1018 East Adams Boulevard

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  • Built in 1901 on Lot 4 of Grider & Dow's Adams Street Tract by real estate investors William L. and Eloise A. Williams
  • William Loch Williams had for four years been associated with the American Engraving Company, with offices in the headquarters building of the Los Angeles Times; in the fall of 1901, Williams organized a new concern, the Commercial Engraving Company, with his wife sitting on the board of directors. The couple had been building spec and rental properties as a side occupation, a number of them along East Adams Street, as the Boulevard was then designated. The Williamses had recently completed 737, 808, and 1007 East Adams, residing in the latter at the time of the construction of 1018 across the street
  • Harry S. Fondersmith, a bookkeeper recently arrived in Los Angeles with his family, appears to have been the first renter of 1018 East Adams, in residence from the winter of 1901-02 until September 1903, when he moved to East 20th Street. Fondersmith was employed as the cashier of the Ice & Cold Storage Company of Los Angeles
  • William and Eloise Williams moved into 1018 East Adams in September 1903, staying until renting it to Harry Parker and his family, recently arrived from Tacoma, in April 1904. The Parkers left the house five months later, having bought a house at 3450 South Figueroa Street; Harry Parker was associated with the wholesale dry goods company Cooper Coate & Casey
  • Following the Parkers at 1018 was short-term renter James R. Cammack, who was employed by Joseph M. Hunley, the grocer three doors away at 2601 South Central Avenue
  • A longer-term renter of 1018 East Adams was John P. Morris, an employee of the wholesale (and later retail) millinery firm Meyer Brothers. Morris, his wife Nina, their two sons, and his mother lived at 1018 from 1905 until 1912. On March 12, 1906, 12-year-old Earl Morris shot himself as he was showing a revolver to a friend. "The bullet penetrated the fleshy part of his hand, and then imbedded itself in the floor of the room," the Times included in its report the next day. Three years later, the Herald ran a story describing Earl's gallant donation, and that of two other boys, of four square inches of skin each—remarkable in pre-antibiotic times—to be used as grafts on a childhood playmate, Delia Helm, who had been badly scalded in a household accident
  • Beginning a peripatetic move west with the city, William and Eloise Williams were by 1906 living in Hollywood—which would be annexed to Los Angeles four years later—continuing to build and purchase Hollywood and Westside properties into the 1940s. The couple appears to have maintained 1018 East Adams as part of their portfolio of rental properties until the mid 1920s
  • After the departure of the Morrises for Hollywood Heights by 1913, 1018 East Adams was rented first to produce man Frank J. Dair and then, in 1918, to the family of cobbler Jacob Jackson, who stayed until 1925. The Jacksons then moved down to West 56th Street, more convenient by way of the Los Angeles Railway to his shop at 54th and 2nd Avenue
  • Charles Orlando Sciortino appears to have bought 1018 East Adams by 1926. A fruit peddler at the downtown produce market, Sciortino was enumerated in the Federal census on April 2, 1930, as a widower owning 1018 and living there with his sons Ignacio (14) and Santo (12). The Sciortinos were last listed at 1018 East Adams in the city directory of 1938. Santo had by this time changed his name to Sam, and would go on to become the "gonnected" Sam Orlando Sciortino, described as an underboss of the Los Angeles mafia from 1974 to 1979. He reportedly died in prison in 1983 while serving a sentence for racketeering and pornography extortion handed down in 1981
  • Succeeding the Sciortinos at 1018 East Adams were a number of renters both before and after its acquisition by Mrs. Clara King, who moved in by 1948. Mrs. King remained at 1018 into at least the mid 1970s
  • Arnold Avila became the owner of 1018 by the spring of 1991; on May 5 of that year, the Department of Building and Safety issued him a permit for an 8-foot-by-28-foot rear addition
  • On September 6, 1996, the Department of Building and Safety issued Arnold Avila a permit to build a separate new dwelling behind 1018; described as a one-story 23-by 34-foot building, it was given the address of 1016 East Adams Boulevard



Illustration: Private Collection