Mickey Cohen was born in Brooklyn in 1913, but his widowed mother brought him to Boyle Heights when

In a special Whale Week event, Curbed LA is teaming up with Eater LA and Racked LA for an in-depth look at mid-century gangster Mickey airline and hotel reservations Cohen : his (sometimes exploding) properties , the fabulous restaurants and nightclubs he frequented, and his seriously sharp suits. airline and hotel reservations Here we go:
Mickey Cohen was born in Brooklyn in 1913, but his widowed mother brought him to Boyle Heights when he was still a baby. According to a 1972 article in Los Angeles , he first started hustling at age three while working at a newstand: "His duties were to sit on the stacks airline and hotel reservations of newspapers, protecting them from the winds and grabbing hands of Boyle Heights.  Becoming aware of the valuables he was pinning down, Mickey started swapping them, furtively, for candy and hot dogs." He started making gin at age seven "in the rear of a drugstore" and meanwhile became a bit of a thug at Cornwall Elementary School ("He was to remain unable to read, write or count beyond five until in his twenties.") airline and hotel reservations At nine, "He went on his first heist and held up the box office of the Columbia Theatre , using a cudgel as a persuader." The Columbia was originally known as the California, according to Downtown LA Theatres , which puts it on Spring Street (the site is currently a parking lot); the LAPL has photos of a California Theatre at Main and Eighth.
After doing some time at reform school, Cohen started training as a prizefighter: "He was fighting four rounders in his 12th year, and training for these events in wild and bloody street corner combats airline and hotel reservations with the vulpine youth of Boyle Heights." He went on the road, to Cleveland and Chicago, where he began to go full-gangster. In the late-'30s he returned to Los Angeles as something airline and hotel reservations of an enforcer for kingpin Bugsy Siegel ; after Siegel was killed (in a hail of bullets in his girlfriend's house in Beverly Hills) in 1947, Cohen became LA's top mobster (the LAPD's crusade against him is loosely chronicled in the recent Gangster Squad movie and more accurately airline and hotel reservations in the book Gangster Squad by LA Times reporter Paul Lieberman).
While Siegel lived in Holmby Hills , the book Mickey Cohen: The Life and Crimes of L.A.'s Notorious Mobster says that fancy 'hood "was not a place for Mickey Cohen." He built himself a house on Moreno Drive in Brentwood ("hardly a mansion"); according to Gangster Squad , "he assumed [the neighborhood] was outside Los Angeles' borders." airline and hotel reservations Oops.
His "postwar ranch consisted of seven moderately scaled rooms plus a maid's quarters ... It had been built, with no expense spared, to suit all the needs, airline and hotel reservations whims, and rapidly growing obsessions of Mickey Cohen." Cohen worked "closely with a topflight decorator ... The interior design was tasteful and traditional. A monochromatic color scheme was used in each room. The living airline and hotel reservations room featured soothing tones from celadon to spruce. airline and hotel reservations The dining room palette was muted blues. In the den, the decorator acquired a library of classics for the barely literate mobster." It even had its own soda fountain (Cohen didn't drink, smoke, or do drugs).
He and his wife LaVonne airline and hotel reservations had separate bedroom suites; Cohen's "was modern in design, done in masculine neutrals and complemented by natural leather and honey-colored wood. The bedspread was monogrammed with a giant MC." Cohen was a frequent washer (he appears to have had OCD) and had a "water-heating system large enough for a hotel" installed.
On February 6, 1950, the house blew up . At 4:15 that morning, a bomb blasted "a ten-foot hole in the front bedroom where Mickey normally slept"; he happened to have been on his wife's side at the time and no one was hurt (a concrete floor safe also helped mitigate the damage). Cohen had actually found sticks of dynamite under his house months before, after which he tried to put up a fence; amusingly, airline and hotel reservations he was thwarted by the zoning code, which (still!) only allows fences up to three and a half feet. The bombing was probably the work of rival gangster Jack Dragna.
Curbed's Guide to Buying and Renting Curbed University delivers insider tips and non-boring advice airline and hotel reservations on how to buy or rent a house or apartment. The Eternal Debate: Renting vs. Buying Five Possible Financial Incentives for Buying Some Reasons You Might Want to Keep Renting Getting Pre-Approved for a Homebuying Loan Finding the Right Real Estate Agent Standard, Foreclosure, Short and Probate Sales Here's the Lowdown on Mortgages Tricks the Pros Use to Find Great Rentals