Part I, detailing the evacuated, Venusian-menaced Bunker Hill of 1954 in Target Earth, is here.
People who own Marsak’s Guide to Bunker Hill have sometimes asked how did you get all those shots of Bunker Hill devoid of any sign of life?
In my years of architectural photography I have worked to shoot structures with as few cars and people in frame as possible, striving to depict buildings as standing alone, à la sculpture in a museum. That activity takes no small amount of patience and timing, but it produced some great shots for Marsak’s Guide:
That said, above and beyond the whole “patience and timing” business, the production of these images benefited greatly from a little thing called The Pandemic. Covid locked down the world, and told everyone to go inside; I, of course, did nothing but go outside, and revel in the newly-depopulated universe.
This is my roundabout way of saying pandemics are really useful for going outside, shooting architecture, or, shooting at pandemic-zombies with your S&W M76 (while wearing a safari jacket and driving a red 1970 Ford XL convertible).
The Omega Man
In Richard Matheson’s 1954 novel I Am Legend, a plague ravages earth courtesy of bats (not unlike, say, a certain earth-ravaging plague five years ago) at which point a guy named Robert Neville battles vampires, in Gardena of all places. The 1971 film The Omega Man, based on Matheson’s book, made the plague a result of biological warfare via some Sino-Soviet war, whereby Neville drives around greater Los Angeles, battling vampires (but fleshed out into “The Family,” a cult of mutant albinos bent on destroying technological prowess, like a bunch of freaky-deaky Ted Kaczynskis).
The opening few minutes of the picture are a marvel to behold. Omega Man‘s film crew took to Los Angeles’s empty Sunday morning streets in late 1970, filming Neville (Charlton Heston) driving around a sunlit downtown, while the photophobic zombie horde cowered in darkness. The first shot of the film, Heston heads east on Fifth Street, through the intersection of Figueroa:
Look real hard next to the crane, and you can see Heston’s red convertible about to enter the intersection. At right is the Union Bank; at left, with the construction fence, is the ARCO Plaza towers under construction. The big parking lot is the future site of the Bonaventure. The yellow crane in the foreground is being used to build the ARCO towers parking garage (atop which Ketchum YMCA would be built in 1986). Heston turns south onto Flower from Fifth; behind him you can see the newly-opened Bunker Hill Towers, and the Fourth Street overpass.
In the image above, note the streetlights lining Flower between Fifth and Fourth—those are “Downtown Double” Model 1906 electroliers, custom designed for Los Angeles by Union Metal of Canton, Ohio. They were, of course, ripped out during the area’s redevelopment. But in late 2021 there were brought BACK—
This is the greatest thing to have happened to Bunker Hill in a very long time! I have no idea which City agency is responsible but I suspect Metro may have had a hand in it.
Note this cool construction sign he drives past, with a rendering of the ARCO towers—
Continuing south on Flower, turning east onto Wilshire. Bunker Hill Towers up Flower in the distance.
Then at about a 0:40 in there’s the most incredible thirty-second sequence of Heston blowing through three Wilshire intersections, shot from the top of One Wilshire. But since this is a Bunker blog and not an “L.A. locations” blog, you’ll just have to take that in on your own. And, again, I’m not going to go into all the other places Heston drives by (the movie is oft-noted for its inclusion of The Olympic theater), but I will point out that “Mikes Deluxe Burgers”—which is a 1946 lunch stand at 827 Santee built by one Alvin Jaines—is still extant, albeit enlarged by additions, and reborn as “Taco House #3.”
I mean, how many 1946 lunch stands (“lunch stand” on its 1946 permit; “hot dog stand” on its ’47 CO…the 1956 directory lists it as “Hy’s Hot Dog Stand”) still exist downtown???This place is a national treasure, dammit
Then the credits come up and he’s back driving down Fifth Street, between the Union Bank and the under-construction ARCO towers—
Oh right,it’s Ωmega Man
Then, Heston’s all alone at the DWP building (which should remind you of this shot from here).
Lastly, there’s a collection of still images, showing a silent and empty city, among them being these two:
The tallest structure, Bunker Hill Towers, is now flanked by the Promenade Plaza condo development, and the big pit center is of course home to the Crocker/Wells Fargo Plaza, Broad, Disney Hall, etc.And yes, they should have grabbed a shot of this when the DWP fountains were off. Shot from the newly-finished Crocker Citizens Bank; compare this image to page 31 in Marsak’s Guide.All sorts of fun things to look at. If you know your “old downtown” you might spot the California State Building at First and Broadway, which would be irretrievably damaged by the Sylmar Quake just two months after OM’s downtown filming. Note too the Criminal Courts Building (now Clara Shortridge Foltz) under construction to the left of City Hall.
