Take that, Beverly Hills: Maybe the construction...

Take that, Beverly Hills: Maybe the construction worker on Spring Street who was seen pouring water from a bottle of Crystal Geyser into a cement mixer had just quenched his thirst and didn’t want to waste the rest. Or maybe this is another Southern Californian innovation. Whatever, L.A. can now boast of having the world’s first designer pavement.

List of the day: The Spruce Goose is moving to Oregon. And the Queen Mary’s future has been threatened ever since Mickey Mouse jumped ship. Looks like the Plane That Doesn’t Fly and the Ship That Doesn’t Sail are about to join the roster of Southern California’s other vanished, offbeat amusement parks:

1. Cawston Ostrich Farm, South Pasadena (1883-1934): It offered both live and stuffed birds (tourists posed for photos on the latter). Its demise was attributed to the decline in demand for ostrich feathers.

2. Gay’s Lion Farm, El Monte (1925-1942): “On Monday nights,” historian Bruce Henstell wrote, “the big cats didn’t get fed and then you didn’t need a sign, you could hear them roaring for miles.”

3. Lion Country Safari, Irvine Hills (1971-1984): Orange County’s biggest star in the 1970s was Frasier the Sensuous Lion, an elderly beast who, so the park insisted, managed to sire more than 30 cubs in 16 months. Many animal experts said it was pure hogwash.

4. Mt. Lowe (1893-1938): The Disneyland of its time, the railway operated on a cable incline that rose 3,000 feet from Altadena to Echo Mountain, often dangling riders over steep precipices. Imagine the insurance problems today.

5. The Pike, Long Beach (1902-1979): Its last brush with fame was the discovery that a dummy at one concession was actually the mummified remains of an old outlaw named Elmer McCurdy.

The news from L.A. Adjacent: Reader Guy McCutcheon of Hemet feels that this column gives the impression that dueling signs crop up only in L.A. County. He sent along evidence to the contrary from Riverside County.

They always get their rodent: L.A. Police cordoned off part of their robbery squad room at Parker Center with yellow crime-scene tape after catching a 14-inch rat. The old cheese-bait trick still works. Officers were relieved, quipped Lt. Ron Lewis, because “we discovered he (the rat) was releasing confidential information to the news media.”

We still call it entrapment.

miscelLAny:

One of the newest sites singled out for attention by Grave Line Tours on its where-the-stars-died route is a house on North Linden Drive in Beverly Hills. It’s the one Bugsy Siegel was occupying when he was gunned down in 1947.