Going Downtown

If you grew up in Los Angeles during the late 1940s, there was only one Downtown, and that’s where you went for all the good stuff. Sometimes my mother didn’t have to go to work, so she would take me with her when she wanted to get out and play. “Where are we going, Ma?” “Downtown.” I wouldn’t know until we got there if that meant going to a movie, touching the merchandise in department stores, eating lunch at restaurants, or shopping for groceries at Grand Central Market. Getting there from Echo Park was easy. You took the Pacific Electric Red Car to Sunset Boulevard where you got off, walked across the street, and boarded a different Red Car, one headed toward the downtown world of tall buildings. Riding those trolleys was always an adventure waiting to happen. Climbing on and off was a feat of prowess if you were five years old. The tall steps required a helping hand. Since there was no such thing as curbside access (the rails ran down the middle of the streets), my hand remained firmly in my mother’s grasp as she waited for onrushing auto traffic to slow down long enough for us to either reach the safety of the sidewalk or risk our lives to get back onto the trolley. Sometimes the trip home involved an ancient subway system. I have vague memories of a building’s elevator delivering us to a dimly lit platform buried deep beneath the city streets. We would board our trolley car and rattle through a dark hole in the earth until we suddenly swooped up into the daylight. It was like a Disneyland ride built long before Walt decided he needed his own narrow gauge railroad and a theme park to go with it. Angel’s Flight was still in service, in its original spot, for its intended purpose. We would ride it once in a while because my mother thought it was fun. I thought it was terrifying. The steps were taller than I was, or so it seemed. I had to be hauled up one riser at a time until we found a vacant seat. The people behind me were annoyed by the delay this caused. They had places to go and children who couldn’t scale walls had no business being on board. There are lots of articles and photos of the Red Cars, the Subway, and Angel’s Flight. Yet I’ve never seen a photo of or mention about the children’s slide that connected the two levels of Bullock’s department store between Hill and Broadway. Now that was a ride that was right up my alley! Literally, it was right up an alley, on 7th between Hill and Broadway. Part of it is still there, known now as St. Vincent Court. You should go there some time. When Bullock’s expanded its Hill Street store by purchasing a building on the Broadway side of the alley, it connected the two structures from the third floor up, leaving the delivery lane open for business as usual. This connecting structure had to allow for a difference in the height of the two original buildings. The solution was a set of stairs on each floor. Bullock’s Toy Department happened to be on the downside of the fifth floor, so some clever designer installed an enclosed slide for children to use while their parents walked down the adjoining stairs. It was a brilliant idea, perfect for getting everyone in the mood to buy toys. If you were lucky enough to be a child, you climbed inside a hole in the wall, sat down in the dark, slid down, down, down, and then popped out into the bright light, rather like the subway, only better because you were now surrounded by things to play with and touch. Dolls and trucks and other important articles of play were not displayed in boxes in the Downtown Days. No, they were unpackaged, fully operational, ready to be mauled. The civilized rule was “Look, but don’t touch.” That’s what the saleswomen would say to my mother. Then as soon as their backs were turned she would tell me, “Go! Play! Touch everything.” The saleswomen had to put up with us. They never knew if Ma would buy something. She never did but I had a good time anyway. Another magical thing about Bullock’s and the other two big department stores were their window displays. I’m not talking about posters and a few manikins. I’m talking miniature worlds seen through huge windows placed every ten feet or so. You could go downtown just to see the window displays and call it a day well spent. This was especially true during the Christmas season when behind each glass lived miniature trains, automated elves, cotton snow, and toys just waiting to be hugged. Each trip downtown revealed wonderful new window scenes, drawing us into the stores like ducks to a pond. The movie theaters downtown were also magical. Historical societies can tell you more about them than I can. I just remember sitting next to my mother for hours, pestering her with questions. “What did he say?” “Why is she crying?” Invariably the answer was, “Shush! I’ll tell you later.” (To this day, I still sometimes need someone to explain to me why the handsome man had to blow up the pretty lady’s house.) There were two restaurants my mother liked: Dinty Moore and Clifton’s Cafeteria. At Dinty Moore’s we ate corned beef and cabbage. Well, she ate corned beef and cabbage. I ate soda crackers. Clifton’s was a world unto itself. When you walked through its portals you left downtown and entered Yosemite National Park, with a pipe organ thrown in for good measure. The food was unimportant, but there was lots of it. If you paid extra, you could go to a grotto downstairs and tour the Garden of Gethsemane. Seriously, you could finish your chocolate pudding and then go see Jesus. I’m not making this up. I went; I saw. One year when I turned eight or nine my mother let me have a birthday party at Clifton’s. As a special treat, the waiter said I could ask the organist to play my favorite song. I’d been dragged the week before to see Judy Garland and James Mason in “A Star is Born” (another case of “Why is the handsome man making the pretty lady cry, Mommy?”). I asked the organist to play the movie’s theme song. You know, “The Man Who Got Away.” The waiter returned and said the organist didn’t know that song and would I like to hear “Zippity Doo Dah” instead. At that moment, I lost all respect for the organist at Clifton’s. Restaurants, movie theaters, and trolley rides aside, the greatest downtown charm for me were the department stores. I loved them even when I grabbed the wrong woman’s hand and followed her into the elevator at Robinson’s. I don’t know who was more surprised; the nice lady who was not my mother or me after I saw my mother’s panicked face on the other side of the closing elevator doors. Somehow I got deposited in an office on the upper floors where everyone was very nice to me while I waited to be found, except for my mother once she stumbled breathless into the room. I got such a scold that day! I continued to love the downtown department stores until my first summer job, which was as a saleslady at The Broadway. On my first day there, I was assigned to Boy’s Clothing. It was a big sale day; the department was flooded with people asking questions I knew nothing about. I solved the problem by going to the restroom every thirty minutes to throw up from nervous anxiety. I lasted one day in Boys Clothing. The second day they put me behind a perfume counter island on the main floor. I got to experience first hand a hoard of women sale shoppers sprinting through the doors at the opening bell, just like horses out of the starting gate. If the counter had been a boat, I’d have been swept away and drowned at sea. I lasted one day in Perfumery. Salvation came in the form of a career drill sergeant who was in charge of Lady’s Half Size Dresses. This area was filled with unattractive clothing for senior ladies who were short waisted. Now we call it Petite. Then we called it 15-1/2. This department manager taught me how to help squeeze ladies into dresses one size too small; how to bring them everything we had in stock until they found something they liked without having to leave their dressing rooms (nice, huh?); how to button, belt, and rehang every garment in its proper sizing spot once the dressing rooms were empty. She may have been the reason why I’m OCD today. I took well to her training. She liked me. She thought I had a future in fashion merchandising. She offered to sponsor me and keep me on part time. Silly me, I thought it was preferable to major in music. I might have been better off in fashion merchandising if it weren’t for the fact that I couldn’t swim in a shark tank. I threw up too much from nervous anxiety. There’s a happy ending to The Broadway story. When I worked there, they still had a rest room for the salesladies. I’m not talking about a bathroom. I’m talking about a long, narrow room lined with cots that were covered with wool blankets, pillow included. The windows were high up and narrow, allowing just enough light to see where you were going but keeping the area dim and restful. It reminded me somewhat of a jail cell, though I couldn’t say from first hand experience. In the days when this room was created, it was believed that it was unhealthy for women to stand up all day long. It put a strain on your kishkas (which is how my family referred to lower body internal parts). The Broadway insisted its salesladies go have a nice lie down during their breaks. So every afternoon, I’d stretch out, take a load off, stare at the windows, and try hard to stay awake. Resting was approved. Snoring was reason for dismissal.