The opening scene of The Omega Man (Heston’s amazing 8-track music, btw, is Theme from A Summer Place as performed by the Ron Grainer Orchestra) is here, though you should really watch the whole movie; the trailer will convince you of that!
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Tune in next week, when I cover the post-comet Bunker Hill of valley girls and office towers in 1984’s Night of the Comet.
One of the benefits of loving Bunker Hill is seeing the area depicted on screen. Bunker Hill appeared in early comedies, and later, in television programs, but the Hill is best known for its supporting role in all those moody postwar films noir. Bunker Hill-in-the-movies is of course covered in Bunker Hill, Los Angeles, and in Bunker Noir! and also this post, featuring my compendium of Angels Flight in cinema. The definitive work on the subject is, of course, Jim Dawson’s Los Angeles’s Bunker Hill: Pulp Fiction’s Mean Streets and Film Noir’s Ground Zero! available here (check out Jim’s related website here).
For the next couple posts, though, I want to dig into Bunker Hill’s use, specifically, as a barren post-apocalyptic hellscape, as portrayed in three films: Target Earth (1954), The Omega Man (1971), and Night of the Comet (1984).
TARGET EARTH
Old Bunker Hill was, of course, no stranger to cinematic depictions playing up its empty streets. Consider Van Helfin’s mad dash through the deserted Hill in Act of Violence, or Jack Palance nefariously piloting his Oldsmobile through its desolate streets in Sudden Fear:
For example, Bunker Hill’s quiet community of live-and-let-live older folk allowed Roger Corman to shoot quick and cheap (and without permits) on the hill in December 1959 for his Little Shop of Horrors.
But only one film utilized Bunker Hill’s quiet neighborhood as the perfect setting for a deserted city menaced by sometimes-invisible death-ray-wielding Venusian space robots: Target Earth. It’s a cheapie made by indie outfit Abtcon Pictures in 1954, on the heels of successful 1953 alien invasion pictures like War of the Worlds and Invaders from Mars.
Spoiler alert: you will not be paralyzed with fear
Granted, Target Earth‘s uninhabited Hill and empty LA wasn’t, I will admit, “post-apocalyptic” in the strict sense, as much as the city was voluntarily deserted…eh, so sue me. It was empty and spooky and that’s the point. Target Earth‘s film crew shot on the Hill on a Sunday morning in late July, when the city was still sleeping it off.
Los Angeles Times, June 5, 1954. The picture didn’t actually begin shooting until the week of July 17th, at the Kling Studios. Kling Studios was, of course, the old Chaplin studios on La Brea. An early outing by the great Herman Cohen.
An ad for B-picture Target Earth in the Turalre Advance Register, Nov. 24, 1954. By Virginia Gay they mean Virginia Grey, who portrays a sassy, wisecracking lush and gets called a “crazy dame” not once but twice.
Target Earth begins with Kathleen Crowley (whom you might remember from seminal vampire western Curse of the Undead) waking from her failed suicide attempt to find the city abandoned; she opens her blinds and peers out the window to an empty world, specifically, upper Fifth Street looking toward Grand—
The Engstrum, 630 West Fifth; the SoCal Edison HQ, 601 West Fifth; and across Grand Ave., Grand Central Garage, 535 West Fifth
She then exits her pad at 109 South Flower Street:
Which in reality was one block west and four blocks north from the view out her window
A 1962 shot of the southwest corner of First and Flower, by Walker Evans; I wrote about his trip to Bunker Hill here. Metmuseum
Then Crowley looks down at the empty street she saw from her window:
Back on upper Fifth looking toward Grand; the building snuggled into the L-shape of the Biltmore is the Biltmore Theatre
Then, on upper Fifth, she walks past the Engstrum:
Here’s a 1978 color shot of the Engstrum entrance you’ve never seen before. You’re welcome!
And then there’s this reverse shot, her still walking east on Fifth toward Grand, now between the Engstrum and the Edison HQ
There’s the Engstrum (R. B Young & Son, 1911), up there on upper Fifth. You likely recognize this slide of mine from page seven of the Bunker Hill book. I’ve paired it with a modern shot for reference; the Engstrum and the elevated roadway on which it sat, shored up by a 1930 Carleton Winslow-designed retaining wall, was demolished in 1986.
Still wandering about, wondering where everyone’s gone off to, on Third Street just the other side of the tunnel:
There’s a great shot of Bob’s Cafe, 708 West Third St., on p. 125 of Bunker Hill, Los Angeles. This length of Third Street (replete with dissolute reprobates at night, but deserted come morning when film crews require desolation) is also documented on p. 29 of Bunker Noir!
