Is Foresaken Caretaker Haunting His Former Little Tokyo Church?
LOS ANGELES, CA — A young actress was peeved after reading for a theater role at the Union Center for the Arts in the Little Tokyo neighborhood in Los Angeles. The audition was supposed to be "closed." But a particular spectator proved distracting, she complained to the director.
"Why was that old man standing in the balcony?" she asked.
But the audition was, indeed, closed to outsiders. And there was no old man in the balcony.
Or was there?
The arts center building, home to theater troupe East West Players, dates to the 1920s when it was the Union Church, until congregants relocated in the 1970s. The Judge John Aiso Street site then began a two-decade plummet into decay, until its restoration and transformation into the arts facility in the late 1990s.
But at least one individual, according to local legend, never recovered when his congregation abandoned him and his beloved church aged less-than-gracefully — the elderly caretaker. He may have passed on, but does his presence remain?
"Some people think the old caretaker felt sad," said Bill Watanabe, one of the founders of the Little Tokyo Historical Society.
And the auditioning actress is not the only one to have possibly encountered his spirit, he said.
An actor named Kennedy once removed an earring, placing it on the vanity in the backstage dressing room when he heard his name whispered repeatedly. After confirming that no one was calling him, he sat back down only to be hit hard on the head by the earring — that somehow seemed to drop from the ceiling, Watanabe said.
And there are other mysterious incidents, he said, such as the time video tapes flew from a bookcase during a staff meeting of four or five people in the basement. "Not falling," Watanabe added. "Flying."
On Saturday, Watanabe will host the "Virtual Ghost Tour of Little Tokyo," with the old Union Church featured as one of the locales with a paranormal past. Other tour spots with spooky stories will include the Sperl Building on First Street and the Japanese American National Museum on North Central Avenue.
The online format will include a bevy of such guests with firsthand, ghostly tales to tell as Tony Sperl, the Sperl Building owner, and Kennedy, the actor with the eerie earring encounter.
"These are people who were there," Watanabe said. "They will say what happened. They saw it."
Watanabe began organizing walking ghost tours of Little Tokyo during the Halloween season four years ago. But this year, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the event is revamped as an online extravaganza. It is suitable for all ages.
To join Saturday's "Virtual Ghost Tour of Little Tokyo" Zoom call, follow this link. The event begins at 5 p.m., and tickets are $10.
This article originally appeared on the Los Angeles Patch
