The Dunbar in South L.A., once a landmark, has lost its beat

In 1957, Jimmy Steward graduated from high school in El Dorado, Ark., which had piney woods and pretty promenades left over from an oil boom, but no jobs to speak of. Like many others, he looked west for work, and landed in South Los Angeles, where, like many others, "I didn't find no gold."

Steward worked in warehouses and foundries and eventually took a one-room apartment on Central Avenue, in a tired building where the ghosts are named Basie, Calloway and Ellington, and where the walls, if they could talk, might break into song.

Steward is one of 32 people who live in the Dunbar Hotel, in a strange netherworld -- which City Hall, for better or worse, will soon take ownership of because the hotel has failed to repay nearly $3 million in loans.

On the one hand, the Dunbar is a monument to the strength and guts of black L.A.

Financed by black business leaders, built by black craftsmen and opened in 1928 along the spine of the black community, it was a source of great pride in an age of segregation. It became the epicenter of West Coast jazz, and its guest list -- Count Basie, Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington, plus Billie Holiday, Lena Horne and scores more -- reads today like the table of contents in a jazz history book.

"That was the place," said Paul Bryant, 75, a piano and organ player who began performing in Los Angeles in 1937 and appeared on dozens of records, including 12 of his own. "The Dunbar was the black version of the Ritz-Carlton."

But it doesn't feel like a privilege to live there, not anymore.

The Dunbar is no longer a hotel but contains 73 low-income apartments; about half are occupied, mostly by seniors.

By now, the building is like a debutante who missed her ride at the end of the night and had to walk home in the rain. All of the elements of grace and beauty are still there, but her dress is torn and her lipstick is smeared.

Inside the Dunbar's Art Deco lobby, under a magnificent chandelier, there are cigarette butts and chewed-up sunflower seeds on the window sills. There are holes in the walls and the windows that once formed soaring arches next to the front desk.

The lobby's original furniture -- velvet divans, wooden chairs -- is piled in the basement. Vines have crept across the facade and then shriveled in the sun. The elevators often fail. When the plumbing faltered a while back, tenants went without hot water for weeks. When they complained to management, they were told to hire a plumber themselves.

"We're poor in here. But we shouldn't have to live like dogs," said Eddie Outley, 51, who works at a nearby department store and has lived at the Dunbar for 15 years.

On the surrounding streets, the old jazz clubs -- the Down Beat, the Parisian Room -- are long gone. Left behind is a poor neighborhood riddled with gangs and violence. The Dunbar can't keep it all at bay; vagrants and others often sneak through side doors.

Alberto Lopez, 40, the Dunbar's supervisor of maintenance, struggles to keep the place in some semblance of working order, painting the hallways and laying new carpet in many rooms. He could be found the other day roaming the halls, sweat beading on his face, chasing off interlopers who had found a way into the building. In the past, some have brought in drugs. Others work as prostitutes. Some are just looking for a safe place to lie down.

"You need to go!" he shouted at one wide-eyed woman in a hooded sweat shirt. "I don't want to see you again tomorrow!"