Bunker Hill, Los Angeles

Fresh on the heels of this Instagram post, a nifty KCRW piece hit the airwaves this morning:

https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/kcrw-features/before-freeways

Check it out!

And while I have you here—

—I want to thank everyone who came out last Saturday to the book launch! We had a time!

Los Angeles Before the Freeways is officially out-and-in-stores as of this morning. Go grab yours! And if you do not as yet own Bunker Hill, Los Angeles, grab that too!

And if you want to know more about Bunker Hill — specifically, its less savory aspects — might I suggest you pick up the quaint and colorful compendium of crime that is Bunker Noir!

And should you wish to know what structures exist on the Hill at this very moment, I heartily advise you pick up Marsak’s Guide to Bunker Hill!

To buy Bunker Noir! please click here

To buy Marsak’s Guide to Bunker Hill please click here

If you want to buy both? Get both for $40. That’s like a $10 savings! And remember, if you send me money through Venmo, be sure to include your mailing address.

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There’s a terrific review of the book by Local News Pasadena‘s Robert Savino Oventile—

—which you may read by clicking here:

https://localnewspasadena.com/2025/picturing-history-in-las-architecture/

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Then, in HeySoCal! —

Click →→ https://heysocal.com/2025/03/10/book-los-angeles-before-the-freeways-captures-images-of-lost-architectural-gems/ ←← here!

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And check out this article in The Eastsider by clicking here!

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. LAPL Central is a breathtaking structure with some of the most sublime interior spaces in the world. Perhaps you’re yet to see the Leo Politi exhibit, or the No Prior Art show (which features patent models and quack medical devices, and if that isn’t a good time, I don’t know what is).

There will be snacks! The invite reads “light refreshments” (I have no idea what that means, though I assume LAPL has rejected my suggestion of étouffée paired with a good Spätlese) so you won’t go hungry.

Be the first to get the book, fresh out of the shrinkwrap and signed to you no less. (And if you need to pick up a copy of the Bunker Hill book, there are signed copies at the library gift shop.)

Parking is easy and cheap. I’m sure you’re thinking ugh, if I go downtown I’ll have to pay $18 to stackpark in some surface lot but no! Parking in the structure under the library is a snap, and Saturday parking is a one dollar flat rate. (Provided you have a library card, which, of course, you do. But if not, go here; you’ve got two weeks.)

Last but not least, there will be me, presenting a nifty slideshow all about Hylen, his book, and the architectural styles contained therein, which you may watch from the plush confines of the Mark Taper Auditorium.

…and if there were a sixth reason, it would be that you could make a day of it downtown, taking in the area’s other wonders, like Angels Flight, Grand Central Market, the Bradbury Building, the Beaux-Arts marvels of Spring and Broadway, etc. Heck, bring along your copy of Before the Freeways as some sort of phantom Thomas Guide of lost L.A.! Then go have drinks in the revolving Bonaventure bar—you know the drill.

At this point you exclaim where do I sign?! Right here, is where:

That’s right, register above or click the Eventbrite link here.

See you there!

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 or not, it’s not about Bunker Hill! …though y’know, it does have vintage Bunker Hill in it…)

Announcing Los Angeles Before the Freeways!

Though strictly speaking it’s not my book: it was written by a fellow named Arnold Hylen. Hylen had taken a lot of pictures downtown in the 1950s and 60s, compiling his images and research into his 1976 Bunker Hill, A Los Angeles Landmark and 1981’s Los Angeles Before the Freeways: 1850-1950 Images of an Era, both published by Dawson’s Books.

Bunker Hill and Freeways had very limited press runs — 500 and 600 copies, respectively — so finding them can be tough and paying for them even worse:

So I thought it would be a cool idea to ferret out Hylen’s remaining family, acquire the negatives and publishing rights, and get these books in the hands of hungry historians. The Bunker Hill book turned into something larger, of course, but Freeways…that is being republished now as a standalone, and I won’t be modest on this point: this new version is amazing.

