ABSTRACT
Skid rows are the same everywhere. In Los Angeles, only balmier weather separates the slums there from the run-down, violent, unpredictable areas of New York or Chicago. In 1947–48, a skid row surrounded a section of Pico Boulevard, an area that had its share of shootings, stabbings, brawls, and an occasional murder. The Fargo Club was on Pico. Murphy's Bar, a tiny dive with an even tinier stage surrounded by somebody's idea of western fencing, was a block away. Speedy West played his homemade steel guitar there nightly when he wasn't working a day job to support his family.
