Courthouse Falling : Wrecking Ball Stirs Memories

Jim Sherman knew he was in love when he first met a young woman named Robin at the Van Nuys branch of the Los Angeles Municipal Court where he worked. He later married her there in a courtroom on Jan. 28, 1982.

Friday, almost four years after his wedding day, Sherman was one of about 150 people who watched a 6,000-pound wrecking ball take the first swing at the old courthouse. The building, which opened in 1955, is being demolished to make room for a $66-million courthouse.

During the ground-breaking and demolition ceremonies, most of the crowd talked cheerfully of “ushering out the old and bringing in the new,” but Sherman’s mood was reflective as he stood in the parking lot, not far from where the front entrance of the 10-story building will be when the structure is completed in 1988.

Met, Married Wife There

“I met my wife while I was a clerk in the small claims court over on that side of the building, and I married her while I was a clerk in felony arraignment court right over there,” Sherman said, pointing to two areas of the building obscured by a 80,000-pound crane.

“I couldn’t get the day off so I couldn’t go anywhere else to get married,” said Sherman, 30, of Panorama City. He said his bride wore a white dress and his friends surprised them by decorating the courtroom with flowers and ribbons. “I didn’t have any money and the wedding only cost around $40, which I had to borrow.”

But that is not the end of Sherman’s affiliation with the courts. He is filing his divorce papers across the street in the Van Nuys Superior Court building. And he still works for the judge that married him but is now stationed in the temporary trailers installed at Delano Street and Sylmar Avenue, where municipal court business will be conducted until the new facility is finished.

“I feel kind of sad. I know it sounds ridiculous. Most people just go to work. For me, it’s more than just a job,” Sherman said. “It’s a close family here, and the building was a part of it.”

‘Homey’ Building

Molly Watson, 59, of Reseda, called the old courthouse, where she had worked since 1971, “a homey, comfortable, little old inadequate building. But we became accustomed to doing without.”

However, Sherman and Watson, who call themselves “expatriates” from the old courthouse, agree that the new building is much needed. The courthouse, built to serve a San Fernando Valley population that in 1955 was half of what it is now, has suffered in recent years from crowding.

Those attending the Friday ground breaking included Maxine F. Thomas, presiding judge of the Los Angeles Municipal Court, State Sen. Alan Robbins, (D-Van Nuys) Los Angeles County Supervisors Mike Antonovich and Edmund D. Edelman, and Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block.