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So, how does this new edition differ from the 1981 original? A few standouts—

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The book will be out, officially, on March 25th. We’re having a big launch party at Central Library on March 22nd, so….COME TO THE LAUNCH PARTY! There will be books there, and snacks, and presentations, and it’s free! Click here!

In the meantime, should you wish to preorder the book, please do so here!

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One last thing — I asked Pumpkin Patch what her favorite image was, and she turned to this one:

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 most important homes were photographed soon after completion, e.g. these shots of the Crocker, Rose, Melrose, Castle, and Bradbury—

But those shots have been in the public view a long time; many were used in 1977’s Bunker Hill: Last of the Lofty Mansions, and a lot of the shot-within-a-few-years-of-their-completion house pictures, captured from 1888-1900, were some of the first “old Bunker Hill” images to be put online in the mid-1990s. (I should mention as well all the above shots were indeed used in Bunker Hill, Los Angeles.)

So, when a new-to-us image of an early Bunker Hill house is uncovered, it’s big news.

The other day I was contacted by a descendant of Samuel Weller, founding president of Occidental College. Said descendant wondered if I knew about Weller’s house on Bunker Hill, and, was it in my book? I said that no, 211 South Bunker Hill Avenue, built by Weller in 1886, was an important house, but, no decent images of it existed.

At which point she sent me this:

And my jaw dropped. That’s an incredible image of an important house!

The descendant said that the original of this image lay with Occidental, whom I contacted, and they said no, they had received it from the family, when they included it in this, ten-something years ago:

So the family says Occidental has the original and Occidental says the family has it, and while I still have no idea who is in actual physical possession of the original, I did get this (decent-sized, but I wish it were much larger) scan:

Which has on its verso—

Great information here, but, much of it a bit off. It was certainly not the “first house on Bunker Hill.” Samuel’s father was not named John (you’ll note someone scribbled “Tobias” in pencil to correct this). And it refers to “Samuel Higgins Weller” when his middle name was Harold (understandable, since Samuel’s mother’s maiden name was Higgins). “Octave” Morgan would refer to Octavius Morgan—of the firm Kysor & Morgan (becoming Kysor, Morgan & Walls in late-October 1886)—who certainly may have designed this house, but I do not believe designed “Occidental College’s first building,” which by all evidence was product of the Newsom boys. Of Morgan it goes on to say his “daughter Julia Morgan” designed Hearst Castle, which is a nice thought, but Julia Morgan’s father was Charles Bill Morgan, no relation.

Note, in pencil, “his fathers anniversary birthday” in pencil across: as June 18, 1886 was Tobias Weller’s 85th birthday, it’s not unreasonable to conjecture that that was the day of this photograph.

A bit about the Weller house construction—the house may have been built/owned not by Samuel Weller, but by the Rev. Oliver Clinton Weller (Samuel’s younger brother), or at least, that’s what the 1886-87 City Directory would indicate:

Nevertheless, come the 1887 directory, we have Samuel H. Weller in residence:

And in the 1887-88 Maxwells’ Directory:

But with the 1888 directory, Weller has already moved to Boyle Heights, site of his new school:

And the Weller house, thereafter, became rented rooms:

Let’s get you acquainted as to where 211 South Bunker Hill was—which gets tricky because of course it doesn’t retain “211” as its address for very long. Los Angeles went through street renumbering in December 1889, and 211 became 309.

Here’s a shot looking east at Bunker Hill from Figueroa—

Now let’s look at the house again, and see what we see:

Two-story wraparound porches! Now that’s California living. That most of the detailing is reserved for the porch scrollwork and balustrade panels gives it a Folk Victorian flair, albeit not of the “gablefront and wing” configuration most commonly seen in the Folk styles of pre-Queen Anne Bunker Hill. Despite all its picturesque elements — a scrollwork’d balcony and a shed dormer and bicolor variegated shingle, this is a transitional house; had it been built two years later, we’d have seen a proliferation of gables and dormers and likely a turret. Instead, our massing is more sedate, but the Dutch Gable-Jerkinhead roofline is still pretty nutty. Note the stained glass window on the porch, flanked by the matching entrance stairs.

