Yesterday I bicycled out to check out some sites mentioned in “My Fair Dahlia,” Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s musical recap of the Black Dahlia murder in the Cinema Purgatorio #11 comic. This post is similar to my earlier post on visiting Thelma Todd sites, but frankly there is even less to see at the present day Dahlia sites.
The most important location associated with the Black Dahlia (one where several people have visited and posted accounts online – there are even tours that visit it) is the site where Elizabeth Short’s body was discovered. In January 1947, Betty Bersinger discovered Short’s mutilated corpse in a vacant lot. Today that lot is a neighborhood of modest single-family homes. The neighborhood is called Leimert Park, historically and still today a community where many African-Americans live.
The site is often described, including by Moore, as “39th and Norton.” (That’s even the title of a chilling Dahlia comics story published in Taboo #5 in 1991 – alongside Moore’s From Hell and Lost Girls.) That’s the closest intersection, but the site is actually mid-block on Norton Avenue between 39th Street and Coliseum Street. Today the address is 3825 Norton Avenue.
About five blocks east of where Short’s corpse was discovered is a home that was then occupied by crime boss Jack Dragna; the address is 3729 Hubert Avenue. “L.A. central racketeer” Dragna is mentioned a few times by Moore. There are Dahlia theories that Dragna and his cronies played a role in Short’s murder.
Lastly, there is this courtyard apartment complex at 836 S. Catalina Street, only about a dozen blocks from where I live.
According to some Dahlia theories, there was apparently a covert abortion clinic run at this apartment by a Dr. Leslie Audrain who had ties to organized crime. Some speculate that Short’s murder and subsequent mutilation took place there.
Touring these sites yesterday, I really can’t say that I saw anything overtly related to the Dahlia case.
One contrast I noticed is these sites are not in the rich hillside or coastal neighborhoods associated with Hollywood stars. Thelma Todd lived and died in tony beach-side surroundings; Elizabeth Short didn’t. Short was beautiful, but no Hollywood star. The modest locations that tie to her mysterious death reflect her lower status as more of a struggling lower-class pretender. Others have said it (I don’t remember where I heard or read this), that, though Short was in Hollywood and apparently mentioned in letters that she aspired to be an actress, she never really pursued any kind of acting career, but bounced around taking advantage of whomever and whatever she could.
Added 21 August 2017: Added another Black Dahlia site in its present incarnation: the Florentine Gardens, a Hollywood nightclub located at 5951 Hollywood Blvd. Some of the decorative columns remain, but the street frontage is considerably stripped down compared to its early flair. It also appears that the street has been widened (one of my pet peeves) reducing the depth of the pedestrian area in front. The Florentine Gardens appear starting on page 3 of Moore and O’Neill’s My Fair Dahlia.
Added 29 January 2019: L.A. Curbed has a new piece mapping Dahlia locations.
Cinema Purgatorio Annotato 