Tribute on Wheels to Joey Ramone

The death of punk rocker Joey Ramone at 49 brought back memories for Melinda Conner, whose husband, Donn, purchased a vintage car from Ramone a few years ago.

The turquoise convertible, a 1958 Ford Fairlane, “was perfectly restored,” she said, “but sat unused because Joey hated the L.A. freeways and didn’t have a license.”

Ramone was a transplanted New Yorker.

Donn Conner, who had heard about the car from Ramone’s architect, ventured to the singer’s house in the San Fernando Valley and found him to be a friendly host.

Ramone asked $18,000, but agreed to sell it for $14,000 as long as it was cash. “I don’t have a checking account,” the singer explained.

The punk star, whose group came on the scene in the 1970s, casually asked Conner if he had heard of the Ramones. Caught off guard, Conner, a fan of more mellow ‘50s music, replied: “Sure, weren’t they right up there with the Platters and the Coasters?”

Ramone smiled anyway.

NAME THAT DESIGN: More than 100 readers ventured guesses about the sketch that appeared in this column’s “Mystery of the Day” (see accompanying). And most were correct, including Frank Cooper, who recognized it as a building that has been under construction downtown since last century (the 1900s, not the 1800s).

“Isn’t that the Dizzy, er, Disney Concert Hall?” Cooper asked.

Added Chuck Christ: “The sketcher is [architect] Frank Gehry. If I’m wrong, then it is someone trying to get a ballpoint pen started.”

“It looks like the sort of drawing one makes quickly on a crumpled dinner napkin,” observed Glen Doll. “If the drawing also resembles a crumpled napkin, I assume that to be purely coincidental. That said, I like the design!”

“From the more finished-looking renderings of it that I’ve seen, that little scribble is actually pretty accurate,” said C.T. Davis. “The real thing will be shinier, of course.”

BUILDING ON THAT: Gayle Wilhite of Manhattan Beach noticed a “Temporarily Closed for Remodeling” sign next to an open pit on a vacant lot (see photo). “I was not aware that a hole could be remodeled,” she said.

A DIFFERENT FORM OF NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH: My colleague Shelby Grad had just returned to his car in L.A.’s Larchmont Village when a woman with a cell phone ran up. She asked him if he was leaving. He said he was, whereupon she made a call on the phone. Moments later, a friend of the caller peeled up in a car and pulled into the treasured spot.

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A few readers failed to recognize the Gehry sketch, guessing that it represented everything from Staples Center to a bus maintenance depot in Culver City.

Still another reader, whose fax was difficult to read, seemed to think it might be a historical drawing of the Spanish Armada foundering in a storm.

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Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LA-TIMES, Ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A. 90012 and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.