I’ve always had a fondness for the Astoria:
The Astoria was, of course, featured prominently in one of my first posts for OnBunkerHill, about Robert Nixon and his fiendish visit there. The hotel was thereafter a key part in this expanded retelling from 2022, and naturally it showed up in both BHLA and Bunker Noir! —
But I feel bad that this handsome Mission Revival apartment-hotel is forever linked to Nixon and the grisly Worden murders. I always thought it would be nice to talk about the Astoria in a more general way…in a perfect world I’d find an image of the lobby, but I’d never hold out hope that that would happen.
Well…
So the other day I was on this really annoying Facebook post where people were looking at a normal Angels Flight image and insisting “this is AI!” and I had to disabuse them of that notion. Yes, I know, I have much better things to do, but, in performing this task I also noticed some fellow had mentioned “my grandfather ran a hotel up there at the top of Angels Flight called the Astoria” and, suffice it to say, that was Fortuna’s reward.
Because this fellow, Joe Orndorff, is the grandson of none other than Joseph Edward Harrigan, manager of the Astoria!
Naturally, I wrote and asked Mr. Orndorff if by any chance he had vintage images of his grandfather and/or the Astoria. Did he ever! Ladies and gentlemen, Astoria manager Joseph Edward Harrigan:
Joseph Edward Harrigan was born in Indiana on July 15 1880, the eldest of nine children, to Patrick Joseph Harrigan and Ellen (Bailey) Harrigan. The Harrigan family go back to County Offaly, Ireland, emigrating to America in the 1840s; his mother’s Bailey family are of English stock, and some of the first settlers of Virginia (1630s) and Maryland (1660s). Harrigan is standing, of course, riiiight there:
Isn’t that a great image of the Astoria? Which you’ve never seen before! Here it is in all its glory!
Here’s a shot of the Astoria lobby!
Where were these folk sitting, exactly? Well, you walk in the front door, turn right, and face south. The two windows at the right front on Olive:
And here is Joseph E. Harrigan’s daughter Helen (Joe Orndorff’s mother) bouncing her son/Joe’s brother Chris on the roof of the Astoria in 1941/42:
There’s the same fire escape —
But back to JE Harrigan:
Harrigan was, as mentioned above, an Indiana boy, born in Grass Creek, Fulton County, Indiana in July 1880 (or perhaps 1881, as it says on his draft paperwork). He moves to Butte, Montana and marries Helena in June 1909; he works for the Baxter Furniture Company. Helen is born to Joseph and Helena in 1915, and Harriet arrives in 1918. They move to Los Angeles about 1919, where he gets the job at the Astoria.
And right off the bat, he has to deal with unpleasantness:
In 1921 Joseph and Helena buy this nifty bungalow at 124 South Manhattan Place:
And they took trips — as a Santa Barbara native, I’m thrilled they toodled up the coast to my hometown:
In 1937, of course, Harrigan makes the papers across the country after the Worden murders.
Joseph Harrigan has a heart attack in 1944. Writes grandson Joe in a message to me: “In 1946, my mom — perhaps influenced by lurid film noir plot lines popular at the time — had him exhumed to see if he had been poisoned by some shady business associates. The coroner report, however, showed only heart disease.”
Helena lives at 124 South Manhattan Place until she passes, ten years later, in October 1954. The lovely home is demolished come 1956 in favor of an uninspired nine-unit dingbat.
But wait, there’s MORE Astoriana!
And that’s my post with all-new (to you and me, anyway) Astoria images. Thank you SO MUCH Mr. Orndorff for sharing your family’s wonderful Astoria history with us!!!
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But you know, as long as I’ve got you here…we all love Bunker Hill in the moving pictures (especially Angels Flight). The Astoria made some nifty appearances on the big screen — let’s look at some!
Bunker Hill, Los Angeles 