| Los Angeles Daily Times, January 9, 1903 |
UNIQUE AUDITORIUM UNDER THE HILL.
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Los Angeles has one of the largest and most unique auditoriums for public concerts and musical events, with the most perfect acoustic properties of any city on the Pacific Coast, and probably in the West; and this remarkable fact has just been discovered.
This auditorium is very peculiar in shape, being 1,048 feet in length and only thirty-five feet in width. It has sufficient room to seat 4,500 people. . . .
The new auditorium is the Third Street tunnel [beneath Bunker Hill west of Hill Street].
. . . For a month the tunnel has been closed to all travel except foot passengers as the work of paving the roadway with asphalt has been in progress . . . after the day laborers have finished their work there is almost absolute silence, probably for the first time since the tunnel was opened to traffic three years ago.
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| Image from the Los Angeles Public Library. |
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Last Sunday afternoon a well-known male vocal quartette passed through the tunnel on their way to sing at a social function, and as they reached the center [they broke into song.]
The effect . . . was magnificent. the long archway proved to have acoustic properties unexpected, and the rich tones of the quartette rolled down the vistas in either direction, carrying perfectly even the slightest shading of the tones to the very portals of the tunnel. . . . a number of people . . . [gathered] at the entrances and . . . [warmly cheered] the impromptu concert. . . .
Encouraged by the listeners, the singers gave several numbers, with fine effect, and then passed on. . . . no more unique or effective auditorium for a grand concert could be found than this hole in the ground. . . .
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Los Angeles Daily Times, January 4, 1903
MESSENGER TO HIS RACE.
Los Angeles Colored Citizens Hear Good Word.
 Simpson Auditorium was filled last night with colored people, who went to hear Booker T. Washington deliver his message especially to them. A few of the other race were present. . . .
Great applause greeted Mr. Washington. The speaker of the evening said he had been so well received in California that he had not had time to “even write a letter to my good wife.” He also expressed his gratification at learning of the high standing of his race in this city and vicinity.
. . . his talk . . . was different in essentials from anything he had before said here. He was talking to his own people, and he came to them with the practical message which he had delivered the day before in more expanded and less direct form to his white audiences. He was now heart to heart with his own. There were repetitions of stories heard the day before [by the white people], and there was no difference in the tenor of his talk. That is, work, work, work. But he spoke with a blunt plainness that neither minced nor avoided, and yet did not repeat. . . .
A collection was taken up and $54 collected. This will go to the [Tuskegee] institute, as Mr. Washington’s lecture was delivered without charge.
[During the toasts at the end of the evening,] Mr. Washington was silent, almost disinterested. He was tired out with the tremendous strain made upon him and urged a speedy termination of the banquet, which was finished shortly after 12 o’clock.
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BOOSTS AND PUFFS
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Los Angeles Daily Times Midwinter Number, January 1, 1903
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A pleasant feature of Los Angeles is its short distance from the ocean. Half a dozen popular beach resorts may be reached in a ride of three-quarters of an hour. Here the luxury of surf bathing may be indulged in at midwinter.
The production of petroleum in California has become one of the leading industries of the state. The production of last year is estimated at 12 million barrels, worth about $6 million at the wells.
. . . The price of oil is also advancing, which is not surprising when we consider that it is being used in factories, on the railroads, in steamships, for laying dust on roads and in refineries, so that the market for California petroleum is practically unlimited.
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Los Angeles may in time become a rival of Kentucky as a breeding place for thoroughbred horses.
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Los Angeles boasts of a large area of public parks, amounting to 3,737 acres. It is true that a great majority of this acreage is still in a state of nature, but it is hoped that the city government will soon take steps to improve Elysian Park and Griffith Park.
The latter is said to be the largest park in the world, covering over 3,000 acres. It is a most romantic and picturesque tract, with shaded ravines, where the ferns grown waist high, forest trees, deer, and even occasionally a bear, although the nearest point of the park is only four miles from the City Hall.
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The annual booster issue of the Los Angeles Times, the Midwinter Issue, was first issued in 1885, according to the Web site of the Historical Society of Southern California. In this 1903 Midwinter issue, Eliza A. Otis, the wife of the fiery editor and publisher, Harrison Gray Otis, published one of her many poems extolling the virtues of the land that her husband hoped to rule. It was set into an illustration of a well-dressed young woman at a train station, with three men gathered in the background. One of them appears to be digging into his pocket for a tip to give the porter.
Eliza was a frequent contributor to her husband’s paper, and in the early years, according to Marshall Berges in his book The Life and Times of Los Angeles, was just about its “entire editorial staff.”
LOOKING TOWARD THE PACIFIC
IN THE TRACK OF EMPIRE
This mighty Southland cradled in the West,
Kissed by the seas and crowned by mountains high,
Valleys like empires lying on its breast,
And fields of bloom outspreading constantly —
Is the great land the Future calls its own;
Dominion waiteth here, Freedom aspires
Amid this wondrous beauty to enthrone
The wisdom of her State, kindle her fires
As beacon lights to shine around the world.
And Nature is her priestess. She has spread
Her glory round us, and she has unfurled
Her bannered vastness, with swift feet has fled
From Winter’s frozen paths to walk the ways
That Summer’s hand has paved with blossoms sweet;
Divine the splendor of her passing days,
Enchantment weaves the sandals for her feet.
This great Southwest! Unmeasured, vast and grand,
Its mountains near the stars, Its waters leap
From cloud-swept heights, its forest band
Th’ unwhispered secrets of the ages keep
For centuries ’twas hidden from the world,
Waiting Time’s fullness and the glorious day
When Freedom’s flag should proudly be unfurled,
And Liberty hold here the perfect sway.
That day has dawned, and now ’tis sure to build
For the great Future, wield the mighty stroke
That shatters Wrong, to teach the anthem trilled
By waiting Hope since first the race was born.
Let us be true, rise to our public trust!
Shape mighty deeds to make our Southland great,
Striking at Wrong with an unyielding thrust,
Let all our acts lend lustre to the State.
ELIZA A. OTIS
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Los Angeles history
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