How rare is this image of the Weller house? Exceedingly; it’s basically the only decent image of the house we have. By comparison, we have well-known shots of the Castle near both its birth and death:

And yet virtually none of 309 South Bunker Hill (a scant three doors down from the Castle at 325). For example:

Note, though, a significant difference: the house as originally built was, at street level, one story (two, if you count the marvelous roof-balcony). Some time later, either the grade was lowered on Bunker Hill Avenue, or the house was raised to bring its lower floor up to the street.

I don’t have to tell you what happened to the house—but I will anyway—it gets eminent domain’d by the CRA and receives its bye-bye papers in October 1964.

And in case you’re wondering about the former site of Weller’s house: since Bunker Hill Avenue between Third and Fourth has been wiped out, and the hill on which it ran was shaved down about forty feel, next time you’re at the Wells Fargo Center, picture the Weller house as floating over the north side of the Halo foodcourt, or thereabouts…

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 George Washington have to do with Bunker Hill? He never set foot in the Bunker Hill area (unlike President Hayes), and heck, George Washington wasn’t even at Massachusetts’ battle at that other Bunker Hill.

I bring up the subject because, until quite recently, there was a monumental statue of George Washington on Bunker Hill, and this being his day…

I. A Few Words about Washington

It is evident to all we should revere Washington. He led the American forces against Britain, securing victory over tyranny. He presided over the Constitutional Convention, and was the first to sign that founding document. Though elected unanimously twice, he refused to abuse his power, and stepped down after two terms. He was referred to as “The Father of Our Country” as early as 1778 and he remains known so today.

Of course, some people will discount all of this because Washington owned slaves; I suggest those people make a close reading of Winkfield Twyman’s essay on the matter, here.

II. The Houdon Washington

Our story begins with the late 18th century sculpture of Washington by Jean-Antoine Houdon.

Houdon’s Washington gained so much popularity, that many copies were made in bronze and plaster. 19th century copies include those placed at the Virginia Military Institute, St. Louis’ Lafayette Park, and the North Carolina State Capitol.

Gorham made a cast in 1909 that resulted in a number of bronze copies, including those in Springfield, Mass. (cast 1911) and at Philadephia’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (cast 1922).

Reproductions of the Houdon Washington ramped up with the 1932 bicentennial of Washington’s birth, including the statue at Valley Forge, at George Washington University, and at the Redwood Library in Newport.

III. Washington Comes to Los Angeles

Los Angeles was a bit late to the party, but began work to get a bronze Houdon Washington of its own, in 1935.

As chair of Civic Beautification, Bernice decided what Los Angeles needed was a monumental Washington statue.

Prominent women across Los Angeles (Bernice, past-president of the Ebell Club, was a mover and shaker) began a citywide movement to sell “certificates of honor” in an effort to raise funds for the statue.

Patriots and art lovers bought certificates, and in 1937 the statue was fully funded, in time for Washington’s Birthday, 1938. The ceremony was held at 10:30am, Tuesday February 22nd 1938, on the grounds of the recently-demolished courthouse. Virginia Law Hodge, State Regent-Elect, Daughters of the American Revolution, delivered the dedication address to over one thousand attendees. Speeches were made, poems were read, and the Works Progress Administration Band played patriotic songs, accompanied by the Belmont High School choir.

Note in the image above the triangular plot left-center: in June 1947 Washington was moved from the old courthouse site to that Spring Street location, near the Hall of Records entrance and directly across from City Hall —

IV. George Comes to Bunker Hill

As you are undoubtedly aware, the area of Bunker Hill north of First Street — sometimes referred to as Court Hill, given its proximity to the Courthouse (hence the former site of Court Flight) — was, once, a large hill, covered with homes and businesses. That is, until the County decided to buy all the land, kick out all the people, demolish everything (including the hill itself), and redevelop the area with a County Courthouse and Hall of Administration. Like so:

In late 1960, County Board of Supervisors member Kenneth Hahn had an idea: let’s move the Washington statue from that funny old Hall of Records building to the bright, gleaming new Hall of Administration, which had opened in October.

