Thanks Kim for the invitation to post a blog about some long
forgotten park history. Did you know
about this memorial to love? I sure
didn't and it was a bit of a surprise. Pershing
Square is named in honor of General "Blackjack" Pershing and several
memorials have a clear war theme. And
there’s the statute of Beethoven, and let's not forget the missing tribute to Benny,
the squirrel, but a memorial to love?
Yup!
My story begins at the City of Los Angeles
archive. They have a massive collection
of sketches from the WPA that were used to create the model of 1940 downtown
Los Angeles that's on display at the Natural History Museum. (Well, a small portion of the model is on
display but that's another story).
Buried in the collection is a partial planting plan for Pershing Square
from 1954. I'm not sure why it's in the
1940 WPA collection other than it might have been tossed into the box by some
city planner when they archived the files.
Luckily for us, this drawing was tossed into the box since it
identifies a very special memorial now lost to time. The partial plan shows a square fountain
surrounded by lawn with some simple planters along the perimeter. I soon learned that this fountain had a twin,
located on the other side of the square.
If you zoom in on the drawing, the fountain is labeled Mrs. Nelly Roth
Memorial fountain. Who? Who is Mrs. Nelly Roth, you say? That was my initial reaction too. But, to properly set the stage for this
memorial, I must digress back to 1949.
The year 1949 is the year that the Parks Department got
serious about destroying Pershing Square for the sake of installing underground
parking. Plans for underground parking
had been circulating since the early 1920's, but prior Commissions always
rejected those plans. One major reason
for rejection is that a sub-surface structure would provide minimal topsoil and
prevent tree growth. Pershing Square is
a public park, parks must have trees, and the Commissioners saw it as their
civic duty to protect the public assets entrusted to their care.
But, the 1950's were not about protecting public
assets. Big business in the downtown
area wanted parking, a lot of parking, and they didn't care about park
users. After all, the majority of park
users were retired pensioners living on Bunker Hill, and their days were
numbered too. So, out went the Pershing
Square everyone loved, and in went a flat barren hardscape that most everyone hated. Pershing Square was reduced in area and the
"park" was nothing more than a field of grass. But, with every cloud comes a silver lining,
and this is where Mr. Kelly Roth enters the picture.
Kelly Roth was a 17-year-old Hungarian immigrant who came to
Los Angeles in the late 1890's. He
married Texas born Nelly Arons in 1899 and for 30 years he ran a cigar store in
the heart of the city. He started work
with his brothers at their store at 1st and Main. He later opened his own store at 5th and
Spring. Nelly's father ran the Famous
Shoe store on 4th near Spring. They had
two sons. The cigar business was profitable,
and Kelly made some wise investments in real estate. Overall, life was good.
Then, Nelly's health began to slowly fail. They travelled to New York, to Hawaii, and
British Columbia but she did not improve.
Nelly died in 1940 and Kelly was stricken by very deep grief. His small apartment became a shrine, the
walls adorned with her pictures. According
to an article in the LA Times "When Roth visited the Sphinx and the
Pyramids in 1951, he had a group photograph enlarged and superimposed two
facial pictures of his wife on it, to show how she might have looked with
him."
Kelly now wanted to erect a memorial for her so she would be
remembered forever. He donated $30,000
to the city for a pair of reflecting pool fountains to be installed in the
newly rebuilt Pershing Square. He made
the donation in cold hard cash, a move that ex-Councilman Jose Huizar would
love. Pershing Square, with the memorial
fountains, would take him back to his early days in Los Angeles with Nelly,
riding past the Square on a mule car. He
also wanted to honor the city that had given this immigrant so much.
Architect Stiles Clements donated his services in drawing up
the plans for the Mrs. Nelly Roth Memorial Fountains. Each reflecting pool fountain sat on top of a
concrete column that supported the parking structure below. The two fountains were placed 216 feet apart
at opposite ends of the Square. Each
fountain had a 21-minute display cycle in which 126 different combinations of
color lights and water blending took place.
The fountains were dedicated on 21 Dec 1954 and they drew big crowds to
the park at night.
Kelly Roth passed away 4 months after the dedication ceremony. Large red poinsettias were planted around the
fountains in Dec 1955 and that seems to be the last official mention of any
activity. More than 30 years will pass
until a letter to the editor of the Times will lament about this now neglected
and forgotten memorial. Neil Roth, one
of Kelly’s grandsons, writes to the Times to thank the letter writer for caring
and remembering. As fitting ending to
this blog, I’ll let Neil Roth have the final words. “The loss of the fountains will be more than
the loss of a concrete structure. It
will be the loss of an important piece of history – one that tells of an
individual man who, like so many others, loved his wife and loved Los Angeles.”
