Written by a motley crew of interesting Los Angelians with a penchant for digging up crime stories from the history of their fair city, 1947 Project is an arresting and hugely addictive crime blog.
It all began with true crime stories pulled from the headlines of 1947 Los Angeles, which Kim Cooper began posting weekly not only as salacious tales of murder and intrigue but as studies in histories of the city and how it has changed. Since then, they have included true stories of mayhem from 1907 and 1927.
It's a brilliant idea, and masterfully executed. The search categories are divided by neighborhood, methods of crime, etc. and lend themselves to long hours of ghoulishly gleeful reading. I have to give kudos to the team of writers and Cooper especially for her vision.
The blog is also available in a less successful podcast, and they run a crime bus tour company called Esotouric in LA, which includes a tour of project 1947, as well as a Black Dahlia tour, a Bukowski tour, and a Raymond Chandler tour among others. This is one of the most fun, most exciting online discoveries for me in quite some time and all I could ask for is a New York branch. Brilliant, great stuff.
But what do you think?