Bunker Hill, Los Angeles

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 and the good work he was doing posting oodles of Angels Flight clips.

Point being, he posted this ca. 1935 image:

HOLY CARPS! A vintage interior of Court Flight!

Of course we all know and love Angels Flight, of which there exist vintage interior images —

But until this moment I’ve never seen an image inside Court Flight.

Court Flight, of course, was Bunker Hill’s other funicular. It was built by the Observation Tower Company in 1904/5 and ran until 1943. The best online account of its history is by Christina Rice and can be found at the OnBunkerHill site, and naturally it gets a full page in the book Bunker Hill, Los Angeles. See the esteemed Ms. Rice discuss Court Flight in this video at 5:08 —

But have you ever seen an image of the interior of Court Flight? NEITHER HAVE I.

Where did this image come from? I don’t know! I wrote Will and he said he got it off the internet, but forgot to note where, and now, should you perform a reverse google image search, nothing comes up.

Did you look at the Court Flight image and immediately think “huh, what, huh? that’s Angels Flight” — can’t blame you if you did! Here’s a comparison of the Court Flight car to the Angels Flight car.

Nearly identical; that’s because both cars are from the able hand of the same man: Leopold Suck.

Leopold Suck was born in in Chicago in 1857 to his German-born parents Justus and Theresa (Ruttencutter) Suck. He came to Los Angeles about 1885 and worked as a carpenter and contractor. In 1903 he built a one-story brick building at 316 East Second Street, which served as his place of business, from which he did all sorts of small homes, façade remodelings, and building additions. He died in 1944 (possibly from heartbreak, having seen Court Flight go up in flames in 1943).

The Angels Flight cars are obviously his work, given their similarities. While there’s no contemporary smoking gun proving he designed the Angels Flight cars, his daughter’s testimony is pretty convincing:

“Wait,” you say, “he built the Angels Flight cars about 1900 but built some more in 1904? Huh?” Fair question. So, a quick history of the Angels Flight cars, as long as you’re here:

The first cars, from the Flight’s debut on Dec. 31, 1901, were basically an open box with a wee roof atop —

But then in November 1903, when the grade was made uniform via lifting the flight up onto an elevated trestle — Angels Flight got new cars, which looked like this:

I would assert that these 1903 cars are the cars we use today. The waters get muddied a bit because the papers inform us, in August 1910, that the Flight got “new cars.”

I am of the opinion that the Herald is wrong. There was a lot of newness in 1910, to be sure: a brand new arched waiting station at the bottom, a large new station house up top. I believe Eddy hired someone — possibly, and probably Leo Suck — not to build new cars, but to give the existing cars a redo. The windows were made into ovals (I think this was via a cutout applied to the square glass, since the oval window treatment didn’t last through the end of the ’20s, and the windows were returned to their original square) and the top end of each car was extended to add an open-air “smoker’s seats.”

My favorite part of Court Flight interior image are the wonderful mirrors. Naturally you’d need to check your hair and makeup before alighting the vehicle!

Today those mirrors wouldn’t last two minutes before being carved up by jerkweeds (in the manner of an Angels Flight window, for example).

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Hope you have enjoyed this post! Many thanks to the mysterious Internet for providing the Court Flight image, and to Will for posting it. Here’s to many more Bunker Hill finds!

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, making Disneyland the dopey, ungainly cousin of Bunker Hill. And away we go:

I began writing about Chavez Ravine (e.g. this/this/this) because the story shared similarities with Bunker Hill (government removes the poor and disenfranchised “for their own good” etc.). I kept at it largely because the Chavez story gatekeepers were so shameless in their continued production and promulgation of lies.  The Influencer Class and their agenda-setting, narrative-shaping output factory simultaneously repels and fascinates.

