1801 West Adams Boulevard

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  • Built in 1901 on Lot 5 in Block 1 of the Adams Street Homestead Tract by Paul R. Hazeltine, manager of Bishop & Company, manufacturers of crackers, candy, and jams
  • On April 12, 1901, the Los Angeles Times reported that a building permit had just been issued to P. R. Hazeltine for a two-story, seven-room house budgeted at $2,336; on September 1, the Times reported that the Hazeltines had moved into the completed house
  • On February 13, 1906, the Superintendent of Buildings issued P. R. Hazeltine a permit to add a 14-by-20-foot flat-roofed rear addition over the kitchen
  • The Hazeltines remained at 1801 West Adams until moving to Hollywood in 1909; they sold the house to Tulare County rancher George Bertch
  • The ownership of 1801 West Adams after the departure of the Bertches circa 1917 is unclear; the house would be rented, with several dozen names associated with the address including oil-industry executives Norman M. Vedder and his son Richard, until its apparent purchase by accountant Blanford L. McKay, who had begun renting it in 1938. His wife, Elizabeth, was a masseuse; she appears to have been offering her services—and mineral baths—at 1801 during the couple's tenancy. The McKay's son and daughter and their spouses also lived in the house, as did five additional unrelated lodgers
  • One of the many tenants of 1801 West Adams was 21-year-old Jack Shubin; on November 26, 1928, as reported in the Times the next day, he was arrested on charges of kidnapping by the father of 15-year-old Mildred Collins. The girl had disappeared from home two months before and had been living with Shubin at 1801, apparently against her will
  • On March 21, 1945, the Department of Building and Safety issued Blanford McKay a permit re-side the front of the house and two sides with "White Blend Insulated Bric"
  • Two more owners of 1801 West Adams are noted in building records. A Mrs. L. Tiesh is cited on an alteration permit for a new bathroom, among other alterations, issued by the Department of Building and Safety on October 17, 1951, and on one issued on July 11, 1952, for the addition of a rear storage building
  • Among the tenants of 1801 West Adams in the fall of 1954 was 27-year-old Alvie Maud Wilson Cunningham Dorn, who was living in a rear apartment with her two children, two-year-old Kenneth Dorn and seven-year-old Sterling Lewis Wilson. While they were asleep early on October 13, Leon V. Cunningham, one of Alvie's two ex-husbands, broke into the apartment and, apparently intending to kill her, fired four shot into a sleeping figure that turned out to be Sterling, killing him 
  • By 1961, John B. Dahl had acquired 1801, renting out rooms; he also owned 1587 West Adams, which he ran as another rooming house. (He himself lived nearby at 1681 West 25th Street)
  • On December 3, 1980, John W. Dahl was issued a demolition permit for 1801 West Adams; the site became a parking lot until the construction of a 3-story, 46-unit apartment house covering six lots of Block 1 of the Adams Street Homestead Tract west from the northwest corner of Adams Boulevard and Congress Street



Illustration: USCDL