A dilapidated Red Car may be turning into a white elephant.

GIGANTIC YARD SALE?: A red trolley and a gray house may be turning into white elephants for the city of Torrance.

Faced with spending nearly $20,000 to demolish and dispose of two famous antiques--an old Pacific Electric Railway Car and the Weston House--or spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to restore them, the Torrance City Council decided Tuesday not to do anything, for now. The council wants to wait a few months and see if any private group comes forward to rescue them.

The city acquired the 84-year-old Pacific Electric Railway Car No. 4601 in 1987 from a family that had used it as a home and machine shop. Vandalism and weathering have severely deteriorated the car’s condition, and experts say it would cost about $300,000 to fully restore it.

Like the Red Car, the Weston House has been stored near Wilson Park, where vandals and weather have damaged it. City staff members estimate it would cost $100,000 to $250,000 to restore the 80-year-old house. The building was once located south of what is now the Torrance Airport, and was home to the owner of the local rancho.

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BRANDO BASHING: It was 1963. A civil rights group marches through the streets, attracting angry onlookers who wave placards bearing racial epithets. Marching along with members of the Congress of Racial Equality is actor Marlon Brando, followed by jeering young men in white robes and three self-proclaimed American Nazis carrying a sign that says, “Brando Is a Stooge for Communist Race Mixture.”

But the march was much closer to Hollywood than to the Deep South: It was at the Southwood Riviera Royale tract in Torrance, where CORE was protesting discriminatory housing sales practices. Brando featured a photo of the march in his newly released autobiography, “Songs My Mother Taught Me.”

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DRIP, DRIP, DRIP: They may need a plumber in Redondo Beach. City Hall seems to have a leak.

A confidential report regarding the work practices of Treasurer Alice E. DeLong has apparently been leaked to the press. Thing is, no one is willing to fess up to being the leaker.

City Hall sources say only nine people have direct access to the report. They include the mayor; the five council members; the city attorney; Linda Jenson, an outside attorney working with the city, and Nancy Leonard, an Orange County-based personnel consultant who wrote the report. The sources say the report contains interviews with employees in DeLong’s office, who say they are subject to verbal thrashings from DeLong, and calls hiring practices into question.

But when asked who released the report to the Daily Breeze in Torrance, city officials note that the mayor and council have publicly denied leaking the report. City attorney Jerry Goddard also denies leaking the report, as does Jenson.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“We stopped being the management company because of the danger. I got shot at and my daughter’s car got ripped off.”

Barbara Volpe of Rinebol & Co., which managed Scottsdale Town Houses, one of California’s first gated condominium complexes, which fell on hard times. J8