6th and Witmer
An intersection where things happened. Here is a random list.
I was about seven, and was taken to see a doctor at Good Samaritan Hospital. We visited a building that is still standing on 6th St. I was getting so many bloody noses, they decided to cauterize some veins inside my nose. It was painful, of course, but the smell was astonishing, really bad, amazingly horrible.
My grandmother lived for a while in an apartment a block up on 6th St. I remember accompanying my dad one night to visit his mother, but he asked me to wait in the car. He came back about an hour later, so upset that he was shaking. She was an unpleasant woman who liked to share her unhappiness.
She was living in an apartment half block up Witmer when she died.
My grandfather had his first heart attack and died. The paramedics brought him back. We saw a cardiologist on 6th St, who said he really needed an ablation treatment. But his union insurance slow walked approving the treatment. The doctor told me he wouldn’t do it without the union insurance. When my grandfather died again, this time he was sure, he was taken to an East L A Hospital. I ran into the cardiologist in the ER, with my grandfather, dead next to me on the gurney. I told the cardiologist he wouldn’t be getting his money.
I had my big car accident with a friend. We weren’t hurt enough to be taken to the hospital. We went with the car to the tow truck’s gas station, at the corner of Witmer and 6th.
I had two experiences in the house next to the gas station.
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Lily did a year of high school two blocks away.
Noah was born at Good Samaritan Hospital. His obstetrician was a block away on Witmer. Through a window, 6th and Witmer was Noah’s first view of the world. At 2 am, two hours after Noah was born, from The Pacific Dining Car across the street, I got little fresh water scallops, (yeah, I know), they were the first food Noah smelled.
At Witmer and 6th was The Pacific Dining Car, one of my favorite restaurants. Going there with my tio Marcos was always very special. We went there with Max and Megan a few years ago. Megan said it was almost as if she had never had a steak before in her life.
They aged their own steaks right there. Marcos and I once got a tour of the chamber where the magic happened.
It was the first place I had quiche.
Once I was mobile myself, and since the restaurant was open 24 hours, it became the place for early morning breakfast. Eggs Florentine. Eggs Benedict, with exceptional Hollandaise sauce, Eggs Cocotte, Cloud Eggs, Bananas Foster, and clever waffle variations. Astonishing omelets. Over the years it was a breakfast stop before a road trip.
It closed down during the pandemic. A year later there was a fire that damaged the building just enough. Driving by recently, it is now a vacant lot. It made me sad.
Also, a couple blocks away was a women's residence hotel where Grandma Neu stayed when she moved to Los Angeles as a young woman. She made a lifelong friend there named Hazel. I had little conversations on the phone with Hazel many times. I finally got to meet her in person at Grandma Neu's funeral.
"At any street corner the feeling of absurdity
can strike any man in the face."
Albert Camus