746 East Adams Boulevard


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  • Built in 1897 on a parcel comprised of the west 40 feet of Lot 28 and the east 22 feet of Lot 29 in Grider & Dow's Adams Street Tract
  • Original commissioner: Jefferson D. Newman of Flagstaff, who married Angeleno Norah Perry in 1892; the Newmans had been living primarily in Arizona, where he raised sheep
  • The Times and the Herald reported Newman's $1,300 purchase of his Adams Street parcel on September 16, 1897; five days later the Record reported that a building permit had been issued to Newman for the erection of a $1,500 residence on the property
  • On March 15, 1903, the Times reported Newman's sale of 746 East Adams Street to A. F. Leighton of Omaha; the purchase price was $3,500
  • It is unclear as to whether A. F. Leighton ever occupied 746 East Adams or whether he had acquired it as rental property. Renting the house for at least a decade from 1908 was tailor Lewis Herman and various family members
  • Salvador Nunziato of the Pacific Macaroni Company was renting 746 East Adams between 1918 and 1922, after which several different parties are listed at the address in city directories during the 1920s. By 1924, George A. Bohlander was occupying the house; his wife Frances died at 746 on November 7, 1924. Bohlander remarried in 1928 and left the house; his successor would bring considerable notoriety to the property
  • South Carolina–born Dr. Eugene C. Nelson, pictured above leaving 746 East Adams in the only known image of the house, had caused a sensation when he married "famous Follies beauty" Helen Lee Worthing in Tijuana in 1928. Worthing's career as a Broadway and film actress came to an abrupt halt with the marriage, which would be short-lived. In December 1929 Worthing told an Evening Express reporter that "Jealousy over her colored husband's attentions to another white woman" had resulted in a five-day separation and had undermined her health. "Miss Worthing made this announcement as she and her husband...whose skin is somewhat darker than the deep olive of a Spaniard, breakfasted in their 'garden of love' at the rear of their home at 746 East Adams street, in the heart of Los Angeles' 'black belt'.... "We are now happy and reconciled and nothing ever again will be allowed to come between us." The enumerator of the 1930 Federal census noted that both Nelsons were living at 746 East Adams, paying $65 a month; both of their races were recorded as caucasian, an odd anomaly considering the sensation their marriage had caused. Dr. Nelson, who was used to making his own rules, had claimed in earlier military service and censuses to be white, or at least had let the draft board and census-taker assume that he was. Unsurprisingly, the Evening Express article was an attempt at show-biz public relations. Mrs. Nelson's assertion to the reporter that "We are now happy and reconciled and nothing ever again will be allowed to come between us" was, perhaps predicatably, premature. The Nelsons divorced in May 1932; that November, Helen Lee Worthing was committed to the psychopathic ward of County Hospital, her ex-husband agreeing to pay for her treatment but asking the court to be freed of his obligation to pay alimony
  • In June 1931, two intruders robbed Dr. Nelson of $2,300 in cash and a like amount in jewelry at 746 East Adams, "leaving him bound with rope and adhesive tape," per the Evening Express of June 10
  • By 1933, Dr. Nelson had moved across the street to 751 East Adams Boulevard and boldly taken office space in a residence at 4472 Wilshire Boulevard on the edge of Fremont Place. That July, Leo F. Desmond of New York filed a $100,000 alienation of affections suit against the doctor, charging that the physician had "persuaded, abducted and enticed" his wife away from the couple's home on Long Island. Margaret Fay Desmond was found to be working as Nelson's secretary at 4472 Wilshire, apparently also providing connubial comfort to the good doctor after his divorce from Helen Lee Worthing. Much was made in the press of the African-American Nelson's penchant for caucasian ladies. Fremont Place (and northerly adjacent Windsor Square and Hancock Park) was definitely not amused by Nelson's marital soap opera, but its stuffy residents could be grateful that he was gone by the time he was arrested in 1941 on charges of being an abortionist. (Helen Lee Worthing, her once-considerable career ruined and her personal life a disaster, sadly battled addiction until her death in 1948)
  • Among those residents renting 746 East Adams Boulevard during the '30s and '40s were building custodian Losson Read and his extended family
  • Planning to move his extended family to Los Angeles from Texas, Septer R. Silas was the owner of 746 East Adams by 1946. On April 30 of that year Silas was issued a permit by the Department of Building and Safety to cover the house with insulated simulated-brick asphalt siding. On December 22, 1949, Silas was issued a permit to add a 23-by-23-foot apartment to the rear of the house
  • Septer Silas died on March 25, 1956
  • By the summer of 1959, 746 East Adams Boulevard had been sold to developers and would be demolished to make way for the eight-unit apartment building that stands on the east side of the lot today. A permit for the current building was issued to Kellogg Builders on August 10, 1959


Illustration: USCDL