Ergo, I’m going to harp on another Chavez-flavored example related to, of all places, Disneyland. This TikTok —

@erasedcalifornia

They called it progress. But in the 1950’s, entire Latino families were forced out to make room for Disneyland- no compensation, no justice. This is what they don’t teach you in history class. #californiahistoryunfiltered #erasedhistory #latinohistory #ushistory #californiahistory #mexicanamericanhistory #thisisamerica #disneylandtruth #anaheim #tiktokhistory

♬ A ballad with piano and strings, inspired by ghost towns and abandoned buildings(1206646) – Yasu

— has had 150,000 views, with nearly 15,000 likes and 11,000 shares. It got shared on Instagram and garnered another 3,000 likes. It involves the story of how, before Disneyland, a bunch of land in Anaheim was a “thriving Latino neighborhood” until “the city seized the land through eminent domain” after which “entire communities were bulldozed without any compensation.” So yes, I’m here to talk about it today, because it’s the exact same (purported) story as Chavez Ravine.

The Chavez Ravine story, though, at least has a kernel of truth at its core (progressive politicians did, in fact, use eminent domain to extirpate the communities there). But the Disneyland story, as shoehorned into the Chavez narrative, is just stupidly, laughably false. 

If you chose not to watch the video, here’s a transcript:

They built the happiest place on earth by destroying someone else’s. Before Disneyland, a thriving Latino neighborhood existed here. It was filled with homes, families, and orange groves. These were passed down through generations. But in the 1950s, the city seized the land through eminent domain. They claimed it was for public use, but then sold it to Walt Disney. Entire communities were bulldozed without any compensation, no memorial, and no plaque in the park. Families who once lived there now buy tickets to walk on the land they lost. Today, millions visit the park, yet almost no one knows what was here before. This story isn’t just about Disneyland; it’s about how American progress continues to erase communities of color. Disneyland calls itself the happiest place on earth, but for the original residents, it marked the day everything changed. Comment if this was never included in your history class. Follow for the stories they attempted to bury. Share if someone needs to hear this. 

This is all a con. A fraud. The deceitful contentions are as real as their adjoining images, which were spat out in AI — here for example is a “photo” of the now-destroyed “thriving Latino neighborhood” —

— and again, yes, I know that attempting to counter TikTok’s perfidy-peddling propagandists is a fool’s errand (so I’ll try to make this quick and we can get back to the posting of cool Bunker Hill stuff). Anyway:

Come with me back in time and examine the land through aerials. Here are today’s boundaries of Disneyland, as bordered by Walnut, Ball, Harbor, and Katella —

And here’s Walnut/Ball/Harbor/Katella in 1960, five years after the park opened:

And the same area in 1953, two years before the park opened:

What do you notice? It’s all orange groves. Nothing remotely related to “neighborhoods” and “entire communities” as erasedcalifornia so sternly states.

“But but but,” you say, “the families who owned those orange groves were Latino and they had their land stolen!” Nope. We actually know who the families were who voluntarily sold their land to Disney (selling the land being the exact opposite of erasedcalifornia’s narrative that “the city seized the land through eminent domain. They claimed it was for public use, but then sold it to Walt Disney. Entire communities were bulldozed without any compensation“) and here are their names:

“Ok yeah but” you say, “all the owners were of European descent but LOOK! Dominguez! THERE’S a Mexican name! THEY definitely had their land stolen! Then their farmhouse was bulldozed!” Nope again. The Dominguez family had a ten-acre lot (which is 6.25% of Disney’s 160-acre purchase) and on that lot was a farmhouse:

And not only did the Dominguez family sell their land voluntarily, but Walt Disney saved their 1,300 square-foot 1920s farmhouse, where it stands in Disneyland to this day.

Oh, and it gets better. So not only did the sole Latino people involved in Disney’s Anaheim land deal not have their house seized, and not only was it not bulldozed, but their palm tree was saved, too:

This Canary Island Date Palm was planted in 1896 by Timothy Carroll, Anaheim’s first horticulturalist, for that ten-acre tract’s landowner, Wyran Knowlton. In 1920 Knowlton’s daughter Laura Irene Knowlton married Pablo Vincent Dominguez, which is how the ten acres “became” a Dominguez property. Pablo (who went by Paul) & Laura built the little house in 1925, in which their son Ronald Dominguez was born in 1935.

