Whitley Heights 101

1747 North Las Palmas Avenue

This 2-story 14 room house was built on the southwest corner of Las Palmas Avenue and Yucca Street in 1913 by owner James W. Dolan by architects Large & LaCasse, where the Dolans lived until Mr. and Mrs. Dolan’s death. Both died a month apart from one another in early 1929.

Their daughter, Marie Dolan White, became the owner of the house and rented it out to Louis and Charles Mosconi between 1930 and 1932. The Mosconi Brothers were a vaudeville dance act in which Louis dressed as Charlie Chaplin and Charles as Edna Purviance and performed at the Palace Theatre on Broadway in New York City for seven years.

At 1747 N. Las Palmas Avenue, the ex-Ziegfeld dancers, who tried to get movie parts unsuccessfully, opened a dance school. They were able to recruit young child actors and entertainers to participate in their school. They invested $50,000 to remodel the house into a dance studio and on June 3, 1930, they hosted a premiere gala there.

Actors Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, Richard ‘Skeets’ Gallagher, Walter Catlett, George Olsen, Vivienne Segal, Ben Bernie, Dorothy Lee, and Ruth Roland all served as the reception committee at the premiere gala on June 3, 1930.

Child actors signed up for classes at the studio including; Leon Janney, Frankie Darro, Jackie Cooper, Mary Ann Jackson, Baby Rose Marie, Billy Butts, Jackie Searl, Mickey Bennett, Nancy Price, Virginia Davis, Virginia Marshall, and Doris Eaton. Those actors were among the few that appeared on a June 7, 1930 newsreel of Fox Movietone. (A big thanks to Philip Mershon’s Attic Of Orphan Pictures on Facebook to feature the newsreel in 2018!). Here is the 9 minute feature: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1MDQb8kfsK/

Some of the performers were even used in Fox Film’s sci-fi musical “Just Imagine” which starred El Brendel and Maureen O’Sullivan in 1930. The Mosconi Brothers were also hired by Paramount Theater to furnish dance units for the stage shows. They soon offered Ballroom Tango classes at the school and even actress Barbara Stanwyck took tap lessons there. Casting directors from the leading film studios attended the weekly auditions where they would select pupils for their films. In July of 1931, Shirley Kinney, Bobby Burke, and Caroline Arnold were chosen to appear in the Paramount production of “Sooky” starring Jackie Cooper, Robert Coogan and Jackie Searl.

Unfortunately, the Mosconi Brothers could not resist their own invitations to perform in another Broadway show. By the end of 1932, the school shut down when they returned to New York City. Owner, Marie Dolan White decided to convert the dance studio into a restaurant with boarding rooms in the upstair floors. Ms. Ann’s Tearoom and then Ms. Ann’s Restaurant opened up for business.

Years went by the the building began to look a little run down. The restaurant lasted for over a decade. The building made news when one of the tenants, writer Victor Childe, decided to end his life. He took a gas heater into his bathroom and tried to inhale the fumes. One of the waitresses smelled smoke in his room and broke in when the explosion happened. Both were rushed to the hospital where Childe later died. It was time to close shop. The building went up for sale in 1952 and was torn down in 1954 and replaced with another apartment building. This building was demolished and later replaced with a parking lot. Perhaps when passing by the lot, one can hear the distant tap, tap, tap from a child’s shoes running across the front porch.