People and Events

The YMCA has decided to end its year-to-year lease at the old Elks Building on the west side of MacArthur Park after 17 years, but Y officials say there is no validity to complaints that it will be a blow to kids in the neighborhood.

The Y now has a modern facility at 4th and Hope streets in downtown Los Angeles as well as the Hollywood Y, and “virtually all the kids are taken to these facilities in vans,” says Larry Rosen, executive vice president of the Los Angeles Metropolitan YMCA.

In today’s urban setting, Rosen notes, the “drop-in” neighborhood Y is just about a thing of the past. “We really have a wealth of physical education facilities for adults and we plan to open up a storefront and to expand our work with kids in the area,” he said. This will include more day camping programs and expanded sports leagues.

The Y moved into the Elks Building at 607 S. Park View St. “on a temporary basis” when the old downtown Y at 8th and Hope was torn down for redevelopment. The Elks Building, built in 1927 and with a 100-foot indoor pool in which one-time “Tarzan” Johnny Weissmuller is said to have trained, has deteriorated, Rosen said, to the point where it is no longer “attractive to women and girls.”

It would cost $2 million to fix it up and “that’s a lot of money to put into somebody else’s building,” he said.

Moving day will be in mid-February.

While Felix the cat was sweating out release from quarantine in London on Friday, authorities were still trying to figure out what she lived on during 29 days in the cargo hold of a Pan American World Airways jumbo jetliner after getting out of her kennel on a flight from Frankfurt to Los Angeles.

A Pan Am spokesman in London concluded she survived on water formed as condensation in the big hold as the Boeing 747 flew more than 170,000 miles through various temperature zones.

And possibly on food scraps left by baggage handlers on three continents.

East Los Angeles College business law professor Hal Mintz, who drew some non-academic attention when West Hollywood officials declared their intent to shut down his Santa Monica Boulevard massage parlor on the grounds that it is a house of prostitution, says having the business comes in handy when he teaches.

“In talking about government regulations, for instance,” he explains, “I’ve been able to use the massage parlor as an example. It’s something that keeps (the students’) attention and helps drive home the point.”

San Fernando Valley natural foods market operator Sandy Gooch plans to speak Monday evening to the Temple Ramat Zion Sisterhood meeting in Northridge. Her topic: “Good Sex Begins in the Kitchen.”

Although she wasn’t available to offer details, sisterhood president Iris Lasky said she believes the talk will deal with fixing meals “that are more what you call sensual” as well as “what you put into your bodies so that you feel better.”

The sisterhood, Lasky noted, “is a religious organization, so when we first got the title we had to run it through our rabbi. He thought it was wonderful.”

More than 700 people with good memories showed up at the Sportsmen’s Lodge in Studio City on Friday to help the Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters honor the Big Bands and their vocalists. The same folks who used to gather around the stand at the Hollywood Palladium. Just a few years older.

Bandleaders on hand included Ray Anthony, Les Brown, Billy Ray and Alvino Rey. Singers Herb Jeffries and Andy Russell were there.

So was one-time Benny Goodman singer Art Lund (“Blue Skies”), who told the luncheon crowd, “You know the average age of the Big Bands is deceased.”

To which Rey added, “These days most of the Big Bands are in the sky and I hope they’re not looking for a guitar player.”

A holdup man was pretending he had a gun and was demanding money from the young woman clerk at the AM-PM Mini Mart in Palmdale when some motorist outside started filling his tank with gasoline.

That produced a loud click in the computer inside the market, said Lancaster sheriff’s deputies. The man apparently thought it was a robbery alarm. He took off. A dog named Paul was brought in and found the suspect hiding beneath a truck at the nearby Motel 6.

After treatment for dog bites, Richard Sewell, 30, of Lancaster was booked on suspicion of robbery.