And it gets better still: not only was the young Ron Dominguez not “run out” of his property in 1954, but after the park opened he walked into the personnel office and applied to be a ticket-taker. Over the course of an illustrious 40-year career there, he was promoted to the position of Executive Vice President of Walt Disney Attractions. So while “erasedcalifornia” insists they are being “erased”… the only Hispanic folk (well, half-Hispanic, since the Knowltons came from England and helped settle the Massachusetts Bay Colony) that could have possibly been erased sold their land to Disney, who kept the Dominguez home, kept the Dominguez tree, AND honored Dominguez with a window on Main Street, when he retired in 1994:

So, if the entirety of erasedcalifornia’s story is such easily disprovable poppycock, why did they put time and energy into making the video? Apparently it was just to fan the flames of racist hatred. Among the thousands of comments on the Instagram and TikTok post are many like these —

The comments go on an expand from there, into anti-American, anti-capitalist invective. Hey, you wanna be a racist communist that hates America, you do you, baby. Knock yourself out. But piece of advice, try to have an argument that’s at least based in some minuscule semblance of fact.

Perhaps it’s less that people need to be America-hating racists, than it is some people’s need to crap on anything fun. I’m sure that’s enormously psychologically gratifying, though in the end being a toxic gaslighter does one more harm than good. So hey, erasedcalfornia and your ilk, along with finding some stories with truth to them, get some therapy.

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, and most terrifying of all, building demolitions!

And it’s ON SALE! Regularly $30, it’s now a scant $20. Buy it on eBay, or on Amazon, but bear in mind you’ll be paying taxes and shipping that’ll send it north of twenty bucks. However, toss me $20 via Paypal (marsakster@gmail.com) or Venmo (@Hugo-Eckener) and (please make sure I have your mailing address) I’ll eat the taxes AND the postage!

Here are some SATISFIED CUSTOMERS!

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As long as we’re on the subject of spooky stuff, might I further suggest you purchase some ’tis-the-season sundries from Morguewear? They carry all the whatnot you need in life — shirts, pillows, coffee mugs, candles, notebooks — but conveniently emblazoned with vintage graphics advertising caskets, hearses, embalming fluid, and other fun stuff.

Take a look at their wares, here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/Morguewear

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!!!

**********

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!

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 shoot the same spot today:

(What can I say, I like then-n-now photography.)

I was moved to post the images of this couple, in part, due to how much they remind me of my aunt and uncle, Olivia & Andy.

A true Pasadena Love Story: Alec Andrew Johnson (my mother’s brother) was shopping at Whistle Stop Trains on Colorado one day in 1966, and immediately fell in love with the gal behind the counter. They got hitched in May 1967 at Westminster Presbyterian on Lake. And yes, after 58 years, they’re still together!

So I like to think these unnamed two from our 1968 Hill Street slides are similarly blessed with long life and marriage. If you know who they are, let me know!

Oh, and as long as we’re on the subject of letting me know stuff…one of you certainly knows who designed these:

We all know the monumental terracotta Courthouse sculptures by Albert Stewart and Donal Hord but what about these guys?

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, who also had character, and no lack of personality:

I was combing through some random Los Angeles slides when this collection of six caught my eye and I exclaimed “holy heck! That’s 244 South Bunker Hill! And who is this guy?!”

The first question being, when we these shot? When you’ve got a pile of slides, their dates are often stamped on the mounts (but sometimes not, in which case if you’re lucky someone wrote “Uncle Bill, April ’61” on them or something). Or you may deduce their approximate age by their mounts. However, in this case, these slides had been rehoused in blank modern plastic slide mounts.

