A familiar image

Dancing Girls, 2010

mixed media

36 x 14 x 7"

Jeff Matsuno is an artist whose work in ceramic is being exhibited at the Lora Schlesinger Gallery in Santa Monica through May 15, 2010. Jeff, a native of Los Angeles, returned home after living abroad and revisited downtown Los Angeles. He began to photograph the graffiti-covered and abandoned facades of buildings that had once been part of a bustling and vivid city. He has resurrected these old buildings by re-creating them as clay reliefs, a historical documentation of what was once but now is gone.

I was delighted to see that Jeff shared my fascination with the old Los Angeles City Club.

Dancing Girls - the history of a building

We explore the history of a small brick building on Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles.

To follow the story in order, click through each chapter:

Part One - Introduction
Part Two - The City Club
Part Three - Decline
Part Four - Taxi-dancehall
Part Five - Murder
Part Six - The Roseland Roof
Part Seven - The Dancers
Part Eight - The Building

This tile mural in the building lobby is as bright as it was when installed in 1924. Ready for the next 85 years.

Dancing Girls - Part Eight

The graceful brick building at 833 South Spring Street was built in 1924 as the headquarters of the City Club, a Los Angeles civic organization with a membership of 2500 leaders of business, industry, and finance. But after less than ten years, the Club was gone, replaced by a nightclub and then, for the next sixty years a taxi-dancehall. Now it's trying to go straight with a renovation aimed at attracting high-end fashion industry tenants.

I called the phone number on the banners, and made an appointment to view the building. On a bright September morning, I walked beneath the carved stone letters into the lobby.

The souvenir bulletin commemorating the building's opening in 1924 describes the entrance:

"The first impression of the visitor is gained from its entrance which is dignified and of classic simplicity architecturally. On the right wall in the entrance way is a brightly colored "out-door" California landscape done in tile, which is most effective from a decorative standpoint."

And there it was, as fresh and bright and pure as it had been in 1924. I had to marvel. Had it been here all along? Had gamblers, drinkers, dancers and customers walked past it each night, taking in the gentle light of the sky, the dancing flowers, the graceful figurine in the foreground? Or had it been hidden, covered with panels, drapes or signs? Why wasn't it lost, defaced, stolen, or ruined?


It gleams, in perfect condition. Overhead, a wrought iron chandelier lent a stately flavor to the lobby. The floor was paved in checkerboard marble, light and dark grey. The walls were concrete, finished to look like stone, just as the bulletin described.

Up a modern elevator to the second floor building office. I met the owner, an older man named Shawn. I told him I was researching the building history and wanted to take some photos if it was okay. To my surprise, he invited me to walk around on my own, anywhere I liked. "Go everywhere," he said. " The first floor, the garage. Go to the fourth floor, you'll love it."

So I did. The first place I went was the second floor next to his office. A spacious room, gracious, with the large windows opening onto Spring Street. Along one wall were a jumble of boxes of papers and some large framed photos and prints, propped against the wall.

There were three large framed portraits of women, faded and water stained. One full-length in a slinky gown, photographed against a full curtain, one elegant in strapless black, one flirty in off-theshoulder gingham, they smiled out in sepia. Were these the portraits of taxi-dancers? What else remained?

There was a bin of blueprints, some new, some old. There were some empty picture frames, too.

The rest of the room was clean, featureless, a sheen of plaster dust on the polished concrete floors. The owner had chosen to divide his rental spaces with thick, clear glass walls and doors, so even though it was divided, you got a sense of the spaciousness and the light. The walls were bare, and the structural columns were featureless.

On the third floor, the front suite was occupied by a tenant, colorful clothes and fashionable, arty furniture arranged on their showroom floor.

When the elevator opened onto fourth floor, I stepped out into a space that was both magnificent and - for me - profoundly disappointing.

Clean, open, lofty, with those arched windows and ceiling skylights, the space was beautiful. Yet it was stripped bare; the same featureless columns, the same bare concrete walls. The floor was concrete, with a faux-tile effect provided by shallow lines.

As part of the upgrade, a modern heating and cooling system was in, and the ductwork ran beneath the concrete ceiling beams. Sprinkler pipes and electrical conduits also ran along the walls and underneath the ceilings. Large halide light fixtures with ribbed glass shades hung from the ceiling, too - the space had a very industrial feel.

The main space was ringed by the balconies of the fifth floor, accessed by a staircase. Near the front of the building, the rooms beneath the balconies were small, divided into offices, as were the spaces along the north side. You can see a floor plan at The Primrose Design building's website.

The wrought iron railings of the stairs were clearly old, but it had been extended higher by the remodelers, in compliance with current code. The railings and the cornices were the only decorative touches visible.

Beautiful, yes - but there was no sense that this had once been a gracious dining room for the powerful elite or a tawdry dancehall.

Or so I thought.

From the upper balcony, I could see something on the ceiling - a basket-weave pattern. What could it be? First I thought it was soot deposit from an ancient, long-gone air vent, but when I got closer I realized it was actually painted onto the concrete.

One of the workers saw me taking photos of this, and took me to the rooms at the front of the fifth floor, where there were other paintings. Part of a wall had a painted border and graceful floral designs, while ceiling beams were patterned with some sort of Art Deco crescents and ziggurats.

The souvenir bulletin issued in 1924 for the City Club's opening noted the use of new technology of chemically tinting concrete for its decor. "The rough concrete finish is retained as the base of antique decorations in green gold effect on the walls and ceiling." These designs could be part of that original decor.

They only appear on small portions of the walls and ceiling - were the decorations sandblasted off elsewhere? Why did these survive - were they hidden behind panels or drop ceilings?

This painted ceiling medallion is in another space on the fifth floor, where the City Club maintained ladies' reception rooms and game rooms.