Washington had to be moved again, as the strip of grass on which he sat was lost to the development of the Civic Center Mall, known officially as El Paseo de Los Pobladores de Los Angeles, dedicated in May 1966.

Washington wasn’t moved far; about twenty feet west, and turned to face the park rather than Hill Street.

And there he stood for almost sixty years —

– until…

V. The Summer of 2020

You doubtlessly recall the spate of fifty-some Confederate statues removed by municipalities/toppled by protestors after Charlottesville’s 2017 Unite the Right rally, which accelerated into the removal or destruction of another 150+ monuments during the George Floyd protests post-May 2020. (For example, this, this, this, this and this.)

And some people said hold up, you start erasing history without some measure of thought first, next thing you know they’re gonna come for statues of the Founding Fathers! But, were you to query “…what’s next? They’ll come for Washington and Jefferson?” you would be roundly denounced and soundly mocked with a chorus of no-one is going to fall for your lies and divisive hyperbole! no-one is coming for statues of real Americans and no-one will! (Trump himself was taken to task for suggesting such a thing could occur.)

But they did indeed come for Washington, and Jefferson, and many more. For example:

Jefferson, Jefferson, Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, etc. (They almost got Andrew Jackson, but failed in that endeavor.)

Things did not go well either for the likes of John Sutter, the Pioneer and Pioneer Mother, the Texas Ranger, more pioneers, George Rogers Clark, Francis Scott Key, Harvey W. Scott, Lewis and Clark, Thomas Fallon, Hans Christian Heg (an abolitionist, and Union Army), a memorial to Emancipation, a monument to the Union Army, Walt Whitman, Pete Wilson, plus a beautiful and very non-racist elk.

And of course there’s the hundreds of statues, monuments, and memorials that were not removed or pulled down but “only” vandalized, like the statue of Quaker abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier, or African-American volunteer infantry regiment the 54th Massachusetts, or Tadeusz Kościuszko.

But we’re here to talk about statues of George Washington. We should note the Houdon Washington toppled in Minneapolis; the 1927 Coppini statue toppled in Portland; the 1858 Bartholomew statue of Washington defaced in Baltimore; the 1876 marble statue by the Fratelli Gianfranchi vandalized in Trenton; Stanford White’s 1891 Washington Square Arch, also hit by paint; and so on (New Orleans, Seattle), and so on.

I mention all this statue defilement to give you an idea where the cultural milieu stood in the summer of 2020 (although Washington continues to be disrespected, like the recent stories about the Houdon Washington that offended the Mayor of Chicago, and the Houdon Washington at its namesake university that spent three solid weeks as the focal point of pro-Hamas activists).

So: it’s Los Angeles, summer of 2020. We’re under stay-at-home orders and the odd curfew so as to halt the spread of the deadly COVID pandemic — your shared sacrifice will slow the virus and protect those most vulnerable! Businesses were closed. Restaurants, salons, churches, all forced to shutter. Loved ones died alone and isolated in hospitals. A trip to the store in the hope of finding toilet paper required waiting in a long line in some parking lot, a socially-distanced six feet apart from one another. Nevertheless, there was a massive upsurge in infections. Why? We don’t know, but don’t worry, we were assured it was absolutely and positively not because of stuff like this, so, go out and protest to your heart’s content.

Thus:

August 13th, and folks show up at City Hall to reclaim their #landback (since it was mostly white folks, I wonder if they got their land back).

And then it was on to the main event:

At 6:30, the statue was set upon by the marchers. Six individuals—Christopher Woodard, 33, of Los Angeles; Anna Asher, 28, of North Hollywood; Emma Juncosa, 23, of Los Angeles; Andrew Johnson, 22, of Glendale; Elizabeth Brookey, 19, of Burbank; and Barham Lashley, 30, of North Hollywood—pulled the statue down and spray painted it, but when they saw law enforcement ran into the bushes.

This guy thought it was pretty funny —

Since the perps were nabbed red-handed, they paid dearly for their actions! After all, they were guilty not only of felony vandalism (California Penal Code § 594 PC) but were subject to being charged under the recently-enacted Executive Order 13933—Protecting American Monuments, Memorials, and Statues and Combating Recent Criminal Violence.

