219 East Adams Boulevard

PLEASE ALSO SEE OUR COMPANION HISTORIES
FOR AN INTRODUCTION TO ADAMS BOULEVARD, CLICK HERE




  • Built in 1903 on Lot 18 in the Daman & Millard Tract by retail grocer Patrick M. Moroney
  • A previous house on the lot, apparently built by police officer Levi D. Rich circa 1890, was destroyed by fire in August 1891; in May 1893 Rich sold the lot to real estate operator George W. Tubbs for $1,200
  • Lot 18 would be acquired by Patrick Moroney, who, per the Los Angeles Times of June 21, 1903, had just been issued a permit for a new single-story, seven-room dwelling budgeted at $2,500
  • Patrick Moroney arrived in Los Angeles from Nevada County, where he was born at Birchville in 1863, during the Boom of the Eighties. He married Minnesota-born Mary Engelbracht, a bookkeeper, in Los Angeles on August 21, 1895, with two sons, John Francis and Theodore, being born in short order. Prospering in the grocery trade, Moroney had by 1899 acquired the capital to consider investing in mining in his old home of Nevada County. In 1902 he sold his grocery business to the Los Angeles Co-Operators chain, though he remained a principal. By 1906, Moroney was back in business on his own, now at 1300 South Main. Within two years, he relocated his store to 1477 East Vernon Avenue (at Compton Avenue) and moved his family to a house next door at 1471, renting out 219 East Adams
  • After a brief stay by real estate operator Roy D. Tinklepaugh, the extended family of James C. Rush, who had been a farmer in Indiana earlier in the decade, moved in; living with Rush and his wife Mary was their son Frank E. Rush, an inspector with the City Engineer's office, and his wife Suzie. The Rushes stayed until 1912, when they moved to 712 East Adams Street
  • Patrick Moroney died in Los Angeles on December 20, 1911. The Morning Union of Grass Valley described the death as coming after a lingering illness and a recent visit home. The funeral was held at the residence of his brother-in-law Peter Engelbracht on East 23rd Street, with a mass said at St. Vibiana's
  • Now a widow and left with some capital, Mary Moroney decided to return to live at 219 East Adams, but not before making radical changes to the structure by raising it a full story to create a duplex. On August 1, 1912, she was issued a permit by the Department of Buildings to have contractor Joseph Fischbeck perform the well-designed alteration. The house would now carried the address of 217 East Adams as well as 219
  • On the evening of August 16, 1915, with the family away, a burglar broke in through a rear window of 209 East Adams and made off with five gold medals and two gold watches
  • While no permit has been found regarding another reconfiguration, Mrs. Moroney, who lived in the 219 part of the dwelling, appears to have created a third unit in the house in 1919; there would now be 217, 219, and 221 East Adams. Her own address became 221; her sons John Francis and Theodore, 23 and 21 respectively, were living with her there in 1920. On his way to becoming a deputy district attorney for Los Angeles County and a Superior Court judge, John Francis was then an associate editor at The Tidings, a weekly publication of the Catholic church known since 2016 as Angelus. Theodore was a salesman for the Union Hardware & Metal Company. Various tenants would occupy 217 and 219 during the next two decades including William E. Loesby, manager of the Wonderland Theatre, and Hutchinson Krack, manager of the Foreman & Clark department store
  • On August 4, 1922, the Department of Buildings issued Mary Moroney a permit to build a 16-by-20-foot garage behind the house
  • Mary Moroney appears in the 1942 Los Angeles city directory at 221 East Adams with the notation that she is still the owner of the building; voting records as late as those for 1952 list her as living at 221. Mrs. Moroney did not appear, however, at any local address in the 1948 telephone directory. Building permits issued in 1948 and 1950 indicate that the house was now owned by grocer and real estate investor Hall Ong, who owned 141 East Adams up the block (where, in 1940, he was living with his wife and 10 children; houses numbered in the 100s and 200s on East Adams are on the same block, between Main and Maple)
  • On November 16, 1948, Hall Ong was issued a permit by the Department of Building and Safety for termite repairs on 217 East Adams Boulevard, between Main and Maple, with the house noted, presumably erroneously, as a single-family residence
  • On June 13, 1950, Hall Ong was issued a permit by the Department of Building and Safety for plumbing work in the conversion of the house from three to four apartments, the building gaining 219½ East Adams as its fourth address. A certificate of occupancy for this alteration was issued to Hall on November 14
  • Even after selling the house, Mary Moroney may well have continued living in what was now a fourplex until 1952; on May 24 of that year she died in Los Angeles
  • It is unclear if Hall Ong still owned what started out 69 years before as just 219 East Adams at the time of his death in 1972. The house had been occupied by numerous tenants since 1956. The next known owner, by 1980, was Lorenzo Barajas
  • On September 9, 1990, Department of Building and Safety issued Lorenzo Barajas a permit to stucco the exterior of what was still a fourplex
  • On January 4, 2016, the Department of Building and Safety issued owner Hsiu Yu Liao of Rowland Heights a permit to replace windows



Illustration: Private Collection