Also accessed from the fifth floor are the small exterior balconies, like this one, just above the neon sign.

The last place I looked was the first floor retail space. In 1924 it had been the home of a savings and loan type of institution. Today its high ceilings, its beams and columns, still show the brackets decorated with classic motifs.

The building is clean, new, and awaits new tenants. The ground floor is perfect for a slick new restaurant catering to the fashion district businesses expected to thrive in the upper floors. The infrastructure has been completely updated, ready for the next chapter in its history.

I wonder what will happen to the neon sign?

Dancing Girls - Part Seven

Glamor photo of a dancer

As I researched taxi-dancehalls, I read a lot of newspaper stories, from the 1920s until recently. There were stories denouncing the immorality and scandal of the halls. There were puff-pieces that made them sound glamorous. There were many first-person narratives, where either a male reporter posed as a customer, or a plucky female reporter posed as a dancer looking for work.

In almost every article, there's a sameness that runs through them all. Dancers and workers are profiled, and for every troubled girl we meet, we're also given an example of a hard working girl, sometimes married with kids, just trying to make ends meet. The customers are profiled too, from the lonely to the lech. Owners are interviewed, and invariably defend the service they provide the community. Cops and vice squad officers are quoted, assuring us that this isn't prostitution, even while voicing doubts about the wholesomeness of the enterprise.

The most recent article about taxi-dancing that mentions the Roseland Roof is by Evan Wright, writing for the Los Angeles Weekly in January of 1999. He describes the club:

"The sign outside the Fenton Building on Spring Street is original, a two-story neon ribbon hanging on the north corner. It flashes "DANCING" in white, then blinks to red letters that spell "GIRLS." The club itself is reached through an interminable ride on a freight elevator. Inside Dreamland, the stage where swing bands once played has been plastered over, as have the cathedral windows, in order to create flat, even walls, uniformly painted matte black."

It's not that different from a description of a Chicago dance hall written by a reporter who went undercover as a dancer in 1929:

"This dance hall is high up in an old building. You step into a dingy hall, then into a wobbly elevator and rise, jerkily, to the fifth floor. Then you get out and walk the rest of the way, up through dark halls and stairways....we [girls] wandered out and skirted the dance floor under the critical gaze of the...patrons most of whom had shed their coats and neckties prepared for a hard night's dancing."

Or one in a 1931 syndicated column by James Aswell about a club in Manhattan on Fourteenth Street:

"One flight up, put your dollar-ten through the cashier's wicket and a thin-chested bouncer will open the door to - well what is it? Romance? Iniquity? A broad, low-ceilinged room reminiscent of Woodmen of the World lodge rooms decorated for the Saturday night dance....Nine [musicians] syncopate lazily in a bower of faded paper flowers. The girls stand in pairs and little groups around the dance floor entrance, giggling, eyeing you with a half-hostile hope..."

Dancing was a way for young women to make money on their own. "Money rules, my friend," says a customer interviewed by Wright in 1999.

Supporting her family in the Depression was the motivation of Jeanne de Al Moreau, author of a first-person "Confessions of a Taxi Dancer" in 1931. In 1969, a Times reporter talks to a girl who helps her family through a financial crisis, even though she conceals what she's doing. Some dancers set temporary financial goals. Rhonda in 1981 dances to pay off her car. In 1990, a club owner says, "Some of the girls are new in town and trying to earn enough to go home." In 1931 a syndicated columnist James Aswell interviewed a sixteen year old dancer who swore she's only going to work four weeks more to pay off a family bill, "and no longer. I'm not really a dance hall girl," she says.

The girls were supposed to aggressively go after the money. "You ain't very ambitious, sister," says a bouncer to Winifred Mulcahey, a reporter for Chicago's Southtown Economist in 1929. "Whyn't you get up and stand in the line of girls? That's where you get the business. If you ain't careful you won't make carfare tonight."


Some girls like the power they have over customers, like the heroine of this story, drawn by comic artist James Kirby in 1954 - in a room with windows that look remarkably like the arched windows at the Roseland Roof. Or like Priscilla, who in 1999 says "If I don't like a guy I can clock him out, I don't have to talk to a guy if I don't want to. I used to cocktail at a shithole in Venice - you think a waitress can decide not to serve a table because she doesn't like the customer?"

Taxi-dancing, later called "hostess dancing" presents a strange set of problems for those who decided to go into the trade. Unlike stripping and burlesque work, they don't have to disrobe. Nudity is illegal in these clubs. But also unlike stripping and burlesque work, they have to engage in close physical contact with their customers - and sometimes emotional contact. It's the whole point of the transaction.

The boundaries are blurred. Where do you draw the line between an embrace on the dance floor and sexual contact? Where do you draw the line between companionship, feigned romance, and "falling in love"? In every interview I've read, dancers walked this tightrope with every customer.

Women deal with the degradation of being sexual objects, yet feel the pain of rejection if they aren't chosen, aren't given tips.

"The first week was hard," says Eileen, interviewed in 1969. "You have to adjust to it, mentally....This can be a problem, keeping yourself untangled."

"One of the main things," says Kay in 1969 "is to be emotionally stable so if someone insults you you don't shatter."

Many girls have drug habits, many have a history of childhood or domestic abuse. There is a sense of self-loathing at selling one's own affections, as one Chicago girl in 1930 testified, where she was forced to demonstrate she could dance "their way" for the manager before being hired. Even the plucky girl reporter who pretends to be a dancer can't bring herself to dance with a leering ugly customer, even though, as she says, it would have been "good copy."

Yet many girls feel sympathetic to their customers, like Teresa, in 1981,who says "You play psychiatrist here. I adapt myself to each new customer. It's very important to occupy their minds, so I've become a very good storyteller." Tanya, quote in a 1990 story, says she has many repeat customers because they know she's a good listener.