But, here’s a clue. This, for example, is a 1959 Cadillac—

—so the shots postdate autumn ’58, and 244 South Bunker Hill Ave. was demolished about mid-1964.

244 South Bunker Hill Avenue is notable for being the first Bunker Hill structure to be purchased by the Community Redevelopment Agency:

This was, of course, discussed on page 68 of Bunker Hill, Los Angeles:

The house had been built in 1891 by Henry LaRue Crittenden, Los Angeles branch manager of Liebig’s World Dispensary (Liebig’s was a famous purveyor of nostrums, most notably “invigorating” tonics made from beef extract and alcohol). Henry, wife Lena, and daughter Elsie began renting out rooms after the financial crash of February 1893. The elder Crittenden died of bronchitis, aged 61, in December 1894, and the property became a rooming house proper soon after.

Now let’s look at these kooky pix —

The above image shows neighbor-to-the-south 246 South Bunker Hill Ave. 246, the former Ira Smith house, is notable for having been during its final years the home of Rose-the-Cat-Lady, immortalized by Leo Politi in his book of Bunker Hill watercolors (seen here, with the original, at LAPL Central) and in my book Bunker Hill, Los Angeles.

The question remains, of course, who was this guy? Who were both of them, in their dirty trousers and whisky-soaked shirts? I have no idea. I checked phone books from the era; there was an Edith Marshall in Apt. 6 at 244, but no fellas listed. (Believe it or not, kids, once upon a time not everyone had a phone.)

Then I checked the newspapers for any mention of 244. Interestingly, there are two obituaries from between 1958 and 1964 that raise an eyebrow —

Maybe? But Frank Donovan was, according to FindAGrave, 91 years of age when he passed. Neither these guys in photos strike me as nearing their nineties.

Now we’re talking. According to FindAGrave, Greene was 65 when he passed. Either of these fellows — especially Mr. Beard — have the look of a hard-worn 65, and nearing the end. Unfortunately, the usual digging in Ancestry, FamilySearch, and various newspapers yielded nothing more about the elusive Mr. Greene, save that he was born in Ireland, and his mother was clan Ryan. He as well had two brothers, Joseph and Martin; perhaps these two photographed men are brothers? Of course it’s just as likely this deceased Greene character was simply one of the other boarders there at 244. Or for all we know neither of the characters pictured here even lived at 244.

Will we ever know? You tell me! Heck, these could be your great-uncles! Spread the word and let’s unravel this mystery. If you’ve any input, leave a comment below, or contact me.

POSTSCRIPT: Almost immediately after I posted this on the 10th inst., esteemed researcher Ronald Bodtcher linked to (in his comment below) the 1960 Los Angeles County Great Register: Los Angeles City Precincts 301-650. Therein can be found the listing for Precinct 942, which was the west side of the 200 block of Bunker Hill Avenue, and the east side of the 200 block of Grand Avenue (which looked like this).

In said voter rolls, we can find the listings for four people who inhabited 244 SBHA:

…a Thomas Foust, a Thomas McDonald, and a Thomas Walsh (evidently it’s required you be named Thomas to lodge at 244, unless you’re a lady, like Edith Marshall). Mr. Bodtcher notes in his comment there’s a Frank Walsh at 223 South Grand (behind 244 to the east) and posits, could they not be brothers, engaged in some roughhousing together, or perhaps with one of the other Thomases?

Will we ever know? It may seem a fatuous ask, but — if I make it to the Father’s House — don’t think I won’t query the King of Kings about this fellow. I may even meet him there!

***

Oh, and while we’re on the subject of the Hill’s denizens, check out these kids making zines about old Bunker Hill! They’re part of Bunker Hill Refrain, who recently put out this absolutely incredible video about the Hildreth/Hopecrest.

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 great while a heretofore unknown (to me, at least, and not in Jim’s book) example-of-Bunker-Hill-in-cinema pops up: in this case it’s Bunker Hill’s brief appearance in Abandoned, a 1949 Universal picture about black market baby rings.

