Bodies of Two Transients Found After Fire Destroys Abandoned L.A. Building

They huddled together around a fire of wood scraps and cardboard boxes on the fourth floor of an abandoned building on the edge of Little Tokyo. Transients all, they sought warmth from the night’s chill, safety from those who would prey on them.

Only this time, Thursday night shortly after 8, the fire burned out of control. Suddenly, the five-story loft structure at 212 S. Los Angeles St. was filled with flames, a virtual oven with its brick walls containing the inferno.

As fire trucks arrived, transients could be seen fleeing the 70-year-old building, once used as a restaurant equipment storage warehouse. But not everyone got out.

Young Man’s Body Found

Friday morning, near a fourth-floor boarded-up window, firefighters found a victim, a young man, maybe 25 years old, clothed only in a pair of shorts and socks.

“He was trying to escape,” said Los Angeles Fire Department Capt. Tony DiDomenico.

A few hours later, another victim, a woman, also in her 20s, was discovered under debris on the second floor.

Both will remain numbers in the county morgue’s files until someone comes forward to identify the bodies.

Just last week, DiDomenico said, a blaze on the second floor of the same building also burned out of control, but all of the transients escaped safely. Once again, its origin had been a small fire designed to keep a few drifters warm.

DiDomenico estimated that in a city the size of Los Angeles, perhaps a dozen or more transients are burned to death in abandoned buildings in a given year. Street people have to find a place to bed down, he explained.

‘Got to Have Shelter’

“They’ve got to have shelter,” DiDomenico said. “They’ve got to protect themselves from the elements . . . from people who would hurt them. In the final analysis, there’s no way to keep transients out of an abandoned building.”

DiDomenico said the building was properly sealed, but that “we could put steel-welded assemblies on the windows and (transients) will find a way to get in.”

Department of Building and Safety officials said the Los Angeles Street building, hard by the heart of Skid Row, had been cited for earthquake safety violations on Dec. 4, 1981, and was ordered vacated on Dec. 4, 1985.

“We inspected it in June and it was vacant,” said Al Asakura, chief of Building and Safety’s earthquake safety unit. “Then it’s up to the owner to upgrade or demolish it.”

The building is owned by Samuel A. Harris of Beverly Hills, according to city records.

There is no city law that says an abandoned building cannot stay empty for years as long as it is properly boarded up, said Warren O’Brien, Building and Safety’s assistant general manager. Inspectors are called out only in response to complaints, he said.

Added Building and Safety official Art Devine: “We get very few complaints on empty buildings. From the lack of complaints, it doesn’t appear to be a major problem.”