THE LASFS CLUBROOM | ||||||||||
*** THE PRE-CLIFTON'S MEETINGS *** In the late 1930s the Los Angeles Science Fiction League - as they were then known - were meeting in the Brown Room at Clifton's Cafeteria, a downtown eatery located at 648 South Broadway after initially meeting at members' homes, the Pacific Electric Building, and the like. T.Bruce Yerke recalled those LASFL days in his 1943 memoir MEMOIRS OF A SUPERFLUOUS FAN (also included in free ebook):
In 1941 the club, now renamed LASFS (Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society), left Clifton's for a new venue at 1055 Wilshire Boulevard. According to Daigherty it was: a large two story frame house at the corner of Wilshire and Bixel streets. This was the first time the club had a club room available 24 hours a day. The meeting room was the large front room of the house that was a rooming house. The photos of Ackerman below were clearly taken after the club became LASFS and before he was drafted in September 1942, and show the exterior of 1055.
Taken at different meetings, the two photos below show the interior of 1055 in late-1942. (Both courtesy of John L. Coker III.) Given he was only 49 at the time it seemed unlikely to me that this could be EEEvans, but apparently it is. I guess life was harder back then..
This was their first dedicated clubroom and lasted until March 1943 when they were evicted, as reported in FANTASY FICTION FIELD #122 :
FANGELENOS CELEBRATE THROWING OUT PARTY. The Landlady at 1055 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, Cal., after repeated. warnings and second chances, finally gave the LASFS two weeks notice. Complaint was that the club was too noisy and destructive. Loud lafter was admitted to have emanated often from the clubroom after 10 pm (house curfew) and Bruce Yerke has been billed for damages to furnishings. Episodes that did not contribute to the landlady's cordiality toward the club were such as that one night when shrieks of "Arthur! Arthur!" rent the air to the second story from the street. Yerke, dashing out to find what was the matter, returned with the breathless announcement that Joquel's car was on fire, and his mother was trying to put it out. Fans began rushing around like roosters caught with their red pants down, filling wastebaskets with water from the bathroom faucet, running along the hall, & dashing down to discover ... it was merely a steaming radiator. That she lost five tenants the next day was considered oddly coincidental. Morojo lived around the corner from the Wilshire Boulevard clubroom on S. Bixel Street - which was where a new clubroom was quickly found.
The move was also reported in FANTASY FICTION FIELD #125:
NEW HQ FOR LASFS! The fifth Thurs eve in Apr was spent by fangelenos mainly, in moving furniture, equipment & library into their new clubroom, only a half block from the old, but in more modern, SOUNDPROOF surroundings. After this labor of love, the crowd (by Ray Bradbury, May WT) proceeded to celebrate by besotting itself with rootbeer, grapeola & cokes, with cheesecrackers, cookies & popcorn for fillers. The official opening did indeed take place in June. An account of the party can be found here.
Soon, various fans began moving to Bixel Street to be close to the clubroom, which quickly became the social centre of a whole community of fans, causing T. Bruce Yerke to dub the area "the Bixelstrasse", a nickname soon picked up by others. Harry Warner Jr described it thus in ALL OUR YESTERDAYS (1969):
"The club moved into its celebrated soundproof clubroom ... in April, 1943, holding its first meeting there on April 29th. This sanctified site resembled to the passerby a second-rate apartment. Inside, its 20 x 30 feet of floor space was principally remarkable for its large collection of cigarette butts, the outcome of Ackerman's ban on ashtrays in his effort to halt smoking in the clubroom. Almost every type of fannish spoor could be found in the clubroom, even unto a printing press. Across the street was 628, Tendril Towers, a boardinghouse much favored by fans for its nearness to the clubroom, its lenient landlady (who once, when charged with being a Communist, retorted: "I can prove it!"), and its modest $6.00 per week rental. Mel Brown, Jimmy Kepner, Niesen Himmel, Gus Willmorth, Lou Goldstone, Art Joquel, E. E. Evans, his daughter Jonie, Art Saha, and Alva Rogers were among those who lived there at various times.Morojo lived in the same block at 643, an address that was later occupied by the Ashleys, Wiedenbeck, and Liebscher. Most of these buildings are now no longer there, but there's one still standing today that they would've walked past. As it clearly shows, at least that section of the street was a hill:
And here's footage of Los Angeles in which you can see the sort of wooden-fronted rooming houses that would have stood on Bixel Street back then: Of the clubroom, Laney later wrote in AH! SWEET IDIOCY!:
"...someone of other was in the clubroom nearly every hour of the day and night. So many of the members lived right there in the neighborhood; Brown and Kepner across the street at 628, Morojo next door at 643, Daugherty three blocks down the street, and Fern a ten minute walk away. Yerke, Bronson, Chamberlain, Benson, Russell, and Freehafer used the place a great deal as a meeting point to rally around a party to go to the theater or symphony; and Ackerman commuted nearly every night from Fort MacArthur, often spending the night next door on Morojo's and her cousin's guest couch. Then not only did many of the members work screwy shifts, but then as always fans were notable for absenteeism, skipping work at any time for any reason or none. In those first three months, I doubt if I ever spent more than an hour in the clubroom without being joined by one or more other members. The evenings especially saw the premises crowded; many of the members were actively engaged in publishing, kept their typewriters and other equipment right there in the room; there was usually someone reading something out of the club library; and of course the usual droppings in and out."
