Bunker Hill, Los Angeles

I’m here today to write about Chavez Ravine, which is not on Bunker Hill, true, but their stories share commonalities: postwar government says “we know what’s best for you” and seizes property, removes the residents, and redevelops. There are countless instances of this in Los Angeles’ history, but in the case of Chavez Ravine, it has become one of Los Angeles’s best loved, deeply hated, and most oft-repeated stories. This is the first installment of a seven-part series (links to the other entries are found at the bottom of this post).

I. The Mainstream Narrative

Everything you think you know about Chavez Ravine? All that stuff about how the racist developers illegally evicted the poor and gave them no compensation for their homes so they could build Dodger Stadium? 

It’s not true. But hey, it’s not your fault you believe that. You’ve been fed a steady diet of untruths—a mixture of urban legend, conspiracy theory, manipulated facts, confirmation bias, and outright nonsense. 

Let’s say you Google “Chavez Ravine.” First thing is gonna be the Wiki page, obviously, but then the very next two are a couple of endlessly-shared-on-social media articles from the LAist and Howard Zinn. 

The Wiki page gets some of the broad strokes correct (but, being Wikipedia, still contains some whoppers); the other two, though, consist of lie after lie after lie.

Ok, maybe it’s heavy-handed to say everyone in the media is consciously lying to you. Maybe they just didn’t know any better, having heard some things and simply regurgitated it all into their keyboards, with all the best intentions. It happens all the time to journalists who are told some nonsense, which—if it makes them feel good and righteous to believe said nonsense (yay, confirmation bias!)—they report it verbatim without fact-checking, because why not? Fact-checking is so old-fashioned! Perhaps the mainstream narrative is more diplomatically termed “consists of disinformation” rather than “is composed of outright lies” but no matter, a tumult of falsehoods is still a tumult of falsehoods.

Don’t believe me? Let’s look at what they write! 

First up, this piece in the LAIst:

It begins:

The first sentence is clunky and ill-crafted (the stadium itself was known as Chavez Ravine…before it had baseball? or before it was legendary? huh?) but that’s not the issue. The issue is the oft-repeated canard that it was “home to generations of families,” when in fact most people in the area moved there in the late 1920s and were gone by the early 50s…with the average family stay in in Chavez Ravine being 25 years, that’s not “generations,” that’s ONE generation. (I’ll concede a generation-and-a-half for those few who colonized the area in the 1910s.)

The LAist article continues:

A patent untruth. The Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles, they and they alone, used eminent domain to wrest the land away from its owners, years before the Dodgers even thought of ditching Brooklyn. (Though I’m intrigued by the sinister-sounding “other political machinations”…I’m sure those won’t end up being a fantasy, right?)

Then:

The forced sale of homes by homeowners to the City—homeowners who then purchased property elsewhere—I would, too, describe as ugly, because eminent domain was and is always an ugly thing for the Housing Authority to do (as they did and still do) in the name of “the common good.” The only violent part, though, was the one woman who insisted on being carried out, six years after her parents no longer legally owned the home (and it could be argued the violence was hers, given as she was arrested for punching and kicking deputies).

And if it’s the sort of history that Los Angeles residents “don’t like to remember,” how come EVERY other day Los Angeles residents will put yet another post on social media about it? With innumerable comments thereafter? To be more accurate, it’s the ONLY history Los Angeles residents like to remember.

Oh dear, this goofy canard. The purchase of homes by the City (or, as Ms. Shatkin mysteriously calls the City, “developers”) was handled through a public agency in collaboration with the courts—whereby three separate city appraisers would appraise a house, and the court would award the highest of the values. Eminent domain condemnations in Chavez Ravine were handled the same way that thousands of other homes had been taken: for civic buildings, schools and fire stations, freeways, and most analogous to Chavez Ravine, for the many public housing projects Los Angeles had constructed both before and after WWII. 

