People and Events

Memorial Day seemed like the right time to do something in memory of the men who fought and died in World War I, a conflict almost obscured by subsequent conflicts. So the members of Los Angeles City Fire Department Engine Company 56 cleaned up the Hyperion Bridge.

The bridge across the roaring Los Angeles River in the Silverlake-Atwater area was built in 1927 as a memorial to WWI veterans, points out Tom La Bonge, an aide to Los Angeles City Councilman John Ferraro.

The firefighters attacked the weeds and graffiti that have made the span something of an eyesore. Their engine was parked nearby with an American flag mounted on top. Grateful neighbors plied them with soft drinks.

In Hawthorne, however, firefighters of the headquarters station at 4475 W. El Segundo Blvd. were out on a call when smoke began to spill from the rear of their building.

It was spotted by another engine company responding to an unrelated alarm.

Battalion Chief Steve Kocalis said a basement generator exploded, scattering debris around the room but not damaging the station itself. No one was hurt, because no one was around.

In the meantime, the trash bin fire that had drawn the firefighters from the headquarters station was extinguished by a sprinkler system before they got there.

Hollywood memorabilia dealer Malcolm Willits returned from Europe over the weekend to be told by his publicist, Chris Harris, that the owner of a 1961 Oscar had decided not to sell it after all.

Harris reports that Willits said--in effect--”Sorry.”

Willits had advanced the owner, Robert Herts, $1,300 for the statuette, with an agreement that he would sell it. According to Harris, Willits said he will not give the Oscar back unless Herts promises to donate it to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Willits is only too well aware of the academy’s unhappiness over the sale of Oscars to collectors and the attendant publicity.

Harris said Herts signed a contract allowing Willits to hold the trophy for six months while finding a buyer. Willits had already found one, Harris added, and is out of pocket for expenses.

Herts had yet to be heard from.

The Oscar, in the event that you were thinking of bidding, is a duplicate of the one awarded for the best animated cartoon of 1961, “Erzatz,” produced in Yugoslavia. Herts, now in the industrial real estate business, was a distributor of the film.

Before wandering out of Hollywood, consider:

Marilyn Monroe would be 62 on Wednesday.

The Hollywood Studio Museum will be the site of a 7 p.m. black-tie birthday celebration with cake and champagne. Hollywood Heritage, a private group that operates the museum near the Hollywood Bowl, will officially take charge of the Marilyn Monroe time capsule.

The capsule, a spokesman said, contains a lock of the actress’s hair, a lipstick, a dress she had given to Mr. Blackwell to make over the week she died, and some old magazines and letters--”but not much else you could really call memorabilia.”

Most Marilyn Monroe things of real value, the spokesman added, are in the hands of private collectors around the world.

Part of the Wednesday evening event will be the unveiling of several unpublished photographs belonging to MM’s friend Robert Slatzer. The photographs will go on sale to help finance the acquiring of some of the privately held memorabilia.

The time capsule is to be buried at the museum and unearthed Aug. 5, 2062, the 100th anniversary of Marilyn’s death.

There has been some understandable frustration among librarians (and perhaps even some readers) over how long it took to settle on a design for the $152.4-million expansion of Los Angeles’ Central Library.

You will recall that the place was closed by an arson fire more than two years ago. As of now, a new and improved facility is supposed to open in 1992.

Some of that frustration surfaced in a recent issue of the Communicator, published by the Librarians’ Guild. Glen Creason, of the West Los Angeles branch history department, jammed his tongue into his cheek and wrote an article that began:

“Today is a momentous day in Los Angeles history as the new Central Library is finally opening.”

He datelined his piece May 2, 2036.

In his fanciful report of the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Creason suggested that futuristic technology will enable quick construction once the plans are approved. The final design, he wrote, “was not decided upon until last Wednesday, on the 50th anniversary of the Great Library Fire of 1986. Some 8,783 designs were submitted . . . .”

Creason also foresaw the entire book catalogue being stored on a computer chip “the size of a $50,000 gold piece,” thereby saving a good deal of room for wet bars and gaming rooms.