A shot by Hylen; a confused Crowley was walking the pavement between the Buick and the Plymouth
Next, she heads south on Grand toward Fifth, adjacent the Edison:
That angle today…where the Sherwood and Granada once stood, Welton Becket’s O’Melveny & Myers Tower, and SOM’s Crocker Bank Tower—both from 1982, both featuring polished brown granite and tinted glass, in the grand tradition of office towers from 1982
Lastly, at about 13:30, there’s this shot looking west on Fifth Street from atop the aforementioned retaining wall—
The camera peers over the end of the retaining wall, and looks across the Sunkist facade (right) down Fifth, across Flower Street.
The Target Earth shot would have been captured from about where that fellow is standing in the first image above. These pix are from January 1956, about eighteen months after the movie was shot; note the Early Times ad on the back of the Architects’ Building, Fifth & Figueroa, on both. These were captured, of course, by Robert Frank.
Want to watch Target Earth? Do so here (and, if you so like, colorized here). At 8:03 there’s a shot looking north on Flower across Wilshire, and immediately after, Crowley is seen running past the barber shop at 704 West 6th, at the southeast corner of Sixth and Hope. Around the 13:40 point was shot at the Dominguez-Wilshire and at the corner of Wilshire and Cloverdale; at 14:00 there’s a nice shot looking south on Beverly from Temple. Everything else seems like backlot, although the alien-shadow at 24:40 is against the Statler.
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Tune in next week, when I cover post-pandemic Bunker Hill (the cool 1970s pandemic, not the dumb 2020s one) in The Omega Man, and a post-comet Bunker Hill of valley girls and office towers in Night of the Comet.
The most recent issue of photography ‘zine Dog Food is Robert Frank-themed, wonderful in general, but includes a particularly nifty spread called “Anatomy of a Shooting on Bunker Hill” excerpted from my post:
If you’re a completist and collect all things Bunker Hill, or just dig Frank and/or photography, might I suggest you pick up a copy. They are, after all, available free of charge.
After Bunker Hill’s first inhabitants migrated west, the Hill became an enclave of bohemian writers, visionary artists, and vanguard spiritualists. Right? It was, after all, home to the likes of Anna May Wong, Leo Politi, and John Fante; the book Bunker Hill, Los Angeles has a whole section dedicated to its more famed denizens, including pioneering female photographers and trailblazing gay rights activists.
But let’s not forget that Bunker Hill was the refuge of Jew-hating fascists, shall we? Today we shall consider the life and times of former Hill inhabitant Ingram Hughes, head of the American Nationalist Party, who published judeophobic books, plotted to seize armories, and murder Jews en masse.
Ok, so it’s not a shot of Bunker Hill, but it’s too good not to use as the introductory image. The hakenkreuz is fluttering in the breeze here, at 724 South Broadway. CSUN
I. Ingram Hughes’ Early Life
Isaiah Ingraham Hughes Jr. was born to Isaiah Sr. (who was Ninth Illinois Cavalry, in the War Between the States) and mother Sarah Ada Abbot in Palouse, Washington, in 1875. At some point he develops his distaste for Jews, and it’s likely about that time he elects to go by a shortened-from-Ingraham “Ingram” (and abjuring Isaiah in toto, likely because it is a Hebrew name and all). He is educated at the University of Washington.
Hughes marries Nora Maude Tinsley (1869-1945) in King, Washington, in 1903. They move to San Diego in 1910, and Ingram Hughes is admitted to practice law before the State Supreme Court in 1914. Come 1920 they are separated, with Hughes (in the 1920 census as “Inghram”) living in Berkeley, and listed as a lawyer. They later reconciled and were living in Los Angeles in 1921.
There is some talk of divorce in 1928, and they separate (Maude moves with the boys to 1636 Lemoyne in Echo Park, where she lives for the rest of her days), but do not divorce until the mid-1930s. (Maude is listed as divorced in the 1940 census, and dies from stomach cancer in 1945.)
Los Angeles Times, 22 August 1928
In 1932 Ingram moves to Bunker Hill:
The 1933 Los Angeles City Directory, showing Ingram listed as a linotype operator, at 630 West Fourth St.
Before we get into what Ingram Hughes did, let’s talk a bit about his home at 630 West Fourth St.
II. The LaBelle Apts., 630 West Fourth St.
The LaBelle, 1912-1954
Once, on the southeast corner of Fourth and Hope Streets, there were these three peas in a pod:
These three were all built in 1912, by Mrs. Frances Zahn and A. W. Ross. The first to go up was the Gordon, so named because it was leased by Mrs. W. C. Gordon. Then came the LaBelle:
Frances Zahn is also noted for having torn down the family home on Bunker Hill—a few doors south on Hope Street—and replacing it with an apartment house called the Rubaiyat. All of her buildings were designed by Frank Milton Tyler.
