Bunker Hill, Los Angeles

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!!!

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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!

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!

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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.

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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.

I’ve written a lot about Cooper Donuts.  Reading all of it, though, can be a bit of an exercise, with its 10,000 words stretched out over five separate blog posts (We Need to Talk About Cooper Do-Nuts, Cooper’s Do-Nuts—Addenda, Cooper Do-Nuts Pt. III, Cooper Do-Nuts…AGAIN, and Cooper Do-Nuts FINALE — six blog posts, if you count the bit I added to Checking In on the Bunk). 

I decided, therefore, to distill the salient points into one piece.  As it’s a bit long I figured that rather than run it here, I’ll upload it elsewhere, so you may read it off-site.

I hope it answers any Cooper questions you might have. I devised it as such: what if you and I went to dinner and discussed the whole shebang?  Sort of a My Dinner with Andre where you’re Wallace Shawn and I explain Cooper Do-Nuts Square to you. Now granted that might sound like the worst date ever, but you have to admit you’re curious about how our conversation goes.

The lights dim, the curtain rises…

→→ click here ←←

(And if it fails to answer your questions, or you’ve something to add, please don’t hesitate to contact me.)

Let’s talk the lobbies of Bunker Hill! Of course there’s no returning to the Melrose or Trenton or Fremont, so you’ll have to content yourself with the modern lobbies of post-redevelopment Bunker Hill. You’ve likely been inside some of Bunker Hill’s more important and sublime interiors, like the Music Center; other lobbies are well-documented online, like the Bonaventure; or were one of the few to appear in Marsak’s Guide to Bunker Hill (e.g., the O’Melveny & Myers Tower).

But as you sit with your copy of Marsak’s Guide to Bunker Hill and gaze upon the Hill’s contemporary structures do you not often think I should actually go in there, and see what those granite-clad 1980s corporate lobbies look like!

Ok, maybe you’ve never thought that, but, I would be remiss in my duties as the purveyor of all things Bunker Hill to not show you what you were missing. Of course nothing can replace the actual educational and inspirational opportunity of visiting a space yourself, basking in its grandeur and engaging all your senses in the physical environment…but you know what, until that time, here are some photographs:

Now with all this talk about visiting lobbies, and the mentions made of Marsak’s Guide to Bunker Hill, perhaps you should get a copy of MGtBH to use as your guidebook for L.A.’s Museum of Modernism—

—and should you wish to obtain one of your own, all the relevant information can be found by clicking here.

And then, on to Bunker Hill!