Nieson Himmel Dies; Covered Crime in L.A. for Half a Century

Nieson Himmel, a colorful newsroom character who covered every major Los Angeles crime story since World War II--including the Black Dahlia murder and the killing of gangster Bugsy Siegel--died Saturday. He was 77.

Himmel worked as a reporter for the Los Angeles Times until he collapsed in February as he was walking through the newsroom on the way to his desk. He died from pneumonia-related complications.

During the last few decades, Himmel no longer prowled the streets in search of crime stories. Instead, he spent most nights, usually from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., at his desk--cluttered with notebooks, pencils worn to the nub, dozens of yellowed newspapers and numerous snacks and beverages--listening to several Police and Fire department scanners.

Himmel, who was about 5-feet-7 and weighed close to 300 pounds, was a Buddha-like figure as he leaned back in his chair, eyes half-closed, hands over his midsection, listening to dispatchers barking out the nightly mayhem and murder calls.

Times nightside reporters often were given invaluable head starts on breaking news stories by Himmel as he heard the stories develop from the dispatchers’ initial reports.

Himmel was a legendary figure among Los Angeles newspapermen--more for his eccentricities than the stories he had written. He subscribed to 56 magazines and apparently never threw one away. His small Echo Park apartment, where he had lived since the 1950s, was stacked, floor to ceiling, with old magazines and newspapers. Visitors had to negotiate tunnels of newsprint to move from one room to another.

He owned more than 40 loose-fitting guayabera shirts, which he ordered from a catalog, and always had a plastic penholder in the top pocket filled with half a dozen leaking pens.

Himmel did not own a car. Instead, he rented an automobile from a rental car agency, paying a daily rate. The interiors were always a sight to behold, an odorous melange of partly eaten hamburgers, chicken bones, fast-food wrappers, French fries and stacks of newspapers. Whenever the trash rose high enough to obscure the rear windshield, Himmel simply turned the car in and rented another one.

Himmel had been rear-ended once, and he was convinced the stacks of newspapers saved him. Since then, he always made sure the back of the car had sufficient newsprint padding.

Himmel grew up in Faribault, Minn., a small town about 40 miles south of Minneapolis. He wanted to become a diplomat, and after high school attended Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., majoring in international relations, according to relatives. But after a year, he realized he did not fit in the buttoned-down world of the foreign service.

He transferred to the University of Minnesota and majored in journalism. The next year, he obtained a job as a copy boy at the Minneapolis Journal and he soon found newspaper work more interesting than class. He began working two shifts a day at the paper--one shift as a copy boy and the other shift on the police beat--and only occasionally attended classes.

After one particularly severe snowstorm, Himmel, who had long detested the brutal Minnesota winters, decided to find a city where he would never have to shovel snow again. He moved to Los Angeles in 1944 and obtained a job as a crime reporter for the Herald-Express.

Rubbing Elbows With Cops, Mobsters

Himmel was one of the last links to an era when newspapermen in Los Angeles were on a first-name basis with gangsters and call girls, con men and cops--and often went out drinking with them after the arrests were made and the bail was paid.

During the late 1940s, Himmel cruised the city, from dusk to dawn, with a 500-pound photographer everyone called “Tiny,” listening to the police dispatchers on his dashboard scanner and often arriving at crime scenes before detectives.

Decades later, Himmel regaled reporters with tales of mobsters Mickey Cohen and Bugsy Siegel.

“Mickey went out of his way to gain the friendship of reporters,” Himmel said shortly before his death. “One night I was waiting in line to see a movie at the old Carthay Circle theater. Mickey spotted me and my date and snarled: ‘What’re you waiting in line for?’ He grabbed us both by the arm and got us right into the theater.”

Bugsy Siegel, Himmel said, often bought lunch for reporters at a restaurant by the beach in Santa Monica. Despite his reputation, Himmel said, Siegel was soft-spoken, well-mannered and charming.