From the WPA drawings:
The LaBelle at bottom left. These drawings can be found here. Make sure you subscribe to the Dusty Archive Substack!
This 1941 aerial shows Hughes’ apartment house on the corner of Fourth and Hope, X marks the spot:
As long as we’re on the subject of the famous and funky folk of the Hill, here’s an annotated shot, showing some of the neighbors (Blackburn and Head lived there before Hughes’ time, but Chandler and Mather were Bunker Hill contemporaries):
The LaBelle, April 1922. A bit of The Bronx to the left. At right, 401 South Hope, the 1886 home of George H. Williams
III. Ingram Hughes Gets to Work
So, Ingram Hughes moves into the LaBelle at the corner of Fourth and Hope in 1932, and sets out to educate fellow goyim about the pernicious Hebrew. From the confines of his Bunker Hill apartment, he founds his own political organization, the American Nationalist Party. His intention was to expand the party nationally, under his leadership, incorporating regional leaders e.g., the Ohio/New York pamphleteer Robert Edward Edmonson.
In 1933, in his capacity as a printshop linotypist, Hughes publishes Rational Purpose in Government: Expressed in the Doctrine of the American Nationalist Party, AKA American Nationalism as Expressing the Rational Purpose in Government : Being a Declaration of the Principles of the American Nationalist Party.
In 1934 he publishes Anti-Semitism: Organized Anti-Jewish Sentiment, a World Survey. It can be read in its entirety here.
In 1935, Hughes authors and publishes this proclamation—
—calling for the holiday boycott of all Jewish-infested media. Hughes printed an untold number of these at the Los Angeles Printing Company, 1204 Stanford Ave., where he worked the linotype (LAPC printed the weekly Nazi-leaning German-language newspaper California Weckruf; shopowner Joseph Landthaler was treasurer-secretary of the local Friends of the New Germany). The flyer was distributed widely by the FNG, who ran the Aryan Bookstore in the Turnverein Hall at 1004 West Washington Blvd. (and the one at Deutsches Haus, 634 West 15th St.); it was also plastered on much of Los Angeles, and was surreptitiously inserted into copies of the Los Angeles Times in the warehouse before delivery.
In late 1935 Hughes planned a pogrom, involving the mass hanging of twenty Jews, including Samuel Goldwyn and Eddie Cantor. Unbeknownst to Hughes, his personal secretary, Charles Slocombe, was a spy for the Los Angeles Jewish Community Committee, and the LAJCC worked with the LAPD to bug Hughes’ Bunker Hill apartment. They decided the heavyset, balding, bespectacled, 60-year-old Hughes was more bluster than determination in such matters. Hughes was, and rightfully so, worried that Jewish spies had infiltrated—not his, of course—too many local fascist organizations, making his murderous plans too risky.
In 1936 Ingram Hughes published Ye Kynge Goethe to Towne, a Ballade of Shreddes and Patches AKA The King Goes to Town, A Metrical Romance in Ballad Form, a compendium of “pilfered, pillaged, and purloined” verse. The text was accompanied by late-Medieval woodcuts, as chosen by Ingram’s 24-year-old son Owen Rhys Hughes (1912-1994). It can be read in its entirety here.
As evidenced by Ye Kynge Goethe, Hughes eventually eased up on the antisemitic screeds, preferring to simply output more anodyne, albeit conspicuously über-European, material. Nevertheless, in 1937, he was hauled before the McCormack-Dickstein Committee and grilled about his possible Nazi links:
San Pedro News-Pilot, 28 July 1937. Ironically, Dickstein, who was going after anti-American subversives like European-style fascists in Los Angeles, had a secret. The Democratic congressman was, at the time, a Soviet spy, under the employ or Moscow to root out and destroy American anti-Communists.
Hughes shows up again in the papers, mentioned in relation to the special House committee investigating subversive activities, in 1938:
Baltimore Sun, 07 October 1938
It’s the final time Hughes is mentioned in relation to fascism. A year and change later, his Bunker Hill address is listed as that for “Ingram Hughes, Publisher of Fine Books”—
Los Angeles Times, 11 February 1940/Los Angeles Times, 24 February 1940
He is still listed at the Fourth Street address in 1942, according to voter rolls, as a member of the Prohibition Party:
In the 1948 and ’50 voter rolls, Hughes has moved to 203 South Bunker Hill Ave.—
—and here is a shot of 203 SBHA in 1945; for all I know, that’s Hughes himself hobbling home:
And then he passes on December 27, 1949. Although he is listed in the 1950 voter rolls at 203 SBHA, his obituary places him about three miles to the southwest:
Los Angeles Times, 3 January 1950. Funny how his obituary doesn’t mention publishing all that Jew-hating, or his plans for a necktie party.