The “they lowballed homeowners” compounded by “you better sell now because if you don’t we’ll give you less later” would have been a huge story of City malfeasance and we would have heard about it, had there been any evidence of this “tiered buy-out scheme that offered increasingly lower amounts to sellers who stalled” business among the many primary sources. It is, however, a fiction. There are a number of sites that attribute the story to Mike Davis. Here’s a standard retelling of the myth:

And yet, should you actually read Davis’ City of Quartz you will find no mention of the story.* It is a tale that seems to have been invented in the last decade, and despite being repeated multiple times, in articles and in books (most recently in Bruce Bertrand’s One Town, One Team) it has never been attributed to anyone, for there are no primary sources nor are there any contemporary accounts. When you consider it was never mentioned in interviews of Chavez Ravine residents, or was a point of contention in the 1953 House of Representatives hearings investigating Public Housing in Los Angeles, or was referred to by angry anti-government/anti-Dodgers newspapers like The Torch Reporter (which also gave voice to angry Chavez Ravine residents, who vented at length and never mentioned such a thing)…we may therefore safely assert the story is fiction. That the apparent earliest extant reference to the idea is from Shatkin’s blisteringly fact-challenged October 2018 article leads us to believe she is its source. I’m not saying she made it up, necessarily; my guess is she was told tales and accepted them as gospel (journalistic ethics being so terribly démodé).

In case I’m not being clear, please allow me to repeat. When you see this in Wikipedia:

…remember, you are being lied to. You are being lied to by agenda-pushing lying liars. Maybe when some idiot added this nonsense to the Dodger Stadium Wiki page, they were merely…mistaken. But the next paragraph about “developers” trying to “create a community panic” is such absolute fantasy, it could only be the product of contemptible con artists. If you’re interested in this topic, I go on a little bit more about it here and here.

*I am indebted to bunkerhilllosangeles reader zhandoatosl for calling this to my attention.

**********

Our next example is from the wacky world of Howard Zinn. Who’s Howard Zinn? He was a “historian,” but who famously said history is “not about understanding the past,” but about “changing the future.” Which is adorable, but no actual historian would ever say such a thing. (You think I’d like Zinn, as he’s basically the twin of my beloved father.)

Zinn has become the dominant narrative because he is taught in every classroom, up to and including the Zinn Education Project; you know, for kids! Let’s look at something about Chavez Ravine from the Zinn Education Project:

Forcefully evicted? To make way for Dodger Stadium? Do you mean…had their homes legally purchased by the leftist Housing Authority to build public housing? (And regarding the article’s title, the number of “Mexican American Communities” evicted on May 8, 1959 was…one family.)

Again with this “generations” business when only one generation of people ever lived in the area (again, maybe a generation and-a-half when counting the few people who got there really early, like 1915). But, 1840s??? There weren’t enough people there to make anything resembling neighborhoods until the 1920s. Neighborhoods which, I might add, were not “founded.” The area had been subdivided with one of the tracts named Palo Verde, which lent its name to the area. La Loma and Bishop were nicknames for certain areas, atop which, many people disagree as to what areas those neighborhoods actually encompassed.

“Mayor Norris Poulson chose Palo Verde, La Loma and Bishop”? Oh dear, noooo. It was the Health Department that “chose” the area for redevelopment. It was then the Housing Authority who agreed with the Health Department’s findings and began clearing the land. And who was mayor? Liberal pro-housing mayor Fletcher Bowron. 1949-1952, the years of Chavez Ravine’s demolition, Bowron was mayor; Norris Poulson didn’t even live in Los Angeles! Poulson was in Washington DC, serving as our Congressman, until elected mayor in 1953. (And as we shall see, those three neighborhoods were known as Chavez Ravine by everyone, not just those pernicious government officials.)

Nothing was built on those communities, because the Housing Authority erased those communities from the landscape years before the baseball stadium idea existed.

