The discovery of oil in Echo Park in 1892 brought in mountains of cash, corruption, and crime, and Los Angeles was transformed from a sleepy, rundown village into the birthplace of noir.
“Promotional imagery of mountains, sun, and surf promised a better life and unlimited possibilities, but newspaper and tabloid photos showed newcomers that the seductive vision wasn’t the whole story. The flip side of paradise was a different Southland, one where dope rings, petty criminals, sensational murders, ladies of the night, bullet-riddled bodies, and a notoriously corrupt police force flourished.
“It was the other Los Angeles — a city awash in corruption and sin. The posed and the candid. The good and the bad. A city to aspire to and a city to revile. Both versions were responsible for creating the mythic City of Angels.” — Jim Heimann*
Taschen editor Heimann as assembled the definitive chronicle of L.A.’s dark side from the 1920s through the 1950s in DARK CITY: THE REAL LOS ANGELES NOIR, a nearly 500 page volume which includes bound-in facsimiles of magazine clippings.
JIM HEIMANN, DARK CITY: THE REAL LOS ANGELES NOIR, (Cologne: Taschen, 2018).
*Late last year, the L.A. Weekly published Heimann’s DARK CITY introduction:
Top: A riverbed corpse. Image credit: Los Angeles Police Museum and Taschen.
Middle: Cover with slipcase. Image credit: Taschen.
Below: Cairo Mary ejects of patron from waterfront dive Shanghai Reds. Image credit: USC Libraries Special Collections and Taschen.