And that is the story of how, in the 1930s, Bunker Hill harbored one of Los Angeles’s fascist publishers. Of course, fascists, isolationists, and other such ilk became witheringly unpopular come 1941, with the attack on Pearl Harbor, eighty-three years ago today.
October is upon us—the time to celebrate all things dark, and weird, and similarly wonderful.
The perfect reading material for such times involves, of course, tales of murder and mayhem. And…Bunker Hill. Gosh, if only there was a publication about the twisted tales of terror from atop Bunker Hill…
Huzzah! Bunker Noir!
Bunker Noir! is a compendium of everything strange and terrible that came from the Hill, which I published in a limited edition, and I’ve sold nearly all of ’em at $30 a pop. I’ve got one box left, which are for a limited time 20% off! If you’ve got yours already, this is the month you buy another as a Hallowe’en gift!
That’s right, what was once $30 is now a paltry $24. They are available at this October-only discounted price through the month of October, here on Amazon and eBay.
However, should you PayPal or Venmo me the $24 direct, I’ll send you your new copy of Bunker Noir!and pick up the costs of packing and postage myself, saving you a few bucks. (PayPal is eckener@kingpix.com, as is the Venmo.)
For more information about Bunker Noir! click here and here and here.
You know how much your loved ones delight in finding spooky books under the Hallowe’en tree
Couple Octobers ago, I wrote this post about former Bunker Hill resident James Oviatt, because at the time there was to be a tour of the Oviatt Building’s famed Olive Street penthouse, focusing specifically on its spookiness.
Well, the time has come for me to inform you that this season is similarly graced by a tour of the former digs of “Bunker Hill Boy Made Good” James Oviatt:
I should mention as well that this time, there will be an incredible display of vintage Hallowe’en costumes, from the collection of that brilliant wife o’ mine, Nicole! Plus cocktails! Music! Don’t miss the event of the season!
And now, for your edification and delectation (and as a shameless plug for Marsak’s Guideto Bunker Hill, on sale!) may I present the third and final installment of Bunker Hill Then-and-Nows: The Modern Years—
Looking west across the Music Center Plaza, August 1965. The view on the once-sunken plaza originally framed the neighboring DWP, flanked on either side by the Chandler and Taper. It is now however the scene of mass rallies in front of huge television screens (oft destroyed by blonde ladies flinging sledgehammers). The sculpture is Jacques Lipchitz’ Peace on Earth, dedicated May 1969, initially placed at the center of the plaza (since shunted off to the side in the recent Rios Clementi Hale reconfigure). At the dedication, Lipchitz stated “if peace does not come, it’s a bad sculpture.” Well… Looking north on Hill from near Fourth Street, July 1980. Behold the famed retaining walls, adjacent the slot where Angels Flight would be returned in 1996. Rising above, Angelus Plaza nears completion. Looking north inside California Plaza, ca. 1987. The reflecting pond (leading to the fountain) and original seating remains. It took vision and dedication to plant mature magnolias and cypress, which have since been replaced. The view west on Fourth Street from Grand Avenue, April 1981. At left, under construction, is the Manulife Plaza, a project of Manufacturer’s Life Insurance Co. (Albert C. Martin & Associates, 1982); that view is now blocked by the Ketchum YMCA (also AC Martin, 1986). Inside the Security Pacific Bank plaza, looking west, March 1984. Security Pacific’s 1974 gardens, by Sasaki, Walker & Associates, included an orchard of evergreen pears, with fountains cascading to a lower pool (intended to connote a Mayan cenote). The whole was ringed in jacaranda above and willows below, with masses of flowering plants throughout. The narrow fountain pools are based on Spain’s Alhambra and, though they are dry in our Sunday-shot “now” image, they do run on weekdays. “Most clients ask us for a plaza,” said principal Peter Walker in November 1975, “but Security Pacific asked us for a park, and that makes all the difference.” The gardens at Security Pacific are arguably the best spot in Los Angeles; owner Brookfield (the Toronto megacorp famous for demolishing Bunker Hill’s Halprin atrium at Crocker Court) intends to put a tower there. Looking south on Grand Avenue, ca. 1983. This image shows the O’Melveny & Myers Tower (Robert Tyler for Welton Becket Associates, 1982) with some of its original sixty-eight Italian cypress that ringed the structure (along with runnels and other water features, also lost). Dallas-based CBRE Group bought the tower in 2012, and while it retains that name on its facade, CBRE sold the building in 2016 to a partnership of Pittsburgh’s PNC Realty and Munich’s GLL Real Estate. Behind, the Library Tower looms o’er grandly. Inside California Plaza, looking south with Grand Avenue at right, July 1986. Above and behind the trees, the lower portion of skyscraper One California Plaza, which opened in December 1985; the plaza is oh so very, very Arthur Erickson. Though it has lost its planter pots and they’ve trimmed away the charm of hanging vines, the property remains remarkably intact. Less intact are crucial elements of Erickson’s Cal Plaza design, including the water features in neighboring parts of the plaza, now lost (e.g. this and this).