Ha ha! Got you. Did they face consequences? Of course not.

Was there so much as a finger wag? Were they given a stern talking to? Did they at least have to compose a neatly-typed five-paragraph essay titled “Why I Shouldn’t Destroy Monuments to the Father of Our Country?”

No, not in the least. Just let go, and that was that—these were, after all, the glory days of District Attorney George Gascón, who insisted it was a courageous leap toward social justice to embolden criminals, encourage lawlessness, and discomfit victims.

Therefore, the perps had all charges dropped, and didn’t even have to fork out legal fees. Emma Juncosa set up a GoFundMe to pay her lawyer and cover representation of the “Statue Six” — as ponied up by their LEO-hating comrades.

After which, the County cleaned up the statue, replaced it on its pedestal in Grand Park, and we all moved on with our lives like nothing happened, right?

Nahhhh. The County was too afraid of hurting Emma Juncosa’s feelings. (Show us where the bad statue touched you!) Instead of returning the Father of our Country to the Civic Center where it had stood for over eighty years, they hid it, in a second floor conference room at Patriotic Hall.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Patriotic Hall, and I’m glad that when people go up to said second floor conference room, they may enjoy and be inspired by Washington, surrounded by all sorts of cool GAR memorabilia.

I wanted to know more about the reasoning behind the move, so I reached out to the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture to ask about the decision making process, and what went into the statue’s restoration and relocation. I got a nice, but short, email back from their Director of Communications, stating that conservation included repairing a fracture and its attachment bolts, and went on to say

After careful consideration, the LA County Department of Arts and Culture identified Bob Hope Patriotic Hall, which houses the County’s Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, as an ideal location for the statue. This location is thematically fitting for the statue of the first Commander in Chief of the United States, sitting in proximity with the various artworks and ephemera relating to military history, figures, and events housed at the Patriotic Hall.

I’m of two minds about this. On the one hand, I’m irked and saddened that we have caved to mobs of America-hating totalitarians who dictate what public statues the public can and can’t see.

On the other hand, because we allow and encourage such behavior, Washington’s statue is no longer safe among people; we can certainly expect another unhinged mob of contemptible “Statue Six” ignorami to again attempt its destruction, hence our need to remove it from view. Thus I begrudgingly admit I am glad L.A.’s Houdon Washington is now safe.

And that’s how George Washington—prominent in the Civic Center for eighty-two years, fifty-nine of those on Bunker Hill—was whisked away for fear the ludicrous-but-violent philistines shall return to finish the job, another step along the path in our charmless descent into barbarism.

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And that, my friends, is today’s tale for Washington’s Birthday. Yes, it’s a bit depressing. Might I suggest you now partake in some more upbeat activity, e.g., go internet-visit Mount Vernon, read Washington’s farewell address, and make yourself a cherry pie or some Washington Cake.

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.

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Let’s look at one of those “rare Bunker stuff in ’em” pictures, specifically, one I had no idea about — it is not, for example, in Jim Dawson’s book — heck, I’d never even heard of this film before Richard Schave sent me a link to it and asked hey, do you know the location of that place about an hour in? Boy, do I…

The movie is The Shadow on the Window.

It’s a 1957 picture about young thugs who kidnap a woman and traumatize Jerry Mathers in the process. You may watch the entirety of the movie by clicking here.

For our purposes, go to about fifty-six minutes in. Corey Allen (whom you remember as the gang leader in Rebel Without a Cause) has gone to his mother’s frowzy apartment to snag a gun and a car, but the cops are on his tail. They arrive:

And where is it they arrive, you ask?

Why it’s the Stanley Apartments, at the southeast corner of Flower and Second streets!

A bit about the Stanley: it began life as the La-Nel Apartments, built in 1913. Designed by Edward John Borgmeyer, it was a project of the Julius R. Smith’s Apartment House Building Company. Borgmeyer specialized in apartment houses, but was known to produce theaters as well (e.g., the Forum).