Recalling this period years later, Daugherty wrote:
It was the largest gathering of fans in residence that I have ever known. Bixel was the second meeting place of the club that was rented for use seven days a week and 24 hours a day. There were 2 apartment houses (4 stories high) that physically adjoined, except that there was a room (approx. 20 x 30 feet that was sandwiched between the two lobbies of the apartment houses that had formerly been a beauty shop. Immediately next to one of the places to the west was a large two story house. Several members of the Slan Shack group from Battle Creek, Michigan had moved to LA en masse and they rented the house. Living there was Al and Abby Lou Ashley, Jack Weidenbeck, Walt Liebscher and Morojo (Myrtle R. Douglas). Almost directly across the street from the club room was another large two story rooming house which was named Tendril Towers by the fans. At this place, in various rooms was Lou Goldstone, E. E. Evans and Gus Wilmorth. At another rooming house half a block away was the room of Mel Brown. These were all well-known active fans of the period who lived so close to the club room that if they all left from where they lived, all could be in the club room within 2 minutes flat. These all could be considered as semi-permanent residents! In addition to this there were several fans taking short residence from time to time at both Slan Shack and Tendril Towers. That makes nine regulars within half a block of the club and several more temporarily staying thare so that at any one time there could be as high as 20 Fans residing within a stones throw from LASFS. I lived about 4 blocks away and Ack 30 blocks. According to Jean Cox's report on LASFS activities in the 1948 FANTASY ANNUAL (edited by Redd Boggs and published by Ackerman):
During 1948 the LASFS held fifty official meetings, and two holiday gatherings - Thanksgiving and Christmas - the latter at the home of Louise Leipar. The society changed meeting places twice: from 637½ Bixel to 556 W 31st, and then back to the old Bixel address. In SHANGRI-LA #6 (May-June '48) it was reported that:
The apartment that has, for the last couple of years, been known as Slan Shack Pro-Tem is empty and no longer contains fen. One of the landmark's of Los Angeles Fandom is gone, swept away by these troubled times. In that apartment at 643 South Bixel Street where Myrtle R. Douglas (so well known to the fan world as the. gracious "Morojo") lived for nearly ten years, from whose rooms dozens of issues of the famous "VoM" crept into the sunny Southern California daylight, to which in 1945 the Galactic Roamers of Michigan lost their mainstays of the Slan Shack there: Al Ashley, Walt Liebscher, Jack Wiedenbeck, and Abby Lu Ashley; has happened dozens of happy fan events, gatherings, parties, and kindred events oft reported in the fan press. From that address many fanzines have appeared, at least for part of their life: Vom, Guteto, Stefan, En Guarde, Chanticleer, Fantasy Advertiser, Slithy Toves, to name but a few. It has often proven a haven for out of town fen who enjoyed the hospitality of the sofa, Myrtle's hospitality and, later, Abby Lu's cooking were appreciated by literally scores. Such was the spot that is no more, its denizens scattered to the four quarters of Los Angeles and Phoenix, Ariz. Bow your heads, you Sons of Fantasmia, and cast a moan for another of fandom's Shattered Institutions. The thriving fan community that had existed on Bixel Street for most of the 1940s was beginning to drift apart, the end coming on 6th April 1956 when Tendril Towers closed its doors. The club stayed on Bixel Street until mid-1949. SHANGRI-LA, the clubzine that replaced SHANGRI L'AFFAIRES, still gave the Bixel Street clubroom as the editorial address in issue #11 (Mar '49), but #12 (Jun '49) asked that correspondence be sent to Ackerman's home address. In #13 (Aug '49) the new editorial address was 1305 West Ingraham Street, a couple of blocks away. LASFS had their Bixel Street clubroom for six years, the move apparently being caused by a rent increase. According to Harry Warner Jr in A WEALTH OF FABLE, LASFS were still at 1305 West Ingraham in 1955. Next came the basement room of the Prince Rupert Arms on nearby Witmer Street. ["The largest to date ... about 30 by 50 feet..." - Daugherty] The room wasn't entirely underground - there were windows that opened onto a side street enabling club members to see the feet and legs of people walking by on the street outside. Alas, Walter Daugherty, who had been subletting the room to LASFS and to the Pacific Rocket Society, lost the lease at the end of 1957. In 1958, after meeting in various member's homes, LASFS started meeting at Byron's Coffee Shoppe, 5230 Santa Monica Blvd., a considerable distance away from their traditional stomping grounds. For further moves, see here. Links:
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