Category Archives: Uncategorized

While Bunker Hill was famously wiped clean, it does contain a small quantity of interesting archaeological sites. The telling soil contours at Second and Hill. A remaining bit of retaining wall at Fourth and Olive. Less known (or at least not as yet mentioned by me) is the retaining wall at Fourth and Hill. YouContinue reading “The Great Wall of Bunker Hill”

Googie architecture, in all its flamboyant space-age grandeur, has as its namesake the Lautner-designed 1949 Googies coffee shop at Sunset and Crescent Heights. There were four Googies in the coffee shop chain; the second of the four was designed by legendary coffee shop architects Armét & Davis, with all the atomic-era exuberance that had comeContinue reading “Bunker Hill GOOGIE!”

Gas up your jalopies, throw on your raccoon coat and make a beeline for USC—this Sunday!—where I’ll be beneath the statue of Tommy Trojan, signing books as part of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Among all that bibliomania, find the Angel City Press booth, #119, right here: Download your festival map here. SeeContinue reading “Book Signing!”

Last June I posted We Need to Talk About Cooper Do-Nuts regarding John Rechy and the famed, alleged uprising. Six months later theLAnd published this interview with Rechy wherein he states “There was no riot at Cooper’s.” Which is an important statement. Remember, Rechy is the sole, lone source of the story. It’s his story:Continue reading “Cooper’s Do-Nuts — Addenda”

You’re of course familiar with the Big Four—Crocker, Huntington, Hopkins and Stanford—well, the Big Five, actually, as people always forget Edwin Crocker, since he’s Charles’ brother. Similarly, when it comes to the great Bunker Hill photographers, there’s the Big Four—Hylen, Reagh, Connor and Hall—well, the Big Five, actually, as people always forget Nadel, since heContinue reading “Theodore Hall has a Finding Aid!”

How is it that, to go to the Greatest Los Angeles Film Festival of All Time, you have to go to Minneapolis? Proving once again that at being Los Angeles, we continually and embarrassingly fail. Thus, I lift a hefty Arbeiter Moneymaker and toast the greatness of Minneapolis, and the Trylon Cinema-in-conjunction-with-The Heights, the onlyContinue reading “Bunker Hill Film Festival!”

Europeans invented photography; it took Americans to perfect it, of course. It is therefore appropriate that a European immigrant/naturalized American produced a defining work in the medium, with a book titled, appropriately enough, The Americans. Robert Frank criss-crossed the United States in 1955-57, shooting some 27,000 images, famously capturing tensions of race and class againstContinue reading “Robert Frank Goes to Bunker Hill”

The gifting season is upon us! When you give unique and useful Christmas presents, you are remembered differently, because of the comfort they supply; they are as well every day reminders of your thought. So remember folks, for that historically-minded person on your list, Angeleno or no, they are sure to be pleased by theseContinue reading “The Gift of Bunker Hill Makes for a Merry Christmas Time!”

Bunker Noir! details the crime and vice that occurred on the Hill, as well as all manner of dark goings-on: fires, car wrecks, cryptids, train derailments…up to and including its oddball architecture, specifically the roadside vernacular to be had in the early-1930s olde-tymie log cabins built by Kenneth Bemis for his White Log Coffee ShopContinue reading “The White Log at Fifth and Flower”

There are those folk who are Bunker Hill royalty, their noble lineage descended from Old Bunker Hill. You are of course familiar with Gordon Pattison, he of royal blood. Back when a group of us were writing for OnBunkerHill (which is how we met monarch Gordon), Kim Cooper thought it prudent to come up withContinue reading “The Bunker Hill Bookie”