It was renamed The Stanley in 1921, after being purchased by Fullerton’s Charles Stanley Chapman (son of Charles Clarke Chapman, “Orange King of California” and founder of Chapman College). Charles Stanley Chapman kept his newly-monikered Stanley for just two years, giving it away in partial trade for the Commodore; nevertheless, the Stanley name stuck.

So anyway, it’s 1957 and someone on the Columbia lot says “go find us a down-at-heels tenement house to shoot at” and voilà—

Okay, THEN. Then something absolutely cuckoo-bonkers happens. Corey Allen drops off the fire escape and makes his way into the pedestrian passageway into the Second Street Tunnel. I have never seen a shot of this entrance.

I mean, I knew the railing was there—and I could see the entrance on aerials—

—but I despaired at ever seeing what the heck the tunnel looked like from the sidewalk. Until now. Not only that, they go through the passage where it turns, and emerges into the tunnel, and there’s gunplay! Plus lots of that famed shimmery-white Second Street Tunnel subway tile (imported from Germany, which caused a bit of consternation since we had just battled the Hun to end a War Against Mankind).

There’s even action on the south façade fire escape:

So much to see! When during the rooftop shootout, you’ll certainly wonder, what are those blinking neon lights in the distance?

And what became of the Stanley? The Community Redevelopment Agency got its demo permit in March 1966, and that was the end of the Stanley.

During the development of the Bunker Hill Towers, Flower Street north of Third was rerouted east toward Hope Street, and the Second Street Tunnel was extended west of Flower, almost to Figueroa; it can therefore be difficult to grasp just where the Stanley, at 210 South Flower Street, once stood…

The Stanley was perhaps not the most exciting structure on the hill, so I’m thrilled to give it and its little-considered architect E. J. Borgmeyer some notice.

Enjoy The Shadow on the Window! (Spoiler alert: the Stanley is the best part of the picture.)

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An addition:

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 you ever wish to theorize on the intersection of noir and the Luciferian ethos, buy Bryan a gimlet at Musso’s and he’ll bend your ear. Like I said, he’s a cool guy.

So it was no surprise when he wrote and told me you know, my great aunt lived on Bunker Hill during World War Two, want me to send you pictures of her there? Coolness is apparently set in DNA, because she lived not only on Bunker Hill, but in one of the coolest places on the Hill.

I don’t mean any of the great Victorian mansions cut up into apartments, or one of the Edwardian-era Corinthian-column’d apartment houses, which would be cool enough. No, she bucked Bunker convention and lived in some brand-new Streamline flats!

At which point you interject, that’s impossible, the very essence of Bunker Hill is that it was a place lost to time and frozen in place, where nothing new was built for decades on end, descending into a genteel and cinematic decrepitude!

Which I appreciate you saying, although that’s not entirely the case. You might recall the “Modern on the Hill” section of Bunker Hill, Los Angeles (pp. 146-53) wherein I dispense with the idea that all of Bunker Hill was absolutely antediluvian. And in that section, I devote an entire page (151) to the remarkable Avalon Apartments, built in 1938-39.

Thus, let me tell you all about the Avalon, and the awesome pirate who lived there.

I. The Avalon Apartments

The northeast corner of Second and Grand was laid out as part of the Mott Tract, lots 9 and 10 of Section G, back when Grand was still called Charity. Nathan Wilson Stowell, to whom we owe the growth of Los Angeles as much as anyone, bought the corner of Second and Charity and built a house there in 1884 (Charity Street became Grand Avenue in February 1887) . Nathan Stowell also married Florence N. Rivers in 1884. Florence’s uncle was Ernest Bradford Rivers, who worked for Stowell; EB Rivers worked with Stowell when Stowell sold part of his Second and Charity property to Robert Larkins, so that Larkins could build his magnificent Richelieu.

Los Angeles was scandalized when in 1905 Nathan Stowell, 53, abandoned his wife for a 22-year-old. Florence was awarded the house in the divorce, and it remained in Rivers hands, specifically, in the hands of Florence’s nephew Henry Edmund Rivers, son of her uncle Ernest.

