The wrong place . . . :...
The wrong place . . . : The looting and gutting of Glasser Bros. Bail Bonds, a 71-year-old downtown landmark, was one of the many ironies of the riots.
Glasser’s proximity to Parker Center--usually an advantage business-wise--made it a target for the mob that swept through the City Hall area.
But while it took owner Gary Glasser a few days to resume operations in the blackened brick building, he was actually out of business for only a few hours. The day after the attack, he said, “we had our calls fast-forwarded to the home of one of our employees in Northridge.”
And the company immediately began bailing out suspects--many of whom were arrested during the rioting.
The inevitable post-disaster marketing: Two people sighted walking along on the Strand in Manhattan Beach wore T-shirts that said: “Visit L.A. It’s a Riot.” The letters were engulfed in flames.
Attention, tourists: The city of Santa Monica sent out a press release during the rioting declaring that “reports of major damage on portions of Santa Monica Boulevard, not located in the city of Santa Monica, have created confusion among the general public. The city of Santa Monica is not located near the area of unrest, and business continues as usual in our city.”
The shock waves reach Fleet Street: The violence was covered intensely by London newspapers, including the Sun tabloid, which made the extreme sacrifice one day of substituting photos of L.A. where it usually displays its Page Three Girl. The latter is a giant picture of a different bare-breasted young woman each day.
The search for loot (cont.): One sidelight of the hunt by police investigators is the occasional surprise indoor sighting. One (erroneous) tip led police to a Victorian house in Hollywood, where they were greeted not by gang members but by two working women, one of them a schoolteacher. Their living room was dominated by two swings that hung from the ceiling. The swings were wrapped in garlands of flowers, like a set out of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
Town vs. gown: About 75 USC students, some of whom were routed from their campus-area apartments during the rioting, gathered outside the statue of Tommy Trojan the other day and demanded that their final exams be canceled. The school has since decided to give instructors the option of rescheduling or canceling the exams.
Students, being students, weren’t above taking advantage of the situation. “I passed up a final in a class I don’t like this morning,” admitted one sophomore. “I’ll take it later.”
Dissenting vote: One Sunset Boulevard resident hung a banner out the window demanding: “U.S. Out of Echo Park!”
miscelLAny:
So far Saddam hasn’t suggested sending peacekeeping troops: In case you missed it, Iraq has asked the U.N. Security Council to convene a meeting to discuss the riots in L.A. and other U.S. cities.