Looking southwest from near Temple at Hope, August 1967. This grouping of Inyo County boulders, at the northeast corner of the Department of Water and Power campus, are a significant, and fairly unknown, element of the DWP landscape. (For another nifty vintage pic of the grouping, check out this 1965 Shulman.) In doing this then-n-now, I discovered to my horror that one of the rocks (the smallest at center-left) was missing! The plaque in the modern photo (left) reads “These ancient granite boulders were brought from picturesque Alabama Hills in Owens Valley. The rocks are estimated to be 200 million years old. Owens Valley is the source of a large portion of the water service for the City of Los Angeles.” I don’t have to tell you, of course, that that plaque leaves out a lot of…stuff.
Looking southwest on Grand Avenue toward the Music Center, January 1967. When have you ever seen a shot of the Curtain Call? (If you have one, I showed you mine, you show me yours!) The fifth floor of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion contained the large and elegant Pavilion Restaurant; downstairs was its smaller, warmer neighbor, the Curtain Call. Curtain Call was decorated with mementos of early Los Angeles theatrical life. Note that the bulb signage in the 1967 shot was used in its advertising, like this matchbook; as a Fred Harvey, with a penchant of vintage LA theater, it had an “olde-tyme” feel to its branding. The Curtain Call became a Hungry Tiger in 1980, which became Otto Rothschild’s Bar and Grill in late 1986. The space has housed Kendall’s Brasserie since November 2003.
I trust you have enjoyed these last three weekends full of Bunker Hill Then-and-Now photography.
If you’ve found these investigations of modern Bunker Hill interesting, might I suggest you buy the book! And again, I thank you for your attention.
As promised, more then-and-nows!Part I of our three-part then-and-now extravaganza can be enjoyed by clicking here (and there’s a Part III as well).
I’ll admit, these then-and-now posts serve a twofold purpose: to broaden the discussion regarding contemporary Bunker Hill, certainly, but also to whet your appetite for exploring modern Bunker Hill’s structures, which is best done by buying a copy of Marsak’s Guide to Bunker Hill. (It would be extremely prudent to so this month, given as they are on massive sale, about which you may learn everything by simply clicking here.)
Now, on with the show!
Looking south on Figueroa across Third Street, ca. 1985. Shot from the pedway connecting Bunker Hill Towers to The Park (a pedway in the distance connects the World Trade Center to the Sheraton Grande). Note the two-way Figueroa traffic; Figueroa became one-way northbound from Olympic to Third in December 1986. Also note Union Bank, upper right, has been painted white, in an early-90s remuddling by owners Equitable-Nissei. South of Bunker Hill, a number of towers have sprung up; most eye-catching is a glimpse of the curious Châteauesque roofline of the Home Savings Tower (Tim Vreeland/AC Martin, 1988).Looking south on the west side of the DWP “moat,” circa 1966. Prominent in the vintage image, the mighty Union Bank, still unmolested by white paint-slathering morons. At far left the Richfield Building and behind the fountain, the Architects Building, both replaced, now, by the ARCO Towers (seen poking out, just a bit, behind the 1968 Bunker Hill Towers, at left in modern image). The view to the southwest, where once we saw the Union Oil Center, is now blocked by the Promenande Towers, with 333 Beaudry behind—the Beaudry Center is by the now-forgotten William Rockhold, of Nadel Partners, the group who reached the absolute nadir (or would it be zenith?) of 1980s Los Angeles vacuity.Looking north on the hill near Hope and Third Streets, August 1968. The contemporary view is lower, since the hill was cut down for the Security Pacific Bank plaza. The structure at right is the 1966 cooling plant. Under construction is Bunker Hill Towers.Looking east across Grand Avenue toward the Crocker Center, July 1987. Note the Crocker Court, which once contained the Halprin atrium, as mentioned last week.The view north on Grand Avenue from near Third Street, ca. late 1986-early 1987. Behind, now, the Grand, the Colburn Expansion, and Museum Tower. And hey! Say what you will about our descent into barbarism, at least now we have trees.Looking west up First from Hill Street, May 1959. If the statue of Stephen White were still there, its pedestal would obscure the missing broken panel on the Courthouse. Look closely up First and you’ll see the Majestic/Lima/Rossmere at First and Hope Streets, two years prior to its July 1961 demolition.Looking east near Grand Avenue and Third Street, into California Plaza, circa 1988. Note that once you could look straight through at Angelus Plaza, fronting Olive Street, before the construction of Cal Plaza’s Hotel Inter-Continental.