The fifth floor gable window at 833 South Spring Street

Interviewed in 1999, Ed Fenton says "The customer was lonely, that's the word. The club brought in lonely people. They came here to meet with girls and carry on a secret romance." When the reporter asked if he meant the men had affairs with the girls, Fenton looked annoyed at being misunderstood. "No. I didn't say that. The customer lived in a fantasy."

Maybe the customer did. But I don't think the girls do.

Paintings on a concrete wall, interior, fifth floor 833 South Spring Street

True confession time -

In my senior year of college, I needed a job, and saw an ad in the local newspaper for cocktail waitresses and "hostesses." I was still under 21, so I couldn't serve drinks, but hostesses could work at 18. I went to the club, interviewed, and was told to report the following night at 7 p.m.

It was probably not the right line of work for me to begin with. I worked backstage in the theatre, didn't really wear make-up, and I wasn't very good at flirting. But I needed a job, so I thought I could do it. I rode my bike down to the club, a short nylon mini-dress in my backpack, and changed in the girls' dressing room.

I sat at the bar and talked with men who bought me a drink called an "Orange Blossom" - orange juice and club soda. I danced a couple of dances, but I was not good at it, and it felt uncomfortable. In the four hours I spent there, I sat with perhaps three or four men. But a peculiar emotion took hold of me. I realized that if I liked the man I was talking to, I felt guilty at deceiving him into spending $6 on a plastic cup of orange juice. But if I didn't like him, the distaste I felt being in his company overwhelmed any sense of triumph at taking his money. At the end of the shift, I went into the manager's office and quit.

I am surprised today that he even bothered to ask why. But he did, and I told him about my objection to falsifying affection for money. He sighed, shrugged, and gave me a world-weary look. "Well, honey," he said, "you just don't know much about life."

I know now from my reading that it's not at all unusual for girls to quit after one night - even in the old days of the taxi-dancehall. And the reason I gave was probably well-known to him. But at the time I remember feeling righteously indignant as I changed back into my bluejeans and wheeled my bike out into the alley. How dare he speak to me that way! What did he know! After all, I was in college - I was educated.

But as I rode through the night-time streets of the Near North End Columbus back to campus, it gradually dawned on me that he was probably right - even though I rejected his view of "life" - I was the naive one. I had no idea what went on in that club, but I knew I'd done the right thing to quit.

After Evan Wright's article appeared in the L.A. Weekly, a former dancer wrote a letter to the editor. In it she says:

"When I actually became a taxi-dancer, the price I paid for each ride was much higher. Far beyond the tip and a pat on the ass at the pay counter, the emotional meter kept running long after the money exchanged sweaty hands."

This work, she wrote ".... makes human worth a commodity and gives approval a dollar value."

The newspaper articles quoted in this post are available online but some are access limited. Go to the links for available articles, or go to Access Newspaper Archive. Los Angeles Times Archive articles are availabe at a cost. If you'd like a pdf of an article listed below, email me. Articles quoted for this post:

Aswell, Jimmy, Syndicated columns 1930-1940, Access Newspaper Archive

Booe, Martin, 1990, "Taxi-Dancers - It's No Longer Ten Cents a Dance, But Lonely Men Can Still Hire Partners in Dim Downtown Clubs" - Los Angeles Times (July 15)

Joice, Jackie M, 2001, "Taxi Clubs" - Authorsden.com (December 6)

McCoy, Kathleen, 1981, "World of Taxi-Dancing - No more Dime a Dance Girls" - Los Angeles Times (June 7)

Moreau, Jeanne de Al, 1931, "Confessions of a Taxi Dancer" - Los Angeles Times (August 2)

Mulcahey, Winifred, 1929, "Girl Stunt Reporters Find Taxi Dancers Have Tough Job" - Southtown Economist, Chicago, Illinois (August 30)

Osper, Carrie, 1999, Letter to the Editor - Dirty Old Men - Los Angeles Weekly (February 18)

Townsend, Dorothy, 1969, "10 Cents a Dance? Not Any More - It's $9 an Hour!" - Los Angeles Times (November 24)

Wright, Evan, 1999, "Dance With a Stranger - Falling in love at 40 cents a minute" -Los Angeles Weekly (January 28)

We go inside the building, and see what it's like today, in Dancing Girls - Part Eight.

Dancing Girls, Part Six

This building on South Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles has long and interesting history.

In 1943, a lawyer named Ben Fenton gave his brother Ed a call. He'd been offered an opportunity to buy a business and wanted to know if Ed would go in with him. It was a taxi-dance hall called the Roseland Roof, and the owner wanted to sell it.

When Edward Fenton was 91 years old, he remembered that moment, talking to Evan Wright of the L.A. Weekly:

"I'd never heard of a place like this.... I didn't have any idea how it was operated. I came here on a Thursday night to check the place out. I see a bunch of women and a bunch of customers, and I say, 'What's this business all about?' So my brother explained it to me, and I said, 'Not a bad idea. What's the supply of girls?' and he said, 'We don't have a problem with that.'"

The Fentons decided to buy the club , but in a bizarre twist, the owner, William Lederer, was murdered in a stick-up while depositing the payment in the night deposit box at his bank.

Dancehalls displayed glamour portraits of dancers in evening wear.

Even so, they made a go of it. They had a six-piece live band, and enforced a dress code. Men had to wear neckties - you could buy one at the door if you didn't have one. They were so successful they bought a second club, Dreamland, on Main Street up near the Burbank burlesque theatre.

In another newspaper interview, Ben talks about the patrons and the dancers:

"It was a fairly nice group of people...A lot of business people. There were some lonesome people. Some of them wanted to be away from their wives....the girls had to be good conversationalists. People didn't care that much about dancing. They mostly wanted someone to talk to."

