The sale of the 26,000 sq.ft. Basso Auto Dealership on North Broadway to Johnson-Fain, an architectural design firm, further reduces an already minimal Italian presence, but reminds us of the daredevil exploits of one of its former prominent citizens.

Los Angeles "Little Italy" now includes basically only St. Peter's Catholic Church, Casa Italiana, and the nearby historical "Italian Hall".

Italian Immigrant Dominic Basso rode as a driver's mechanic beside "Terrible" Teddy Tetzlaff when he set a speed record of 142.85 mph. He also rode with race car driver Eddie Rickenbacker.

Basso gave up professional racing in 1916 after a long stay in a Kalamazoo, Mich., hospital. He wound up there after the racing car he was riding in blew two tires on a turn, jumped a fence and wound up in a sensational triple summersault.
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CALIFORNIA
Architects Find Old Car Dealership Is Their Style

Johnson Fain will relocate offices to the former Basso Chrysler/Jeep facility
on North Broadway.

Los Angeles Times
By Roger Vincent
March 27, 2004

One of Los Angeles' earliest auto dealerships, the former Basso Chrysler/Jeep,
a fixture in what was once the city's Little Italy district, will live on as the new headquarters of a prominent architectural firm.

...The new 26,000-square-foot headquarters overlooks an abandoned 32-acre rail yard — called the Cornfield — that is expected to become a state park. The property is near the original Casper de Portola encampment of 1781, which marked the city's beginning as a pueblo at a bend in the Los Angeles River.

The area later became home to Italian immigrants who at one point converted the Avila Adobe, the city's oldest building, into an Italian restaurant. In 1923, immigrant Domenich Basso built an auto dealership at 1201 N. Broadway. It remained in business until last year.

Basso sought a more sedate living after an automobile racing career that started in 1908, when competing cars carried a driver and a mechanic. Basso rode beside "Terrible" Teddy Tetzlaff as a mechanic when he set a speed record of 142.85 mph on a Utah salt flat in 1914. He also rode with race car driver Eddie Rickenbacker, who went on to become the top U.S. pilot in World War I.

Basso gave up professional racing in 1916 after a long stay in a Kalamazoo, Mich., hospital. He wound up there after the racing car he was riding in blew two tires on a turn, jumped a fence "and wound up in a sensational triple summersault,"...

In the 1930s, Los Angeles officials moved residents of Chinatown into much of what had been Little Italy to make way for construction of Union Station on Alameda Street. Basso's dealership continued to prosper, selling Essex, DeSoto and Plymouth automobiles, among others.

Basso hired his future son-in-law, Joe Boccalero, in 1941. The young man took time out from the business to serve in the Army under Gen. George Patton in World War II. He was captured during the Battle of the Bulge in the winter of 1944 but survived and returned to Los Angeles.

When Basso died in 1963, Boccalero took over the running of the dealership that was left to his wife, Alberta...

...the Boccaleros sold their interests in the property to Johnson Fain last year... The sale is part of "a huge transformation" of real estate around Chinatown "to higher and better uses,"...

Architects Find Old Car Dealership Is Their Style
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