Henry Rivers was in the real estate game, especially so after 1917, when he wed Mildred Strong, daughter of realty mogul Frank Raleigh Strong, who had subdivided dozens of residential areas in Los Angeles, including Silver Lake. (Frank Strong was known to go get drinking with Warren Harding at the Newport Yacht Club, and ironically, Newport Beach plays a large role in the latter part of our story.)

Henry Rivers — who was at the time president of real estate concern Rivers & Parmelee, Inc. at 510 West Sixth Street — had ownership of the old Stowell place, and approached the Department of Building and Safety with some plans in to add rooms to the thing in September 1938. Those plans came to naught, and a demo permit was pulled in November. Rivers had no architect proper, but used licensed engineer John H. Wilke to do the work for the new 24-room structure, built throughout 1938; it opened in late 1938 or early 1939.

We’re lucky to have any images of the Avalon. Nobody was going to go to Bunker Hill, as the looming shadow of death stretched over the charming old Victorians, to shoot something modern. The Avalon’s neighbors the Richelieu and Melrose were shot regularly, or a photographer would turn his back on the Avalon to shoot The Dome, on the opposite corner.

That said, we have a couple incredible captures from two motion pictures. One is via the process plate background film shot for the 1948 picture Shockproof — the car turns south on Grand from Second and we are rewarded with this:

And then there’s this excerpt, from Kent Mackenzie’s short Bunker Hill 1956, which he made as a USC undergrad before work on The Exiles.

So now you get it, right? That there as this amazing Modern apartment building on Bunker Hill at Second and Grand? Ok, well now let’s meet the crazy pirate that lived there!

II. Sally Brown

Sally Christine Glover was born to James Luther and Edna Ethel (née Lynn) Glover in Eula, Texas — a small community smack dab in the middle of the state — on May 8, 1914. Her people came to the colonies from England mostly as 17th century Virginia settlers, with some Ulster Scots emigrating to the Carolinas in the 18th. A number served in the Revolution, and through the 19th century they dispersed west, into Mississippi and Alabama, with some relocating to Texas.

James and Edna had twelve children (including Dorothy Louise “Dot” Glover, grandmother of the aforementioned Bryan, about whom I began this post). James and Edna move the family to Riverside in the early 1920s, and by 1930 are in Anaheim.

Sally meets Robert Leslie Brown, a Colorado boy who’d moved himself to Newport Beach. They get married in Yuma — Yuma being, like Vegas back in the day, a great place for a quick and easy wedding — on September 28, 1939:

In 1940 they lived at 1569 Miramar Dr. in Newport Beach; he was a clerk at the Balboa Fun Zone, and she worked as a switchboard operator for the telephone company.

One of the things they liked to do is be pirates.

Balboa Pirate Days was conceived of by the Junior Chamber of Commerce in 1935 as a way to bring business to town, and it was glorious. Tall ship battles, a boat landing and invasion, music and street dances, and a ball in the famed Rendezvous Ballroom where the Pirate Queen and her court were crowned. Residents who refused to dress like pirates were put on trial in a kangaroo court, thrown in a brig at the base of the pier (note the imprisoned gal, above), forced to walk the plank (or were just tossed into the bay), and fined (which went to charity).

The war began soon after, with Bob assigned to Lockheed in Northern Ireland, attached to Langford Lodge airfield in Belfast.

With Bob overseas, Sally moved from Orange County to downtown Los Angeles, now promoted to supervisor in the telephone company offices (either in the Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Southern California Telephone Company offices at 740 South Olive St., or its other offices, on Bunker Hill, at 433 South Olive).

As such, she moves into a place on Bunker Hill, said place being the Avalon Apartments. In August 1942, the Los Angeles Times supplement “Home Magazine” ran this piece —

— about how War Production Board orders regarding rubber rationing means nothing to the plucky, patriotic gal who lives and works downtown! It reads as a sort of proto-green, New Urbanist treatise on neighborhood live/work accommodations.

III. Postwar

Fighting ended, and Bob returned home. The Browns had daughter Barbara and son Robert Jr. in short order, and lived at 304 E. Oceanfront, then 211 East Central (now Balboa Blvd.) in Balboa.