The view south on Grand, November 1965. The Pacific Telephone Communications Center main entrance is marked with a mosaic mural by Anthony Heinsbergen, dedicated in May 1961. On the mural Heinsbergen attached coin box chutes and capacitors and other telephone components. The figure at center holds aloft tranatlantic cables and a satellite transmitter, and above, Echo One, the first Bell communications satellite, relays a radio transmission beamed to Russia. Heinsbergen’s vision also featured an odd placement of the continents, including an upside-down Australia. Los Angeles Times columnist Jack Smith launched a (tongue in cheek) crusade through the 1970s to have Australia righted, involving telephone company executives and the Australian consulate. Smith may or may not have had a hand in righting the continent, but at some point it was in fact removed, turned right side up, and reattached.
That’s it for today! Tune in next weekend for Part III! And remember, you can’t tell the players without a program!
Who doesn’t love a good then-and-now photo comparison? (If you hang around this blog, I’m gonna say you do at least). When I moved to Los Angeles thirty years ago, one of my first windows into Old LA was Gernot Kuehn’s Views of Los Angeles, an incredible then-and-now photobook published in 1978 (another reason you should get a copy is the 1970s “now” photographs are themselves amazing, and Kuehn’s Views deserves a contemporary “then and now and now” updating).
As regards Bunker Hill, of course, one issue with comparing past to present is the absolute obliteration of the landscape (e.g. this and this from Brian Hsu’s Urban Diachrony). A tangled nest of Victorian wooden buildings compared with some modern concrete behemoth isn’t nuanced; it’s just jarring.
So, I thought it would be interesting to compare modern Bunker Hill with…slightly more modern Bunker Hill. To this you may exclaim “what’s the point of comparing the Security Pacific Bank with…the Security Pacific Bank? It still looks the same!” and you’d basically be right. In any event, I’m going to compare some relatively recent shots of postredevelopment Bunker Hill with how it looks at present, just to gauge its changes, no matter how minor. This I do because it’s fun and interesting, but also underscores how much of “new” Bunker Hill is itself reaching its dotage—much of postredevelopment Bunker Hill is actually older than much of “vintage” Bunker Hill was when demolished in the 1960s—and as such, we’re in for preservation concerns among the modern landscape (a theme touched on in the last few paragraphs of this post).
Also, it occurred to me that I will likely go to my grave without anyone seeing even a fraction of my collection, including all those binders stuffed full of delightful (though less-desirable-to-the-masses) ’70s snapshots and ’80s Kodachromes. So, why not do a post that features some of ’em, just for kicks? Let’s go!
Looking south on Grand Avenue across Temple Street, March 1985. Note at left, the Crocker logo (Peter Graef, 1970), and at right, the Security Pacific logo (Saul Bass & Assoc., 1966), and between the two, the 1962 Wells Fargo “diamond” logo, designed by Walter Landor Associates, which WF ditched about 1995. Bottom image, post-1985 additions to the landscape include the Library Tower, the Wilshire Grand Center, and Disney Hall, glimpsed behind the Chandler Pavilion. Looking north on Hill across Fourth Street, January 1976. Today that hill maintains it basic contours (though the shape of old Clay Street has mostly disappeared), and is now known as Angels Knoll, or maybe Angels Landing, in any event, it’s totally fenced off, to the consternation of those wishing to recreate 500 Days of Summer. The bits of retaining wall glimpsed behind the bus I covered at length, here. That tree is of course of enormous importance, and lives to this day in the forecourt of Angelus Plaza, where it was moved in 1981. We’re told that, someday, this area—site of an unrealized third Cal Plaza tower—will look like this, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. Looking north across the Music Center Plaza toward the Mark Taper Forum, September 1967; in this image, the Taper had been open five months. The coolly elegant sunken plaza was designed by Cornell, Bridgers, & Troller, whose municipal projects included the nearby Civic Center Mall and the Department of Water and Power. Five years ago, the Music Center was “reimagined” by Rios Clementi Hale Studios, removing the sunken element so that mass rallies could be had in front of giant television screens. The area has since been renamed Jerry Moss Plaza; Moss was the “M” in A&M Records. Check out another nice vintage shot of the Taper and plaza on p. 21 of Marsak’s Guide.(Did I mention Marsak’s Guide to Bunker Hillis on sale?)Looking west from California Plaza toward the Museum of Contemporary Art, ca. 1987. Ah, MOCA, the World’s Worst Designed Museum™ (as discussed on p. 46 of Marsak’s Guide). Time was, you could stroll straight up onto MOCA’s forecourt from Cal Plaza, but the museum has since controlled that entrance. I’m thrilled the fountain is still there (water features are always the first to go) but its jets have gone a bit limp. The two major structures in the bottom image are the goofy-windowed Emerson Tower, left, and The Grand, right. Fun fact: my time at MOCA helped kickstart a fascination with Bunker Hill, so, I very much owe them that.
