From the outside, the low-slung, white concrete building huddled underneath the Beverly Boulevard bridge looked like any other building in its industrial area just west of downtown, adorned with razor wire and a forbidding exterior.
Inside, as an elderly man wielded a marionette, the place's distinction became apparent. Bob Baker slowly tilted his hands this way and that, pulling on a series of delicate strings. And as he did, the 55-year-old puppet -- itself almost a senior citizen -- a black crow decked out in a straw hat, white jacket with red piping and matching tie, began to dance the Charleston.
Behind wire-rimmed glasses, Baker's eyes lit up as he worked, a peppermint pink polo shirt and gray hair framing his smile. "Ha, ha, ha," he whispered, in a syncopated rhythm. The crow's eyes darted open and closed, and its claws seemed to jive to the unheard music. And then, Baker moved his hands again. The crow jumped to his grand finish, and Baker exhaled: "Yeah, man!"
The Bob Baker Marionette Theater is a place that is both magical and earth-bound. Operating from the corner of 1st Street and Glendale Boulevard just west of downtown Los Angeles for 49 years, it is a vestige of childhoods lived, where vegetables dance to old vaudeville tunes and musical instruments dance and jump across a black box theater festooned with crystal chandeliers.
But it's also been struggling for years, trying to eke out an existence on $15-a-head admission, amid the fickle nature of children's passions.
Last week, reports began circulating that the theater was in trouble. A manager sent out an e-mail saying that Baker had been the victim of "an elaborate mortgage fraud operation bent on stealing his theater and home" and asked fans of the theater help pay nearly $30,000 in past due mortgage payments on the two buildings. If the funds weren't raised, the manager said, the buildings would be sold "and Bob and his thousands of puppets will be homeless."
Real estate records showed that the building had been put up for sale for $1.5 million, with the property "priced for a fast sale" and the seller "looking for a short escrow."
News organizations and blogs quickly picked up on the news as a sign that the theater's closure was imminent.
In an interview this week, the man behind the puppet theater said that's not quite the case.
"I've got too many things planned," Baker said. "I'm not quitting now."