And no, the residents did not “fight until the end as a unified resistance group.” The residents had all cashed their checks and bought new places elsewhere. All, of course, except for one family—the famed Arechiga clan, about whom we will hear much more later—who said they would leave if only the City coughed up another $7,000. But because the City knew if they bowed to the monetary demands of any homeowner when it came to Eminent Domain, it would set such a bad precedent, that no school or road or fire station would ever be built again, so they held fast. (There was a small collection of other homeowners who individually got more money for their land, because they followed proper channels and filed appeals on their home valuation—a process the Arechigas refused to do.)

HA HA HA HA ok this one’s really good. Wilkinson didn’t “come to the defense of the families”! Frank Wilkinson was literally the man who kicked out all those poor people! And what does his being jailed have to do with it? To be historically accurate, this sentence would read, “The representative from the L.A. Housing Authority who came to kick all the poor people the hell out, Frank Wilkinson, was targeted and jailed by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), six years later, in Atlanta, for something totally unrelated.” 

Lets look at one more Zinn-ism:

“Given no compensation for their displacement…” Dear lord. Listen up: every citizen was given not only fair market compensation by the Superior Court but because of State Law they were awarded higher than fair market. Of all the many fantasies promulgated about Chavez Ravine, the whole “no compensation” myth is probably the most pernicious and oft-repeated. Here is PBS, whom you think would know better, saying “The residents of Chavez Ravine, who had been promised first pick of the apartments in the proposed housing project, were given no reimbursement for their destroyed property and forced to scramble for housing elsewhere.”

To quote the California Law under which Chavez Ravine homeowners were compensated (under enormous and repeated scrutiny I might add), “the owner must be paid the highest price which the land will bring if exposed for sale in the open market.” There was no ceiling on the money paid either, and in fact, appraisals and thus monies paid often ran above assessed valuation, because, the court had to do three appraisals on each property and were then mandated by law to pay the very highest appraisal. Ok? Ok.

And regarding Zinn’s contention Chavez Ravine residents were “forced to flee” (the most mendacious and overwrought bit of alternate history I’ve ever read) and PBS’ contention homeowners were “forced to scramble,” no, the City of Los Angeles opened an office in Chavez Ravine specifically dedicated to the relocation of residents. Before anyone could leave, renters were matched with new apartments, and homeowners were found new homes. The office was managed by Vicki Alonzo, who managed files on all residents regarding their wants and needs (Miss Alonzo was fresh off the task of finding new homes for the 652 residents displaced by slum clearance in 1949-50 as part of the Bunker Hill Civic Center expansion). It was city, state, and federal law that individuals and families removed for redevelopment had to immediately be found new homes.

II. Goofy Untruths=A Reparations Bill

I think by now you get the point: look up Chavez Ravine, and expect to be subjected to a cavalcade of disinformation.

Chavez Ravine made the news recently when, last month, Assemblywoman Wendy Carrillo introduced Assembly Bill (AB) 1950, the Chavez Ravine Accountability Act. A reparations bill, it seeks to give more money, and property, to descendants of those who sold their homes in the early 1950s. The text of the bill is here. It has passed in the assembly.

I’ve no qualms with government payment being made to redress government wrongs. I *certainly* applaud the effort in the bill to erect a memorial to La Loma, Bishop, and Palo Verde, which is something I was talking to politicians about 25 years ago!

The problem is, this bill is largely based on false premises. Whoever wrote this thing for Carrillo fell for all the typically inaccurate material one lazily culls from the internet. For example:

If the residents were unjustly removed, then every person removed for a freeway, school, fire station, public housing, and urban renewal was also similarly and equally unjustly removed. More importantly, “removed without proper compensation?” Again, each home valuation was set by three government appraisers and then it went to the court and the court would assign the highest valuation. That’s a matter of historical record, but nice to see the City has no fact-checkers when it comes to things that were literally done by…the City.