Crocker Court, July 1986 (known as Well Fargo Court after November 1987). In 1980, Crocker Bank commissioned famed landscape designer Lawrence Halprin to create an atrium filled with gardens, water features, and sculptures, as the centerpiece of the Crocker Center project, The $20million atrium was conceived of as “an urban, indoor Garden of Eden,” later described by Halprin as “a psychologically restoring haven.” Brookfield Properties bought Wells Fargo Center and demolished Halprin’s work in its entirety, replacing it with this inspiring laminate-covered food court. I discuss Crocker Court a bit in this video and, of course, in Marsak’s Guide.
Looking north on Grand Avenue across Fifth Street, February 1978. The mighty Edison Building—as seen on p. 10 of Marsak’s Guide—stands proud and relatively unaltered: when ownership group Rising Realty/Lionstone/Hermes bought the building ten years ago, they pledged to rip off all those 1980s “greenhouse” additions; while they did replace the fourth-floor balcony greenhouses with canopy structures, the upper story greenhouses remain. The new owners also renamed the building CalEdison, which is all fine and good, but why can’t the neon lettering (as seen, for example, on p. 149 of the Big Book) be returned to its roof? At far left, note venerable survivor the Engstrum (BHLA, p. 169) which was finally replaced, of course, by the Library Tower. Note in left foreground, the low wall, enclosing Central Library’s east lawn at the southwest corner of Fifth and Grand, until replaced by this (Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates, 1993).Looking south across the east side of the reflecting pool at the Department of Water and Power, ca. 1976. There are few things I love more than the incredible “moat” that encircles the DWP building. (The fountain seen in the contemporary image is original to the DWP; it just wasn’t running when the earlier image was shot.) Look closely and you’ll note the pool was once lined in Mexican pebble. Also, if you look very closely, left, you’ll see the pool once had a border of rectangular aggregate panels, raised above the water’s surface on supporting members. Of course, in the distance, a whole host of new towers block some of the structures (Crocker-Citizens Bank, Pacific Telephone) that appear in the earlier view. Security Pacific is dwarfed by new neighbors, and Promenade East now obscures its bottom. Note that at far right, the ARCO towers—once, matching twins of Miesian grandeur—have had their bilateral symmetry ruined when A C Martin’s facade was bastardized (which I talk about, a bit, here). The view south on Grand Avenue from Third Street, April 1969. Most prominent is PacTel at 420 South Grand Ave., with its signature microwave tower. Also prominent in the 1969 shot is Crocker-Citizens, right, now obscured by the Wells Fargo (née Crocker) Center. Hey, if you really want to geek out on Hill minutiae—this building is the garage at 318-322 South Grand (seen here in 1962 and 1950). It was demolished by the CRA in June 1969, two months after the image at left was captured. And do you know who designed that garage in 1917? Albert C. Martin! And the “new” Bunker Hill has AC Martin represented via a number of structures including the DWP, Union Bank Square, Security Pacific Bank, Wells Fargo Bank, and Ketchum YMCA.
Ok! Well that’s some of the then-and-nows I have on hand. Come back next Sunday, when I’ll post another gaggle of these!
Well good thing for you Marsak’s Guide to Bunker Hill is now 25% OFF!
That’s right, what was once $20 is now only $15. Marsak’s Guide to Bunker Hill is available on eBay and naturally on Amazon, sure, but:
…you’ll end up paying a few extra bucks for shipping should you go the eBay/Amazon route, which is fine; although, if you Paypal/Venmo me directly, it’s FIFTEEN EVEN and I’LL COVER THE PACKING AND POSTING!
****Get yours now, because when they’re gone, they’re gone!****
(no seriously, the cost of printing has skyrocketed in the last couple years, and if I reprinted these I’d have to charge $40 a pop, and no-one wants that)
as is the Venmo: eckener@kingpix.com AKA @Hugo-Eckener
Still on the fence? Read more about Marsak’s Guide to Bunker Hillhere, and see what local felines have to say on the matter here, and view a helpful instructional video here.
OH! And come back to this blog tomorrow, Sunday Sept. 1, when I will present a then-and-now post involving modern/contemporary Bunker Hill that shall fill you with wonder, and absolutely convince you to buy two copies.
“And once you have your copy, you too can gaze languidly, and confidently, into a future replete with greatness and intrigue.” —Boris
Bunker Hill, Los Angeles 