I would never have known Bunker Hill made an appearance in Abandoned had I not dug up an interior shot of the Biltmore Theater squirreled away in my collection of Los Angeles negatives. When I looked up the Biltmore’s entry on Bill Counter’s wonderful Los Angeles Theaters blog, there was Gale Storm walking up Grand! (I have a particular fondness for Storm, since a poster from one of her pictures hangs in my upstairs hallway. Plus her name is Gale Storm, I mean, c’mon.)

Anyway, at 28:26 Storm and Dennis O’Keefe (click here) are walking north on Grand Avenue, between Fifth and Fourth:

See the sign next to O’Keefe’s shoulder? That’s a neon blade reading “Sherwood Apt’s” which can be seen at 10:59 in Bunker Hill 1956:

A return shot can be seen in 1955’s Target Earth:

Note in the Target Earth image above, to the north of the Sherwood (read about Sherwood resident, the doomed starlet Helen Lee Worthing, here), is a rounded tower and a scalloped parapet. That’s the Granada:

They then walk up to the Granada—

Then there’s this nifty return shot ↑ of Raymond Burr spying on the two. It was shot with rear projection: the actual across-the-street structure at 414 South Grand was an apartment house called the Boyd, which contained no commercial space:

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, silent protector of us all, until cast to earth by the pernicious hand of progress. And now, it is my duty to protect him.

What is a Richfield Angel? Our story begins in 1876, up near Newhall, when the first gusher was brought in at the Pico Canyon oilfield. California oil strikes continued; Union Oil was formed in Santa Paula in 1890. In 1892 Edward Doheny struck oil just west of downtown Los Angeles, and from there, Southern California became one of the world’s great oil-producing regions. Countless hydrocarbon concerns sprung up including, in 1911, the Richfield Oil Company.

Through the 1920s oil companies built mammoth Los Angeles office buildings for their headquarters (I wrote a piece for DTLAX Magazine on the subject back in 2009) —

—but what do you notice about these edifices? Pretty standard Beaux Arts massing, all rough-hewn stone and neoclassical decorative elements. Sure, the California Petroleum Building has a setback tower, but it’s still replete with Spanish Gothic ornament.

Richfield Oil was having none of it. They needed to build an HQ, and it was going to express modernity. Richfield was known for its high-quality gasolines, as favored by race car drivers; Richfield showcased sculptures of streamlined race cars as advertising. Similarly, the company knew that the greatest advertisement would be a remarkable Art Deco building that declared this is the future.

So in 1927 they bought the northwest corner of Sixth and Flower streets, then called up the architectural firm of Morgan, Walls & Clements and said “hey! You got that Stiles Clements fellow there, he’s good! Give us something amazing!” And this is what Clements came up with:

That’s right, an Art Deco height-limit skyscraper, done in black and gold (get it? Black gold?) with a giant neon tower intended to evoke a derrick.

And ringing the top of the structure were forty of these fellows:

Needless to say, the Richfield Building was far too wonderful to exist in this world of ours. After a scant forty years, it had to be torn down. (There’s so much more to be said about the Richfield, and, if inclined, you may learn more than you ever wished to know by watching my lecture on the subject, though be forewarned its picture and sound leave much to be desired.)

During demolition, Cleveland Wrecking removed the angels and hauled them to their yard, where they were available to the public at $100 a pop. People carted them off become yard ornaments. A vast number of them disappeared.

Naturally, I’ve always wanted one (well, I’ve always wanted ten, but would content myself with one). I did manage to get a couple of the Richfield’s upper floor elevator indicators, from the son of a guy who’d worked the demolition:

But still, an angel eluded me. A couple of my friends had them! Eric Lynxwiler (who designed Bunker Hill, Los Angeles and Before the Freeways) and Rory Cunningham (past president of the Art Deco Society of Los Angeles) were both proud owners:

Then about a month ago, I was contacted by Margot Gerber, Executive Director of the Art Deco Society. The conversation went something like this:

Margot: Hi, so, I was just contacted by a woman whose uncle recently passed, and—

Me: —and he had a Richfield angel and I need to go get it!