The Fentons modernized the system - now instead of having customers buy tickets at ten cents a dance, the girls punched in at a time clock when they went with a customer.

This photo of a car wreck at 9th and Spring from 1952 shows the Roseland Roof's neon sign lit in the background - USC Digital Archives

Amazingly, the Fentons ran the Roseland Roof for more than 30 years, until they retired in 1980 and sold it to another manager. Business dipped in the '50s and early '60s - at once point the only clubs in downtown L.A. were the Fentons' clubs, Roseland Roof and Dreamland.

In 1963, the Fenton brothers stopped hiring live bands, and started using a juke box to provide music for the dancing. Ben Fenton, interviewed in 1969 by the Los Angeles Times, says he was worried the change would hurt business. "I always felt there was a certain benefit to live music, a warmth." But business actually improved. "Unbelievable," said Fenton. "But it's positively true. Business picked up when the band left. I think the men in the band were viewed with suspicion by patrons, as possible competition."

1967 Photo by William Reagh showing the club with a sign painting on the building - LA Public Library

It was true. By 1969, there were twice as many clubs downtown - four, with other permit applications pending. There may have been other reasons than juke boxes - probably the increase in the immigrant population - as in the '30's - brought more lonely men seeking female companionship.

By 1981, according to the Los Angeles Times, there were nine clubs. Some were high end, catering to Asian businessmen and travelers at the convention center.

The Fentons retired in 1980 and sold the Roseland Roof. It continued to operate under new management. It changed hands several more times, and by 1999 it was called Dreamland, and the name Roseland Roof was given to a club at another location.

Sometime around 2000 Dreamland closed. The building housed an artist's loft, a gallery, a photographer's studio. Bands played there, including a reggae festival in Spring of 2004. In December of 2004, a rave took place at 833 S. Spring Street. The cops were called to respond to reports that shots were fired, and found an unruly crowd of 400 people on the street. Inside the building were the bodies of two 17 year old young men, lying in a litter of empty beer bottles, party fliers, and tanks and balloons of nitrous oxide.

The fourth floor former dining room at 833 South Spring Street

Today the building is being renovated. The sign outside calls it "The Primrose Design Building." There's a fashion wholesaler on the third floor. The fourth floor is being marketed as an event space to the fashion industry.

But what went on inside those walls? What was it really like, up those stairs to the once-graceful fourth floor hall? Don't miss Dancing Girls Part Seven, for more about taxi-dancing.

Dancing Girls, Part Five

The elegant building on South Spring Street had once been the home of a civic institution. Then it became a nightclub, and finally a taxi-dance hall. Now it would change hands again - in the wake of a violent crime.

On the evening of November 14, 1943, William Lederer went to make a night deposit at his bank of the evening's receipts of his business, the Roseland Roof taxi-dancehall. The dancehall occupied the fourth floor of a building on South Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles.

Just a year ago he'd been waylaid by robbers on the same errand in the parking lot near his bank. They'd stolen $800 that time. So he hitched a ride with the dancehall's cashier and her husband. After he left the car, his friends heard a shot, then saw men run to a car, which sped away.

The robbers left behind Lederer's cash deposit of $700, as well as $2000 in his wallet, and a check of $5000. Lederer died, shot in the back.

The getaway car was spotted at a automobile paint shop. The shop owner had been tipped $20 to do a "rush job."

Detail, crime suspects detained, 1951 - USC Digital Archive

Amil Weller, Ronald Easley, and Donald Barker were arrested, along with Weller's sister, Ann Stagers. Easley fingered Barker as the gunman. Barker's real name was Donald Davidson, and he was only 15 years old, even though he looked older.

They were part of a gang of robbers who'd hit filling stations and small stores over the past few weeks.

Weller and Easley's girlfriends, Pauline and Myrtle, had worked as taxi-dancers at the Roseland Roof, and knew Lederer's nightly routine. Because Lederer might have recognized the two men, they stayed in the getaway car and sent Davidson and another gang member, Robert Le Plante, to make the heist.

Davidson broke down and confessed to the killing, sobbing:

"I didn't want to kill him....I thought it would be an easy stickup.... My partner and I laid for him downtown and I followed him into a hallway. I pulled a gun and he started waving his arms and getting excited. I looked for my partner and he was way back behind me. I panicked and shot Lederer."

Dance hall girls testifying to the grand jury in the Roseland murder cover their faces, November 23, 1943 - Los Angeles Public Library

As the investigation continued, Weller's mother was also arrested, charged with complicity in the crime, and for harboring the gang. She and daughter Ann were taken into custody in a dramatic scene outside the Grand Jury, "screaming and raging" as policewomen pried Ann's three-month old baby from her arms.

In the end, four adults were charged with the murder and with six counts of robbery - Amil Weller, Ronald Easley, Robert La Plante, and Weller's mother, Katherine Stagers - named "Ma" Stagers in the newspapers. Donald Davidson was the prosecution's star witness - he would be tried separately.

The trial was dramatic, with twists, turns and sordid details revealed each day. The defendants had forced two girls into sham marriages, to disqualify them as witnesses. One crook had tried to bribe a cop. "Ma" Stagers had supplied guns and ammunition, and had counted the take of the stick-ups in her own bedroom.

Detail, shooting suspect, 1943 - USC Digital Archive

Easley related how he'd split the nose of his bullets because he'd read in a magazine that they would "cause the bullet to splatter" and make a more deadly wound.

Finally, the prosecution's star witness, young Donald Davidson, testified. He told how he'd escaped from a reformatory in Idaho, and had fallen in with Weller in L.A. He told of the string of robberies that culminated in the murder. After shooting Lederer, Davidson said.

"The other fellows kidded me when I ran back to the car after the shooting. They said they didn't think I'd hit anyone. Easley bet me a quarter I hadn't. I collected later when the newspapers printed the news that Lederer was dead."

