: The oldest Parker sibling, Catherine Irene, was born on August 29, 1903. Bill was born two years later, on June 21, 1905, followed by Alfred on May 29, 1908; Mary Ann in 1911; and Joseph on April 10, 1918. Author interview with Joseph Parker, Houston, Texas, December 12-13, 2004.

As an obviously intelligent: Sjoquist, “The Story of Bill,” The Link, 1994; Domanick, To Protect and to Serve, 91.

In later years, Parker: See “Police Instincts of Bill Parker Flourished Early,” Los Angeles Mirror-News, June 18, 1957, for a typical (and improbable) account of this period in Parker’s life.

Los Angeles was Deadwood: In 1934, the United States Geographical Board recognized the most popular variant, today’s “Los An-ju-less.” Henstell, Sunshine and Wealth, 26. However, controversies about the proper pronunciation lingered into the 1950s. “With a Soft G,” Time magazine, September 22, 1952.

Whatever its pronunciation: John Anson Ford, who moved to L.A. in 1920 from Chicago, recounts the wagon trail-like quality of the migration in this description of the journey: “We had not expected to find so many other motorists, equipped very much as we were, all heading for California. On long level stretches of the dirt roadway each day we could see cars ahead and behind us, perhaps half a mile apart. Each car was followed by a long plume of dust. These automobiles, laden with camping equipment, household goods, and the unkempt appearance of both children and adults, made them easily distinguishable from local farmers or city dwellers. An amazingly large segment of the nation was on the move—and that move was to California.” Ford, Honest Politics My Theme, 52-53; Woods, “The Progressives and the Police,” 75; Starr, Material Dreams, 80.

“The whole Middle West”: Garland, Diaries, 40.

“If every conceivable trick: http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/patc/hollywoodsign/index.html.