Photo Morgue Awaits New Life : Herald Examiner: USC and the public library vie for the late newspaper’s collection of pictures and clips, while the treasures remain hidden away.

Behind a door secured by a padlock and chain, packing cartons are piled on the floor. An empty Rolodex rests on a battered storage cabinet along with several boxes of unfiled clippings. Sugar cubes spill from a half-empty container.

Nearby--almost as a reminder of the elan that once inhabited this place--is a single copy of a newspaper dated Nov. 2, 1989. “So Long, L.A.!” the banner headline exclaims.

Eleven months after the Los Angeles Herald Examiner published its last edition, its valuable collection of photographs and clippings remains hidden away from the public in a series of rooms known, in newspaper parlance that seems especially appropriate here, as the morgue.

From faith-healer Aimee Semple McPherson’s kidnaping hoax in 1926, to the 1932 Summer Olympics, to the Black Dahlia murder of 1947, to the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, the photographs--an estimated 2.1 million in all, stored in large brown envelopes--constitute a vivid record of the city’s past.

Both the Los Angeles Public Library and USC are interested in acquiring this collection and making it available to researchers, authors and filmmakers. For the library, now temporarily housed at 433 S. Spring St., the Herald Examiner cache would be a welcome addition to its collection of 250,000 photos of Los Angeles from the 1870s until 1935, a gift from Security Pacific National Bank.

For the university, the material would augment its collection of 1 million photos and 2 million clippings from the Los Angeles Examiner, a Hearst Corp. morning paper that merged with the afternoon Herald-Express in 1962. USC acquired the material 12 years ago.

Ever since the Herald died, officials planned to donate its morgue to a nonprofit institution, according to John W. McCabe, chief operating officer, and last spring he recommended that it go to the public library. But officials of the Hearst Corp. seem in no hurry to make a decision.

“We don’t have this on the highest priority,” said Hearst Vice President Lee J. Guittar, “but I would guess the decision is probably a month away.”

Aside from the photographs, the Herald morgue houses an estimated 2.6 million clippings, 43,080 negatives, 2,700 reference books and 1,878 reels of microfilm, according to Ann Sausedo, the newspaper’s library director from 1978 until its death.

Even so, the morgue is far from complete. Many photos disappeared during the paper’s long strike, from 1967 to 1977, Sausedo noted in a memo to her bosses, and more recently, departing reporters and photographers also made off with clippings, prints and negatives. “Some of these missing files have been returned, but those taken by sports and movie fans are gone forever,” she added.

Carolyn Kozo, senior librarian at the public library, said the Herald photos would fill a “tremendous gap” by bringing the institution’s historical archives up to date. The library has no photos of Los Angeles in the 1950s or ‘60s, she said.

“There aren’t many collections in town which cover the last 50 years very well,” said Kozo, who is in charge of the Security Pacific collection. “Trying to re-create what Los Angeles looked like in 1958 is a real problem.”

Although back issues of the Herald are on microfilm, the clippings would fill another gap for people interested in the postwar period, said Jane M. Nowak, manager of the library’s history and genealogy department. There is no index to the Herald and none to The Times from the years 1946 and 1972. Nowak said the clippings could be used as a basis for developing an index to the Herald.

She said grants would be needed to organize the material.

In its bid for the Herald clips and photos, USC argued that it would be logical to house them with the Examiner clips and photos. “We made the case that a single location would surely be desirable from everyone’s point of view,” said Victoria Steele, head of the Doheny Memorial Library’s special collections.

McCabe recommended last March or April that the newspaper’s collection be awarded to the public library. “With due deference to USC, my rationale was that having it available to the public would give it more utilization than if it was stuck in some corner of USC,” he said, pointing out that the university stores the Examiner material in an off-campus building. “The public doesn’t know about it.”

Steele, however, said that, while the Examiner photos and clips are kept two blocks from the USC library, they are “quite accessible,” attracting an average of 100 visitors a year.

McCabe said he had the Herald collection appraised twice but declined to disclose its value. More recently, the Hearst Corp. has had the material appraised a third time, but Guittar said the company had not yet received the report.

“We want to make sure it’s thoroughly documented,” he said, while refusing to indicate which way the Hearst Corp. is leaning.

“I’m not under the impression the Hearst people are in any big hurry,” McCabe said.