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BankYeah, the photo is familar. I ran it in March — but it's a great downtown image from 1923, showing the old Farmers and Merchants Bank that still stands at 4th Street and Main (and several other familiar downtown survivors.) And it's in the news. Berkeley author and Ghost Word blogger Frances Dinkelspiel has sold to St. Martin's Press her book about the bank's founder, her great-great grandfather. Towers of Gold: Isaias Hellman and the Creation of California will be published in 2007. She writes that Hellman was one of three men who donated the land for USC, was president of the Jewish congregation that became Wilshire Boulevard Temple, and when he died in 1920 was president of Wells Fargo Bank. If you like the photo, check it out full-sized at the LAPL site.

Also: 826LA, the non-profit founded by Dave Eggers and located in the SPARC building in Venice, announces publication of Rhythm of the Chain: Young Writers Explore Teamwork, written by students of Animo Inglewood Charter High School. Lakers coach Phil Jackson provides the introduction. Jackson will do a private reading and signing with the students on June 23 at the campus.


More by Kevin Roderick:
Standing up to Harvey Weinstein
The Media
LA Times gets a top editor with nothing but questions
LA Observed Notes: Harvey Weinstein stripped bare
LA Observed Notes: Photos of the homeless, photos that found homes
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LA Observed Notes: Bookstore stays open, NPR pact
Al Franken in Los Angeles many times over
His British invasion - and ours
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Amy Dawes, 56, journalist and author
Richard Schickel, 84, film critic, director and author
The Lost Journalism of Ring Lardner: An Interview with Ron Rapoport


 

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