Davidson said "Ma" Stagers handed out the guns and ammunition, and participated in dividing up the loot. He said he'd netted $700 from one of the robberies, and had handed all but $100 of it over to her to keep for him. He never saw the money again.

Sobbing as she testified, "Ma" Stagers denied it all.

While the jury deliberated, there was another sensational development.

Two of the defendants made a daring jailbreak from the ninth floor of the Hall of Justice. They slugged a deputy, severely beat two other men, and escaped by elevator to the basement. They commandeered a coroner's ambulance and sped away, siren screaming.

The police mounted what the papers called a "massive manhunt." But later that evening, two Long Beach vice detectives picked up a pair of hitchhikers who they recognized from police bulletins as the fugitives and returned them to custody.

The sequestered jurors reached a verdict the following day. They had not been told of the jailbreak. Even so, all four defendants were found guilty of first degree murder, six counts of robbery, and related charges. "Ma" Stagers rose from her seat and screamed, "I want to tell the jury, you have condemned an innocent woman!"

All four were sentenced to life in prison.

Donald Davidson was tried separately. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life.

As for the Roseland Roof dance hall? One sad twist to the story - before he was ambushed and killed, William Lederer had decided he'd had enough of the taxi-dance business. He'd already sold the dance hall. The check for $5000 that the robbers had left in his wallet was the first payment from a buyer.

Coming up next - The Roseland Roof gets a new owner, in Dancing Girls, Part Six.

Dancing Girls, Part Four

We're exploring the history of an intriguing building in downtown Los Angeles. This is Part Four of its story.

Sign at the alley behind 833 South Spring Street, Los Angeles

In 1930 Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart wrote a song for showman Flo Ziegfeld's revue called "Ten Cents a Dance" -

I work at the Palace Ballroom,
but, gee that Palace is cheap;
when I get back to my chilly hall room
I'm much too tired to sleep.
I'm one of those lady teachers,
a beautiful hostess, you know,
the kind the Palace features
for only a dime a throw.

Ten cents a dance
that's what they pay me,
gosh, how they weigh me down!
Ten cents a dance
pansies and rough guys
tough guys who tear my gown!
Seven to midnight I hear drums.
Loudly the saxophone blows.
Trumpets are tearing my eardrums.
Customers crush my toes.
Sometime I think
I've found my hero,
but it's a queer romance.
All that you need is a ticket
Come on, big boy, ten cents a dance.

Fighters and sailors and bowlegged tailors
can pay for their ticket and rent me!
Butchers and barbers and rats from the harbors
are sweethearts my good luck has send me.
Though I've a chorus of elderly beaux ,
stockings are porous with hole at the toes.
I'm here till closing time.
Dance and be merry, it's only a dime.

Sometime I think
I've found my hero,
but it's a queer romance.
All that you need is a ticket
Come on, big boy, ten cents a dance.

Sometime in 1938, the elegant dining room on the fourth floor of 833 South Spring Street became a taxi-dancehall called The Roseland Roof.

The reformers who had won Prohibition in 1921 had also succeeded in closing down bordellos and brothels in American cities. At the same time, the jazz age gave rise to dance fads like the Charleston and fox trot. Young people went to dance academies to learn the new steps. But some dance academies began noticing a certain clientele - male customers who seemed less interested in dancing than they were in maintaining close physical contact with their female instructors. Soon, "dance academies" for men opened. You could buy a ticket for a "lesson" - for the duration of one song, costing ten cents.

It was called taxi-dancing - like hiring a cab, a customer paid the dancer by the amount of time he spent with her.

The idea swept American cities, including Los Angeles, and it was so popular they even made a movie starring Joan Crawford as a taxi-dancer.


According to Paul Cressey, a Chicago sociologist who wrote a 1932 study about taxi-dancers, many of the women who worked as taxi-dancers saw the job as an opportunity. They had left small towns or homes where they had no future. In the rootless anonymity of big cities, they could temporarily "make a buck" and then move on, whether to another city, back home, or to a new relationship.

The trend was big in Los Angeles, particularly because Los Angeles had a large population of transient men who lacked for female companionship, matching the number of transient women. The City Directory for 1929 lists over twenty dance studios or academies, among them the Cinderella Roof, the Hollywood Rose Ballroom, Dreamland Dance Palace, the Four Oh One Ballroom, the Chateau Ballroom and the Lonesome Club Ballroom.

One club was the Rose Room Dance Academy, which was on the second floor of an older building at 755 South Spring Street, on the corner of 7th and Spring. It was run by William Lederer. His son Henry worked as cashier. There was a soda fountain on the first floor.

It's not clear why the Forty-One Club left the old City Club Building at 833 South Spring in 1938, but it could have had something to do with the decline of the neighborhood. Manager George Distel and his partners were targeting a glamorous show-business audience, and in 1938 opened another club by the same name in Hollywood.

Shortly afterwards, William Lederer opened a taxi-dance club called the Roseland Roof where the Forty-One Club had been. It was on the fourth floor, in the elegant dining room where, formerly, clubmen had listened to lectures by civic leaders on issues of the time. In fall of 1938, modest ads began running in the classified sections, under the header Dancing Instruction, advertising "dance instruction" at the Roseland Roof.

Photo, Los Angeles Public Library 1939

The vertical neon sign running up the side of the building read: "Roseland."

Newspapers of the time are full of stories about taxi-dancing. There were features on elegant dancehalls in midtown Manhattan, where orchestras played and the dancers wore evening gowns. Interviews with taxi-dancers were run where the girls proclaimed that dancing for money was more fun than working a factory or waitressing job, and glamorous as well. In other stories, plucky girl reporters went undercover as dancers to expose the real story.

