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East Hollywood property long enough to attempt to build a case for the designation as Historic Landmark of the DeLongpre Avenue bungalow where USPS worker Henry Charles Bukowski became, at 49, a full-time writer. 

 

The Canadian Press: “The poet’s widow, Linda Lee Bukowski, said she did not think her husband would have appreciated seeing a fuss made over the house he rented. “He was not the kind of person whose ego needed a large edifice in his memorium,” she said. Linda Bukowski added she was sickened by earlier proposals that the house serve as a residence for writers and artists. “That would be repulsive to Hank,” she said, using the writer’s nickname. “It would be against all his natural human ways to have little writers and poets in bungalows together, little Bukowskis running around.” 

The Long Beach Press Telegram: “As Linda Bukowski said, “The De Longpre address was but one of many that Hank rented and wrote in during his years in L.A. Indeed the novel `Post Office’ was written there, but so many more books were written at (another) address … After that, the rest of his work was written in San Pedro, in the home where he lived until his last precious breath, and where I still reside with nine cats.” But as has been noted, you aren’t going to sell many literary tour bus tickets to San Pedro.”

Richard Schave of www.esotouric.com: “Esotouric’s “Haunts of a Dirty Old Man” bus tour on the anniversary of (Bukowski) passing included a stop for donuts and coffee at Pink Elephant Liquor, though many opted for beer in a paper bag instead. “


Victoria Gureyeva, owner of the property at the time the application was filed: “This man loved Hitler. He may be a great writer — I’m not a critic. But that’s what libraries are for. This is my house, not Bukowski’s. I will never allow the city of Los Angeles to turn it into a monument for this man. He never acknowledged his Jewish side. The rumor is that Hitler’s mother was part Jewish. Now we have Bukowski — Hitler number two.”

John Martin, publisher, Black Sparrow Press (and the man who gave an income to Bukowski so he could leave his post office job and write full-time): “(The Nazi claim) is ridiculous. Bukowski wasn’t a Nazi, he was a contrarian. Anything he could say to get people’s goat, he’d say — especially when he was young.”

The House

They are building a house
half a block down
and I sit up here
with the shades down
listening to the sounds,
the hammers pounding in nails,
thack thack thack thack,
and then I hear birds,
and thack thack thack,
and I go to bed,
I pull the covers to my throat;
they have been building this house
for a month, and soon it will have
its people…sleeping, eating,
loving, moving around,
but somehow
now
it is not right,
there seems a madness,
men walk on top with nails
in their mouths
and I read about Castro and Cuba,
and at night I walk by
and the ribs of the house show
and inside I can see cats walking
the way cats walk,
and then a boy rides by on a bicycle
and still the house is not done
and in the morning the men
will be back
walking around on the house
with their hammers,
and it seems people should not build houses
anymore,
it seems people should not get married
anymore,
it seems people should stop working
and sit in small rooms
on 2nd floors
under electric lights without shades;
it seems there is a lot to forget
and a lot not to do,
and in drugstores, markets, bars,
the people are tired, they do not want
to move, and I stand there at night
and look through this house and the
house does not want to be built;
through its sides I can see the purple hills
and the first lights of evening,
and it is cold
and I button my coat
and I stand there looking through the house
and the cats stop and look at me
until I am embarrassed
and move North up the sidewalk
where I will buy
cigarettes and beer
and return to my room.

Charles Bukowski (1920-1994)