| The Naked City | Oct 9 2013 |
This little piggy went to market.
The two shots above come from the University of Southern California’s digital collection of mid-century Los Angeles Herald-Examiner photographs and show an auto accident on the corner of West 1st Street and Olive Street. The image caught our eye because it was labeled “Deputy Sheriff in Auto Crash,” which we take to mean that a sheriff’s department deputy crashed into a market in broad daylight in downtown L.A. Seems unlikely, but USC’s photo labeling is usually quite exact, and in the images we see two officers, both of whom are calmly writing in notebooks rather than sitting on the curb freaking, which makes us think the caption isn't referring to either of them. So where is the deputy? In an ambulance on his way to the hospital? Back at his desk writing a report (street urchin ran in front of vehicle causing swerve and crash)? At home sobering up? Why exactly he crashed is an intriguing little mystery, but of course we’ll never learn the answer, so let’s just go with the obvious—the market sells excellent donuts and he was in a bit too much of a hurry. It happened today in 1951.