“More than 1,800 families?” I’m sorry, WHERE do you get that number? The Feds counted the number of families in the greater area in 1950, at the very height of its population: 1,086 families, and that counted all of Solano Canyon, which still stands, also along Bishops road near Broadway, and the part along what’s now Stadium Way of Bernard and Cornel. Thus the actual number of displaced families numbered no more than about 700.

The 700 number is tough to swallow, too; if you count the total number of structures in La Loma, Palo Verde and Bishop (Sanborn maps, aerial photography) they number about 350. Now assuming that EVERY one of those structures was a house (a strange world where Chavez Ravine did not have a single garage or workshed or chicken coop or whatever), EVERY structure would have had to have had two families living in it, in a land of mostly small single family homes? A quick check of the census shows very, very few addresses having more than one family. Before this “1,800 families” number came out of nowhere, the accepted number was 300. The 300 number is the accepted number, given the vast number of places it is cited.

Remember, this “racially motivated property seizure” was done by progressives who were hot for slum renewal, and who displaced everyone. It happened not just in Chavez Ravine, but all over Los Angeles, and, of course, across America—e.g., New York’s Lincoln Square project displaced 4,400 families (who, FWIW, numbered at 93% white); LA’s Temple Area project removed 1,600 families (87% white); Boston’s West End project, 3,000 families displaced (99% white), etc. etc.  I’m not saying the American Left wasn’t in general suuuuper awful and often racist in their paternalistic “the government knows what’s best for poor people” attitude, but in Chavez Ravine’s case there’s zero evidence they did it due to any racial animus. The land was chosen for redevelopment on the recommendation of a lengthy and detailed report by the Health Department, which does not see race, but rather statistics about indoor plumbing, vermin infestation, disease rates, and the safety of housing construction.

The lands were not “sold below market value against the will of the landowners” because the landowners received market value, and if receiving their money was against their will, then, how would that have made them different from countless other government projects wherein the same thing happened? Of the “1800 families” (300 families, if even that) 99% had cashed their checks and moved elsewhere by 1953. Land titles were not “returned to the owners” because they had cashed their checks and moved on years before. One family sued to regain title, by reversing condemnation, because public housing had been abandoned. The courts rejected the suit, holding that once title had passed to the city, the transaction could not be undone (Arechiga v. Housing Authority of City of Los Angeles, 159 Cal. App. 2d 657, 659-60 [1958]).

“By 1958, the Elysian Park Heights housing project had unraveled…” yes, “by” 1958 it had unraveled, because it finished unraveling in 1953. The City spent five years thereafter attempting to find a use for it (cemetery, zoo, lake, even Disneyland’s original location were in the running).

“The city conveyed the land to a private entity for an insignificant amount considering the land’s value.” This is so willfully dumb it’s hard to believe, and I’ll go into this claim in detail in Part V. In short, though: we deeded the land to the Dodgers, and it had its value assessed by City property appraisers at about $2million, and in return, the Dodgers deeded the City land worth about $2million, so basically an even swap. BUT then the Dodgers built the stadium out of their own pocket which (adjusted for inflation) cost them a quarter of a billion dollars. Thereafter, where the City once got next to nothing in property taxes from Chavez Ravine, we have since had over a billion dollars in property taxes paid into City coffers by the Dodgers, not to mention the jobs and other taxes the ballpark has provided us.

Oh, and the city bulldozed and buried Chavez Ravine…cemeteries? Are you attempting to refer to the Jewish cemetery that the Hebrew Benevolent Society dug up and moved to Home of Peace in Whittier, or the Roman Catholic Calvary, whose dead were disinterred and moved to New Calvary? Because those cemeteries weren’t near La Loma, Bishop or Palo Verde and what’s more, they were all moved out before those were even neighborhoods. (And what was “buried?” Please don’t tell me you mean that wholly-debunked “they buried a school” nonsense.)

Sigh. Again, I will go into this in the forthcoming posts, but no, no, and no. If you throw around words like “wrongfully” and “unjustly” and “fraudulent” you are going to need to prove your case. Which you can’t, because you’re just cut-and-pasting inflammatory buzzwords.