Margot: Huh? How did you know?

Me: BECAUSE I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS CALL FOR THIRTY YEARS

I get in touch with the woman, who is absolutely lovely, and who is thrilled the angel would go to a good home. Her uncle, Donald Ray Alexander, was born in 1933 and had been, for many decades, a court reporter downtown; in his younger life he had worked for Texaco, so, there’s an oil connection. Nothing is known about when or how he came into possession of his angel, other than it was now at the Silver Lake home he’d purchased in 1979. Did he buy the angel from Cleveland Wrecking in 1969 and relocate it there a decade later? Or was it there when he moved in?

Whatever its history, it was coming home with me. This wasn’t a matter of simply loading it into the back of your SUV — at about 900 pounds, you’re looking at a professional moving company with a liftgate truck. I went through a couple of companies before I found one willing to tackle the task, but, a few days ago, it happened:

In his new home:

Obviously, he’s going to need a custom plinth built, one that will angle him back a bit so he’s not staring at the earth. Staring at the earth was, of course, his original purpose, but that was back when he was being viewed by people from a hundred feet below:

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I came to be the current steward of this magnificent beast. I know what you’re saying…that belongs in a museum! I don’t disagree, but we’re not there yet. There are two dozen major cities who have museums dedicated to their city’s history and culture — heck, New York alone has two. Maybe someday we’ll get there. Until then, what remaining years I have will be spent caring for this incredibly important fellow.

*****

Oh, one last thing, in case you’re thinking “hey, this blog is about Bunker Hill! The Richfield wasn’t on Bunker Hill!” You are correct, of course, but I’d say that the Richfield was an important touchstone in the community consciousness of Hill dwellers. Gordon Pattison, who grew up on the Hill, remembers well its looming presence, and the marvelous animated letters lighting up the “derrick” in the night.

Here, then, are some images that detail the Richfield’s proximity and relationship to Bunker Hill:

The Richfield shares its sad fate with Bunker Hill, being demolished in 1969 — same year the last two Bunker Hill houses got torched, and Angels Flight was dismantled.

The Richfield is enormously important in having galvanized our preservation movement. Its 1969 loss is roughly akin to New York’s 1963 demolition of Pennsylvania Station, which prompted widespread outrage and a renewed appreciation for architectural heritage. When Angelenos talk about the most lamented of our lost landmarks, the Richfield usually tops the list (there’s a reason it made the cover of Cindy Olnick’s L.A. Landmarks Lost and Almost Lost). Demolition permits were pulled for the Pellissier Building/Wiltern Theater twice in the late 1970s; the prospect of losing another Clements-designed ZigZag Moderne tower lit a fire under the nascent Los Angeles Conservancy.

So if there’s a silver lining to her demolition, it’s that.

Well, two silver linings: now I have a Richfield Angel.

Norman Chandler gave me a ring on the Ameche and said “Marsak! Our best man from City Desk is on his way to the Whizbang Lounge to interview you! Be at your booth by 11:00am sharp!” and I always do what a Chandler tells me, so, here are the results—

Read it for yourself by clicking here:

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2025-06-03/los-angeles-before-the-freeways-nathan-marsak-photos-architecture

This Sunday! The Los Angeles City Historical Society presents yours truly, as part of the Marie Northrop Lecture Series; LACHS cosponsors with the History Department of Central Library.

I’ll be talking all about Arnold Hylen’s curious life, the process of chasing down lost archives, the genesis of America’s post-Panic of ’93 visual language, and much more! More importantly, so many pretty pictures on the big screen.

Don’t forget your library card — $1 flat rate all-day parking under the library! See you there!

For more information about the event, click here.