But in Los Angeles, it wasn't all that glamorous. A 1936 master's thesis written by a USC scholar described how it worked. The halls were open from 7:30 to 1:00 a.m. Some halls charged for admission, but often had an early discount. Tickets were ten cents for a 90 second song. The dancer split the ticket with the house. Dancers made more money the more tickets they collected and some danced in a style known as "continental" or the "shimmie" to encourage customers.

Some houses sold soft drinks, and the patron was expected to buy drinks for dancers, who got a forty percent cut. The soda-bar area were furnished with booths where "ardent demonstrations of affection were indulged in."

A 1929 newspaper expose brought police regulation of the halls, and the LAPD had three officers - two male, one female - on dance-hall detail. Their charge, according to the thesis was "to build up the morale of the girls employed as dancers and protect them from exploitation." Dancers had to register with LAPD, with name, address and a photo on file. They had to be 21 or older, with no criminal record. In 1936, there were over three hundred dancers on the list. A typical week's earning for a dancer was about sixteen dollars.

The lonely men who visited the halls came for many reasons. For most of them, conventional ways of making friends were unavailable. Some were old, some unattractive, some were unable to meet women socially. Some were in town for a short time, seeking temporary companionship. Some were interested in dancing and recreation, while others sought physical activity of another kind. Some were too shy to woo a woman, and felt more comfortable in a relationship of commerce.

Women could exploit this need for money. Yet there was an inherent conflict. To entice a customer, a dancer had to pretend to like him, but to make the most money each night, she should have as many customers as possible, instead of favoring just one.

The immigrant population was predominantly male. These guys, as much as Americans, were drawn to modern fads, but could not find women who spoke their language to share it with. So they had to have some place to go. Some dance-halls were ethnically or racially segregated, and targeted for police shakedowns - particularly Filipino dance halls, where the men were stereotyped as hot-tempered customers, prone to fighting over women, and quick with knives and weapons. Filipino men were also considered great dancers, and a few dance-hall romances ended in marriage between customer and dancer.

In "Ask the Dust," by Los Angeles novelist John Fante, his hero Arturo Bandini visits a taxi-dance hall:

"At Sixth I turned the corner and walked down to Main. I wandered through the crowds of seedy, hungry derelicts without destination. At Second I stopped before a Filipino taxi-dancehall. The literature on the walls spoke eloquently of forty beautiful girls and the dreamy music of Lonny Killula and his melodic Hawaiians. I climbed one flight of echoing stairs to a booth and bought a ticket. Inside were forty women, lined against the opposite wall, sleek in tight evening dresses, most of them blondes. Nobody was dancing, not a soul. On the platform the five-piece orchestra banged out a tune with fury. A few customers like myself stood behind a short wicker fence, opposite the girls. They beckoned to us. I surveyed the group, found a blonde whose gown I liked, and bought a few dance tickets. Then I waved at the blonde. She fell into my arms like an old lover and we beat the oak for two dances."

In his study, sociologist Cressey sums up the alienating effect of the urban environment with its anonymity and loneliness on natural human feelings of affection, romance, and sexual attraction:

"The impersonal attitudes of the marketplace very soon supercede the romantic impulses which normally might develop. ....Romantic behavior along with other less desirable means of stimulation, becomes merely another acceptable method for the commercial exploitation of men...."

The Roseland Roof, in the old City Club building, was pretty much like any other dance hall of its time, but in 1943 it would make the headlines with a sensational crime story of murder, treachery, and a daring jailbreak.

Stay tuned for - Dancing Girls, Part Five

Dancing Girls - Part Three

This faded neon sign on South Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles holds a story we're trying to uncover. The building was once the headquarters of a leading civic organization. But by October of 1932, it was a gambling den, and by June of 1935 it had been raided by the cops three times for violations of liquor laws.

Manager George Distel - a man with a long record of running shady nightclubs - revamped the club, using the name of a club he'd previously operated. A tall vertical neon sign on the front of the building displayed its name - The Forty One Club.

George was trying to go legit. He advertised local celebrities as "guests of honor" in the Los Angeles Times "News of the Cafes" column. In the spring of 1936, the Forty-One Club held a "Hawaiian Festival" to celebrate Distel's partner, noted restaurateur Tommy Jacobs. The club was decorated in a South Seas theme, leis and party favors were given to guests, and two orchestras played for the floor show, which featured what the L.A. Times called "a cast of forty artists with the feminine element predominating."

While all this nightclubbing was going on upstairs, another trend was taking place downstairs.

Downstairs, the building's tenants reflected the growth of Los Angeles' fashion industry. Gone were the civic associations like the Municipal League. By 1939, the second floor's tenant list reads like a union hall. There were the Cloak and Dress Designer's Union, the Journeyman Tailors Union, and the powerful Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union. This last union represented men's clothing and textile workers.

Los Angeles garment workers, around 1928. Click to enlarge. USC Digital Archive

In 1942, the Cleaners and Dyers Union Local #268, the Laundry Workers' Union Local #357, and the Busheler's Local #297 had headquarters in the building, as well as a Joint Council of the CIO.

Clothing industry tenants lived side-by-side with the unions, including Morrie's Button & Novelty Company, the Daniel Ostro Company, which dealt in beads, and the Lady Marlene Brassiere Company. The ground floor, which had once been occupied by a business loan firm, was empty for several years.

The building, like downtown in general, reflected a class and status change. Gone were the top-hatted bankers and financiers - except for right around City Hall.

Most of downtown was now the place frequented by laborers, workers and immigrants. In addition to the Mexican-American community, there was a large Japanese immigrant community in Los Angeles. Japanese owned groceries and restaurants; they also dominated jobs like hotel doormen.

Japanese and Filipino men working in a restaurant circa 1936, Los Angeles Public Library photo

Many young immigrant men in Los Angeles were from the Philippines - single and young, they had come to make their fortunes. Men worked as domestic servants, houseboys and chauffeurs, janitors and cleaners, and waited until they had earned enough money to marry women from home. They tended to live together in group houses and apartments, supporting one another between jobs.

