SAVING BUKOWSKI’S BUNGALOW
By Matt Kettmann/Los Angeles

TIME
Friday, Sep. 14, 2007

Charles Bukowski in his library.

Eckarth Palutke / Huntington Library / AP

The vacant property isn’t much to look at now, and it certainly
wasn’t any prettier back in the late 1960s, when a 1952 Comet was
parked on the front lawn, tins of bacon grease filled up the kitchen,
cigar smoke stunk up the air, and newspapers littered the floors.

But the little bungalow at 5124 De Longpre Avenue in East Hollywood
was the epicenter of a cultural earthquake that continues to rock Los
Angeles’s literary landscape. It is the house where Charles Bukowski
went from blue-collar postman to full-time writer, eventually becoming
world famous for his bawdy tales of lust, liquor, and love.

While Bukowski, who died in 1994, is now a literary immortal, his
bungalow’s days may be numbered. The current owner recently evicted
the tenants, erected a chain-link fence, and put the property on the
market, advertising on Craigslist, "You can easily tear down the old
building and do new construction!"

But like the hard-headed Hank Chinaski, the author’s autobiographical
alter ego, Bukowski fans aren’t letting the home he rented from 1963
to 1972 go down without a rumble. They’re pushing for preservation,
and the city is listening. On September 20, a historical commission
will take the first step in determining whether the property should
be made a landmark and saved from demolition. The preservation charge
is spearheaded by a young woman who might have caught Bukowski’s
wandering eye back in his days at De Longpre, the setting for his
racy novel Women.

Aspiring photographer and temp worker Lauren Everett, 26, has been
a Bukowski fan since her childhood, but she probably understands him
now more than ever, explaining, "I’m an office temp, so I definitely
identify with his idea of ‘stick-with-it-you-don’t-have-to-kill-
yourself-ev en-though-your-job-is-horrible.’" Everett claimed that the
house is the most significant of all Bukowski residences: he lived
there the longest and had his only child there. "Everything else has
been torn down," says Everett. "It would be someplace that people
could go to experience his environment. I think that’s important."

She’s enlisted the help of Richard Schave, who leads literary tours
around Los Angeles, including one Bukowski-themed excursion called
"Haunts of a Dirty Old Man." Schave explained that the De Longpre
neighborhood remains the same blue-collar, immigrant community
of Russians, Armenians, and Slavs that it was in the 1960s and
’70s. And around the corner is still the Pink Elephant, Bukowski’s
favorite liquor store. "It was at De Longpre where his explosion of
work began," said Schave. "This place was the rocket booster that
propelled him through the rest of his life."

Bukowski’s longtime publisher and friend John Martin agrees. "That’s
where I met him," says Martin, who founded Black Sparrow Press in 1969
after discovering the writer’s poetry in underground mimeographs. He
then published Bukowski until the author died from leukemia in
1994. "You just knew this was someplace special," remembers Martin,
now 77 and living in Santa Rosa, California. "He had a whole closet
full of unpublished poems. Literally, they were stacked up on the
floor leaning against the wall two or three feet high. So I went
through and picked out ones I thought were especially good, and I
began, one way or another, to publish Bukowski."

Aside from being the setting for numerous poems and novels, the
bungalow was also where Bukowski decided to quit the post office. "It
was killing him," said Martin, who asked Bukowski how much he needed
to survive every month. Martin handed Bukowski his favorite pen,
and then Bukowski tallied his needs: cigarettes, rent, child support,
booze, food. Adding up to a mere $100 per month, Martin promised that
much in perpetuity. They shook hands on it, but the pen disappeared
into the Bukowski’s mess, never to be found again.

When Bukowski did quit the post office in January 1970, Martin
suggested he write a novel. Twenty-one days later, Bukowski finished
his first novel, telling a shocked Martin, "Fear allows you to do
anything."

Martin went down to De Longpre and picked up what became Post
Office. "To this day, it remains his most popular book," says Martin.

If the commission moves the case forward, the preservationists will
try to enlist the help of celebrity fans such as Johnny Depp, who is
working on an animated film about the author. "So many people for so
long have gone to the mat for Bukowski," says Schave. "If we do get
a yes, then it will make it so much easier to do all the hard work
that will still be in front of us."

That "yes" would come from Los Angeles’s Cultural Heritage Commission,
which dedicates anywhere from 30 to 50 monuments a year, according to
staffer Ken Bernstein. "The vast majority are saved for architectural
significance," says Bernstein, "but the cultural heritage ordinance
does allow for and encourage designation of sites that are important
to the social and cultural history of the city. The question for the
commission will be whether the bungalow retains the physical qualities
that enable it to tell the story of its culture and history." If so,
demolition will be blocked to allow for further review until the
L.A. City Council gives the final nod.

So what happens to the owner then? There are tax breaks for historic
properties, but Schave admits, "It could potentially cramp his
style." The owner, meanwhile, is not talking. When contacted, he got
flustered and said, in an Eastern European accent, "I am sorry. I’m
not at liberty to discuss anything about De Longpre." Former publisher
Martin, who called Bukowski "the most widely recognized and important
author ever born and raised in Los Angeles," hopes the property can
be saved. He explains, "I don’t know if they’re going to be able to
save this property, but I think it’s as interesting and important as
anything of its kind in the city."

What would Bukowski think about this hullabaloo? No one can say for
sure, but it’s definitely a lot of effort for a man whose gravestone
reads simply, "Don’t Try."