Author Archives: Nathan Marsak

The other day my buddy Bryan Moore (whose aunt you’ll remember from this post) sent me a link to a 1957 episode of Official Detective called “Pork Pie Hat.” Hey, he said, sure looks like Bunker Hill to me, but I’ll leave that up to your expert eye. Holy-freakin’ heck. It isn’t every day somethingContinue reading “Bunker Hill in “Official Detective””

Greetings! Though this is a Bunker Hill blog, I will on occasion cover tangentially-related subjects (like Chavez Ravine or Cooper Donuts, or even Disneyland), especially if there’s debunking to be done. Today’s debunking, though, is altogether unrelated to Bunker Hill. After being told for the millionth time that Roger Rabbit is a documentary, I’m finallyContinue reading “No, Everyone, there was No Los Angeles Streetcar Conspiracy”

Remember how I recently had the good fortune to uncover some previously unseen Astoria images? Well, something similarly rare and unknown just bubbled to the surface again, and it’s a doozy. An image was posted by famed Angels Flight operator Will on his saturdaystationagent Instagram account; you might remember my shout out to him andContinue reading “Incredible New Court Flight Image!”

Ok, I know this is really off the topic of Bunker Hill, and I am well aware there is zero reason to get worked up about something posted in the reeking cesspool that is TikTok. But I write about Chavez Ravine because of Bunker Hill, so now I’ll write about Disneyland because of Chavez Ravine,Continue reading “Disneyland Gets the Chavez Ravine Treatment”

There’s two weeks till Hallowe’en and it’s time to put your Hallowe’en gift-giving into overdrive! (Yes, I know, you’re mostly buying things for yourself, but who better deserves them?) Might I suggest a copy of Bunker Noir! It’s a true crime compendium replete with murder, suicide, bootleggers, serial killers, bar brawls, deadly fires, lizard men,Continue reading “Bunker Noir October Sale!”

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!Continue reading “New Astoria Images Emerge!”

Last post involved people I couldn’t identify, so, here I am doing that again. This time we’ve got a couple Kodachrome slides from August 1968, of a young couple outside the Courthouse (as seen on p. 17 of Marsak’s Guide to Bunker Hill) with a novelty sign: Naturally, my impulse was to go and shootContinue reading “Getting Hitched at the Courthouse, 1968”

I look at a lot of slides, hunting for images of Bunker Hill architecture. The Hill’s built environment had character, which was documented, fortunately, because photographers shot images of the Hill — especially in its declining days, so as to capture the area’s rich personality. Less evidenced in the photographic record are the Hill natives,Continue reading “Who is this Bunker Hill Fellow??”

Bunker Hill was, of course, featured in many a splendid noir picture. That (along with the Hill’s depiction in hardboiled prose) is the subject of Jim Dawson’s indispensable Los Angeles’s Bunker Hill: Pulp Fiction’s Mean Streets and Film Noir’s Ground Zero! (If you do not own this book, remedy that immediately.) Once in a greatContinue reading “Bunker Hill in “Abandoned””

Angels abound! This is the City of Angels, after all. And I do work at Angels Flight. It seems only fitting that I should become steward of the most magnificent of our angels. A fallen angel, at that. I speak, of course, about a Richfield Angel. Born at the high point of interbellum Los Angeles,Continue reading “I Got a Richfield Angel!”