Hill Street had the first run movie houses, like the Paramount and the Warner. Broadway had the second-run houses - they were still magnificent palaces, like the Los Angeles and the United Artists Theatre. Spanish language movies played in some of the theatres. Often drunks and homeless kids spent their days and nights in continuous run movie houses, sleeping or staying out of the weather.

Tempest Storm onstage

Main Street was known for its burlesque houses and beer halls. Stars like Lily St. Cyr and Tempest Storm played the Burbank and the Follies. The shows were continuous, all day long. The show started with chorus girls, moved on to comedians doing slapstick routines, and closed with a strip show. Shows later in the evening might be a little more risque - or the house, tipped off that a raid was imminent, would signal dancers with lighting signals that cops were in the audience.

Main Street between First and Sixth was also a notorious gay cruising area, with young boys and men loitering to attract men from the suburbs. Often the boys were part of gangs, and would beat and rob the men they encountered.

Downtown, like today, there were many homeless people - called in those days bums, tramps, and hobos. Flop houses and missions fed the down and out and gave people places to sleep.

Photo, Los Angeles Public Library

It was the depression. People were trying to survive. People from rural cities, from the Dust Bowl blasted midwest, from shuttered factories back east all came to L.A. to make a new start. Some of them ended up in the flop houses. Some ended up in jail.

In John Fante's novel "Ask the Dust," he wrote about his hero Arturo Bandini's walks through the streets of downtown:

"Down on Spring Street, in a bar across the street from the second hand store. With my last nickel I went there for a cup of coffee. An old style place, sawdust on the floor, crudely drawn nudes smeared across the walls. It was a saloon where old men gathered, where the beer was cheap and smelled sour, where the past remained unaltered."

Bandini was young, lonely, alienated and looking for love. On those streets, I'm willing to bet he wasn't the only one.

833 South Spring Street became one of the places folks went to, seeking that elusive sense of romance and affection.

833 South Spring Street in 1939

In late 1938, a taxi-dance hall called the Roseland Roof began operating on the fourth floor.

I'll tell you all about it, in Dancing Girls, Part Four.

I want to thank two blogs where I found information about George Distel, the 833 Club and The 41 Club: The Gogos Notebook and Hollywood Gastronomical Haunts.

Dancing Girls, Part Two

We're exploring the history of a building in downtown Los Angeles. A small yet elegant brick five-story building, the building at 833 South Spring Street sits between two empty parking lots. A tall vertical neon sign, faded and dilapidated, remains on its facade, advertising "Dancing Girls."

At the Los Angeles Public Library I found the souvenir bulletin of the Los Angeles City Club that commemorated the opening of the building, and praised its location:

"A better location for our building could hardly have been chosen than that which we now occupy at 833 South Spring Street. It is easily accessible from all parts of the downtown business district, and as the trend of building is southward from this point, the site will be come increasingly valuable."

Historically, Spring Street was Los Angeles' financial district, and from 4th to 7th Street, over a dozen banks and stock exchange buildings arose between 1910 and 1930.

Broadway, with its magnificent movie palaces, is one block to the west of Spring Street, Main Street, one block to the east. At 9th Street, Main and Spring converge in a triangle.

In this photo from the USC Digital Archives, taken in the 1920s, you can see the City Club building on the right. South of the club are retail and automotive establishments. At the center of the picture, you can see the back of the rooftop sign for the Orpheum Theatre, in the next block on Broadway. Click on the image to enlarge the photo in a new frame.

The City Club had been founded by Meyer Lissner, a leading progressive politician, in 1907. He identified four founding principles of the club's philosophy:

1) To provide a forum of "citizens who are willing, regardless of parties and factions, to lend a hand in the betterment of the City's political, social, and economic conditions," where they could gather and "exchange views, obtain accurate information, and cooperate intelligently and effectively for the public good."

2) To publicize matters of civic importance.

3) To arouse a sense of civic duty

4) To encourage public officials who are trying to carry out their duties.

That first year "five hundred men, representing the various professions and business interests of the community " joined the club. By the time the new Club headquarters was built, there were 2500 members.

Sketch from the City Club 1924 souvenir bulletin - LA Public Library CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE

The club included leaders of government, academia, and business. It sponsored lectures by speakers representing a wide range of political views - from Upton Sinclair to waterworks magnate William Mulholland, to a speaker touting eugenics and the leader of the Anti-Saloon League. Its members were lawyers, bankers, stock brokers and other civic leaders, but its membership fees were affordable even for small businessmen.

The new building was designed by architect Loy L. Smith. The club bulletin describes the decor as "modified medieval baronial," with concrete chemically tinted to resemble antique stone blocks.

Sketch of Dining Room from Souvenir Bulletin, City Club of Los Angeles, 1924 - Los Angeles Public Library- CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE

The club occupied the third, fourth and fifth floors. The main dining room on the fourth floor was gracious and beautiful, with large arched windows draped in green hangings. The space was open to an upper gallery that ran around it. With the galleries and adjoining lounge, the space could seat up to 700. Its acoustics were said to be "excellent."

Such lectures were an important part of the club's mission. From political issues to discussions on race; candidates' debates to musical recitals, the bulletin lists over 50 speakers that had appeared before the members in just the last two years alone. The club valued the free exchange of ideas. "All forums that promote general discussion are good, for it is only by the clash of ideas that we get the best."

The club was available for other civic organizations to use, too. As one writer wrote:

"Due to its central location in the business section and because its private dining rooms will be used to so great an extent by civic and commercial organizations for midday meetings, the City Club will undoubtedly be....the center of noon luncheon activities among business and professional men."