“But one time, some girl reporter made the mistake of calling him Bugsy--a nickname he hated,” Himmel said. “He went nuts. He was insane for a minute or two. I thought he was going to kill her.”

In 1947, Siegel was shot four times through the window of his mistress’ Beverly Hills home. Himmel was one of the first reporters on the scene.

That same year, he covered Los Angeles’ most famous murder case at the time--the Black Dahlia--and often talked about how reporters were whipsawed day after day by the more than 500 people who falsely confessed to the crime--housewives, soldiers, winos, farmers and clergymen. The case remains unsolved.

Two years later, Himmel covered the story of Kathy Fiscus, a 3-year-old who had fallen into an abandoned water well pipe in San Marino. The 50-hour, round-the-clock rescue effort was covered by live television. Himmel never left the scene, calling in his notes to the city desk and spending two nights in his car.

The Seal and the Swimming Pool

During the late 1940s, Himmel lived in a Pasadena mansion with a number of science fiction enthusiasts. He shared a bedroom for a few months with a struggling science fiction writer who later founded the Church of Scientology--L. Ron Hubbard.

“He was a guy on the make,” Himmel said. “I couldn’t stand him.”

Himmel also met another struggling writer during that time--Raymond Chandler.

“I was friends with a a guy who knew Chandler,” Himmel said. “We went over to his place one night. It was a bungalow on the Westside. We had a few drinks, but Chandler didn’t say much. He was kind of morose.”

During the 1950s, Himmel traveled widely and often talked of his many adventures. The one tale that was a favorite among reporters was the night he was arrested for stealing a seal.

He had just moved into a new apartment near Los Feliz that had a swimming pool. When the housewarming party stretched past midnight, and after most of the guests had imbibed a few cocktails, Himmel’s girlfriend suggested that it might be amusing to find a seal and watch it frolic in the swimming pool. Another friend added that he had heard the seals in Newport Beach were friendly.

All the guests hopped in their cars and drove to Newport Beach in a caravan. When they arrived at the beach, Himmel grabbed a seal and threw it in the back seat of his new Pontiac. He drove back to Los Angeles, deposited the seal in the pool shortly before dawn and promptly went to bed.

A few hours later he was awakened by a pounding on his front door. Two Department of Fish and Game officers, alerted by angry neighbors, asked him if he had stolen a seal. As Himmel was delivering an impassioned denial, he was interrupted by several loud barks from the pool.

The prank was a costly one for Himmel, who was making less than $50 a week at the time. He hired a lawyer, which cost him $750, and he was fined $250.

Himmel worked for the Herald Examiner for 22 years, but left in the late 1960s during a strike. He worked for an aviation magazine for several years and then was hired as the police reporter for City News Service.

Soft Touch for Fellow Reporters

Himmel was known among Los Angeles newsmen as a soft touch who was always good for a loan--and would never ask for the money back. He bailed out fellow reporters after brushes with the law, and he let many of them stay at his apartment until their finances were back in order.

In 1975, the police reporter for the Los Angeles Times was fired after a drunken escapade at Parker Center. Himmel was hired to replace him.

Himmel spent decades working at the Parker Center pressroom, calling in stories to rewrite men at The Times. Later in the evening, he would return to the newspaper office and settle in by his scanners, next to the city desk. Early the next morning, he would write what he called an “overnight note,” an impressionistic, stream-of-consciousness memo in which he described the murders, rapes, holdups, carjackings and fires that plagued the city the previous night. Each day, Times morning assignment editors would scan these reports.

Himmel was a bon vivant who spent every weekend attending plays and the opera. He loved movies, and would see even the most obscure foreign film. The only type of movie he refused to see were crime films.

“I won’t see anything where anyone gets hurt,” he said. “After all the horrible crimes I’ve covered, I’ve seen enough unhappiness.”

Himmel is survived by a sister, Razelle Yager of Minneapolis, and four nieces and nephews.