The Balboa Pirate Days returned; here’s an image of Sally leaping ashore, in a news item from 1946:

But the pirate days would not last much longer. After the 1947 season, city fathers had grown tired of the drunken rowdiness and put a kibosh on the whole affair.

Sally gave up the telephone company and became a realtor, working many years in Newport and on Balboa. Here’s Sally and Bryan’s grandmother Dot on their Balboan bikes:

Sally’s daughter Barbara recounts how, in the 1950s, her mother would still go out for drinks with pals Pinkie and Renie (Irene) with whom she’d lived on Bunker Hill back in the day. I am deeply indebted to Barbara for the wonderful images of her mother! And of course to Bryan Moore who alerted me to the existence of his great-aunt and her amazing time on Bunker Hill.

And what happened to the Avalon? It had only just turned eighteen when the County came for the entire block bounded by First, Second, Olive and Grand, to be a parking lot for the new Courthouse and Hall of Administration project.

X marks the spot where the Avalon once stood, replaced by a parking garage:

If you have a relative who’s lived on Bunker Hill, don’t hesitate to contact me! See the “Contact” link at the upper right of this page. Thank you!

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’s Night of the Comet.

Night of the Comet has a lot going on. It’s a feminist treatise on the power of strong women and sisterhood. It’s a trenchant critique of Reagan-era consumer culture. It explicates the ennui of Late Cold War nuclear anxiety.

Me, I just like it ‘cuz it’s full of Bunker Hill.

NIGHT OF THE COMET

Let me mention at the outset, this was a really weird post to compile. Tuesday last I was busy command-shift-4’ing endless Comet screengrabs of an eerily still Los Angeles enveloped by a terrible reddish-orange post-apocalyptic haze. All of a sudden, wind roared like a freight train, and the power transformers exploded, plunging us into darkness. The next day, still no power — just an eerily still world outside, enveloped by a terrible reddish-orange post-apocalyptic haze.

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Night of the Comet, in a nutshell: the earth has passed through the tail of a comet, wiping out all the people. But teen sisters Regina and Samantha are so independent (having sex! fighting with mom!) they are spared obliteration. They then must navigate a post-comet world full of zombies and mad scientists, while dancing around in a mall to Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. It’s basically Day of the Triffids, but looks like Liquid Sky, plus it’s a Christmas movie, with Mary Woronov. Like I said, there’s a lot going on.

Much of which is going on on Bunker Hill. The filmmakers figured Bunker Hill, then in its nascent days of development, would be pretty empty and therefore useful in depicting a desolate, uninhabited world. They figured right.

Later, Reggie and Sam — raised by a military father — practice with their MAC-10.

There are a whole lot of “let’s find movie locations” websites, and many of them cover Night of the Comet. But I notice—as far as I can tell—none have ever identified the location of this target practice sequence. Well, here you go.

At this point you ask, what are structures behind them? Good question!

They then shoot the hell out of this poor defenseless ’75 Coupe de Ville:

Then there’s this incredible and oft-used image of the two gals atop the hood of a cruiser:

Oh, so, spoiler alert: at the end of the picture, with the death-dust washed away by rains, it’s up to Reggie and Sam to repopulate the world. Reggie becomes a suburban mom and Sam runs off with Reggie’s erstwhile videogame nemesis.

And in our parting shot, our new family plays football in the street —

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And that concludes our Bunker Hill-themed look at devoid-of-life, end-of-days LA. Shall it come to pass? Whither are we bound? I don’t know. But then, I never thought we’d live in a world without the McNally House.

My gut tells me Los Angeles’s dystopian future will look more than They Live than Return of the Living Dead, but I’ve been wrong before. God help us all.

Watch Night of the Comet in its entirety, here. A nifty music video that encapsulates the spirit of the film is here. Of course, if you want to learn more about the structures discussed in this post (the Bunker Hill Steps, Security Pacific Tower, Wells Fargo Center, etc. etc.) you might want to pick up the one-and-only guide to Bunker Hill, here.