Author Archives: Nathan Marsak

As detailed in my last post, there’s a new book about old LA coming to stores near you (does it have Bunker Hill in it? Of course!)… And to celebrate, this Saturday March 22nd, we’re having a party! Why should you come to this party? I’ll give you five reasons! It’s at the Central Library.Continue reading “Come to the Book Launch!”

Greetings, friends! I began this blog in advance of the 2020 publication of Bunker Hill, Los Angeles. Since then I’ve self-published a couple more books about Bunker Hill — Bunker Noir! and Marsak’s Guide to Bunker Hill — and now it’s time to announce the new book from Angel City Press! (And believe it orContinue reading “Huge News! New Book! “Los Angeles Before the Freeways””

Everyone loves the boom-era mansions of Bunker Hill, which we know primarily through images shot as they neared their demolition, photographed in the 1950s and 60s by the likes of Hylen, Reagh, Conner, et al. More rare and important are those images captured of a house in its early years. Luckily, many of the mostContinue reading “The Weller House”

Happy Washington’s Birthday! Washington’s birthday is, of course, on the 22nd, but has, since 1971, been celebrated the third Monday of February. (Which is today, so happy Washington’s Birthday, and before you say “don’t you mean Presidents’ Day?” be advised I do not, because there is no such thing as Presidents’ Day.) What does GeorgeContinue reading “George Washington on Bunker Hill”

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all movies with Bunker Hill in them are better than others, that they are endowed by their creators to have lots of Bunker Hill in them, that among these include Angels Flight, Bunker Hill Avenue, and some pretty rare stuff once in a while. ************ Let’s lookContinue reading “The Shadow on the Window”

My buddy Bryan is a cool guy. He sculpts busts of Edgar Allen Poe and Bram Stoker and H. P. Lovecraft, and then makes Lovecraftian films. Plus he has a giant African sulcata. Oh, and drives a 1961 hearse (the mark of greatness indeed! …or so says the man who drove one himself). Should youContinue reading “Sally Brown at the Avalon Apartments”

Part I is here. Part II is here. As a teen in the 1980s I sat through no small quantity of “youth culture” pictures. Most were terrible. Some were great (Repo Man); some were so-bad-they’re-great (Valley Girl); and some were objectively terrible, and yet absolute genius (Surf II). Some were a cut above, like 1984’sContinue reading “Bunker Hill of the Comet: Bunkerpocalypse, Pt. III”

Part I, detailing the evacuated, Venusian-menaced Bunker Hill of 1954 in Target Earth, is here. People who own Marsak’s Guide to Bunker Hill have sometimes asked how did you get all those shots of Bunker Hill devoid of any sign of life? In my years of architectural photography I have worked to shoot structures withContinue reading “Bunkerpocalypse! Part II”

One of the benefits of loving Bunker Hill is seeing the area depicted on screen. Bunker Hill appeared in early comedies, and later, in television programs, but the Hill is best known for its supporting role in all those moody postwar films noir. Bunker Hill-in-the-movies is of course covered in Bunker Hill, Los Angeles, andContinue reading “Bunker Hill in the Apocalypse”

Three years ago today, I published this post, Robert Frank Goes to Bunker Hill. The most recent issue of photography ‘zine Dog Food is Robert Frank-themed, wonderful in general, but includes a particularly nifty spread called “Anatomy of a Shooting on Bunker Hill” excerpted from my post: If you’re a completist and collect all thingsContinue reading “Robert Frank/Bunker Hill in Dog Food”