There was a more casual grill room, with cafeteria-style service, and private dining rooms that members could reserve. Ladies were welcome as guests of members, and were allowed a private ladies' dining room on the fifth floor mezzanine.

Grill Room, from the City Club's souvenir bulletin - LA Public Library - CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE

A billiard room, library, and men's lounge were located on the third floor where the club administrative offices were.

The ground floor housed the Morris Plan Company, a lending institution for people who otherwise couldn't get loans from a bank. Second floor tenants included a Certified Public Accountant, the Municipal League, and the Engineers' Club. The meeting rooms were used by respected and professional organizations, among them the Paleontology Society, the Dental Association, and the Illuminating Engineering Society.

Los Angeles was a boom town during the 1920s and downtown land values and rents rose as the number of people and businesses increased. The city expanded into the suburbs, due at first to Los Angeles' streetcar system, which was among the widest in the nation, but also by the rising popularity of the automobile, which allowed for convenient travel between suburbs.

1931 view of Spring between 8th & 9th. The lamp-post in the foreground is in front of the City Club building - USC Digital Archives - CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE

By the 1920s, downtown traffic was becoming increasingly congested and trolley service - sharing the same roads as cars - began to suffer. A 1925 study recommended an ambitious and comprehensive new rapid transit plan, with subways and elevated trains replacing the on-street trolleys.

Spring and Main come together at 9th Street, taken in 1939 - LA Public Library photo - CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE

The leaders of the City Club opposed the plan. They objected to the cost, and doubted its financial soundness, noting that the existing trolley system was losing money. Several club leaders were proponents of "decentralization" as a concept of city planning. They argued that the idea of a central downtown surrounded by suburbs, accessed by rail, was outdated. A centralized rail system, fanning out from the center like spokes of a wheel, would even increase congestion, forcing travelers into the city to make their connections to other suburbs.

The automobile, they argued, made it possible to travel as one chose. Clarence E. Dykstra, Club Secretary and future Chancellor of UCLA, published an article calling the rapid transit scheme "Congestion Deluxe."

As the '20s became the '30s, cars were even more popular. By 1931, ridership on the Red Line had dropped 24% from its mid-'20s high. The commercial core of the city moved to the Mid-Wilshire area, and retail sales in downtown plummeted. The depression dealt the final blow to the expensive transit plan.

As businesses moved west, real estate values dropped. New zoning regulations downtown that required parking linked to occupancy made it less attractive for developers to build. As 19th century buildings fell into disrepair, they were replaced by parking lots.

Another social and cultural change was taking place. In 1919, the 18th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, and in the same year Congress passed the Volstead Act. Both measures outlawed the manufacture, sale, and transport of alcoholic beverages.

Saloon, 1933- LA Public Library photo

Supporters of Prohibition did not foresee its consequences. During the 1920s, bootlegging, smuggling and illegal drinking soared. "Speakeasies" were popular. The public disregard for the law led to the rise of other illegal enterprises, including gambling houses, where you could break two laws for the price of one. The by product of all this was crime, violence, and police corruption.

By the early '30s most Americans wanted to repeal Prohibition. At the City Club, however, temperance leaders praised its success and morality. In June 1932 a debate between pro and anti-repealers took place in front of a large audience in the City Club's impressive dining room.

The repealers won, in the end. In February of 1933, Congress voted to repeal the 18th Amendment. Californians approved ratification in May. Beginning in April of '33, it was legal to sell beer in Los Angeles. Beerhalls opened all over the city.

Although the city was changing, you would think that, of all places the City Club on South Spring Street would maintain its status. An anchor for the block, the wealth, prosperity and leadership of its respectable and powerful members keeping it from declining like the rest of downtown.

But instead it just disappeared.

By October of 1932, even before the repeal of Prohibition, the City Club was gone from 833 South Spring Street.

In its place - in the elegant dining room with its high-arched windows - was an exclusive "members only" club called the 833 Club. It was a swank joint, with a live jazz band and a hopping dance floor. On the evening of July 14, 1933 - just nine months after it opened, it was raided by the police. The cops, acting on tips from undercover agents, battered down the steel doors to a hidden vault while hundred of rich patrons looked on, uncovering illegal gambling equipment - roulette wheels, blackjack tables, and thousands of dollars in currency.

Gambling equipment confiscated by police - LA Public Library photo

Seventeen people were taken to jail, charged with illegal gambling and liquor violations. They included the club's manager, a man named George Distel. He had only recently gotten out of jail, from an earlier conviction of similar violations in connection with another club.

I'm not sure what happened to George, but the 833 Club reopened, only to be raided again in September, its new manager and four others charged with violations of the newly instituted liquor laws.

The City Club Building, once the home of LA's most powerful civic organization, was now a regular target of the Vice Squad.

In the souvenir bulletin commemorating the building's 1924 opening, Clarence E. Dykstra wrote that the principles of the Club are

"amply proved by the fact that our City Club is now housed in a building which we may call our own for years to come. .... the City Club is here to stay... we are a permanent institution and one to be reckoned with in the city's civic life in the future... For all time our community is assured that there is at least one place in the city where all public questions may be discussed from every angle if only the proponents are sincere and have the public good in mind."

But it had lasted less than ten years. Even Dykstra was gone - he left Los Angeles in 1930 to become president of a university back east.

In June of 1935, the 833 Club lost its liquor permit again, this time for the illegal service of rum to minors. Now the Los Angeles Times described the building as a "so-called club[s] where ...various classes of hoodlums meet."

How could the place have come so low in so short a time? What happened?

All I know is that at some point in the second half of 1932, the City Club stopped being active in the civic life of downtown Los Angeles. I know what took place in the building next, but I don't know why, or how.

There's more to the story.

And we haven't even gotten to the dancing girls yet.

Stayed tuned for Dancing Girls, Part Three