In short—and bear in mind I’m not a fan of eminent domain in the least, but that notwithstanding—it is an inarguable truth that Chavez Ravine was condemned legally, everyone was paid, nothing was fraudulent, and again, there’s zero evidence it was done on the basis of race. Hard to believe AB1950 would assert something unconstitutional happened, when for years the whole process was debated by the courts, up to and including the Supreme Court; it was debated at length, and voted on by City Council; the entire matter went before the the citizens, who voted on it in the polls, twice; the project was supported by Mexican-American civic organizations and powerful concerns like the unions and leftist civic groups; certainly someone along the way would have noticed wanton wrongful fraud resulting in an unjust deprivation of constitutional rights. (Actually, anti-Communist conservatives went to bat for the people of Chavez Ravine for their “inalienable right to control one’s property,” but guess what, nobody listened to them.)

III. The Good Parts of AB1950

Mind you, not everything in AB1950 is just lists of well-meaning but easily disprovable claptrap lazily gleaned from the internet. I did, for example, really like this part:

This would be an incredibly valuable database (it would also put to rest persistent untruths like “families were left destitute,” a constantly-repeated bit of disinformation repeated by, for example, Wendy Carrillo…oh, and the Bill repeats this falsehood as well).

This database will be valuable to all involved IF, and only if, it is compiled by someone who can accurately navigate the primary source material and fastidiously evaluate the secondary. For this project to fly, it is imperative the City hire a professional historian with a background in the topic. My advice? Hire me. That’s right, City of Los Angeles, get me on board and I’ll produce your database and it will actually be correct. Trust me, you want this to be correct, otherwise you’ll end up paying out monies to people who don’t deserve them. Said monies are said to be in the “tens of millions of dollars” at minimum, which is a tall order considering the city’s nearly half-billion-dollar deficit. Ergo, let’s get it right.

Lastly:

That would be awesome, and again, something I used to press politicos for when I first got obsessed with Chavez Ravine back in the mid-1990s. Onward!

This, then, has been the general introduction to the topic of Chavez Ravine. All the matters I touch on, above, will be covered in greater depth in the posts to follow. I will post a new chapter every two days:

Part I: Chavez Ravine and the Mainstream Narrative Published Friday, May 10.

Part II: What is Chavez Ravine

Its beginnings, development, and evolution to 1950; its history of demolition prospects; and, can you call it Chavez Ravine? Published Sunday, May 12.

Part III: Calm Before the Storm

A snapshot of life in the area in the 1940s. The mythos of small-town life; Normark’s documentary work; a study of the people of Chavez Ravine; churches, markets, bus lines, etc. Published Tuesday, May 14.

Part IV: The Rise and Fall of Elysian Park Heights

A history of public housing; Neutra’s Elysian Park Heights project; its proponents and opponents; the area’s demolition; the downfall of public housing, and its relationship to anticommunism; land use after the demolition and nullification of the contract. Published Thursday, May 16.

Part V: Here Come the Dodgers

About the Dodgers; what constitutes public purpose; an illegal backroom deal?; a stadium is built. To be published Monday, May 20.

Part VI: The Arechiga Family

The Arechiga family history to 1950; eviction from Malvina Street; eventual removal in May 1959; the multiple Arechiga houses; life after Malvina; the next generation of Arechigas. To be published Thursday, May 23.

Part VII: In Summation, plus Odds and Ends

Key takeaways; plus a collection of *other* commonly-held beliefs about Chavez Ravine, conclusively debunked. To be published Monday, May 27.

And don’t forget to read:

Channel 5 Flubs Chavez Ravine

A web series does an episode about Chavez Ravine, and everything in it is untrue.

Deflating More Chavez Ravine Nonsense

A podcast does an episode about Chavez Ravine, and gets it all wrong.

If you have comments or corrections, please don’t hesitate to write me at oldbunkerhill@gmail.com.

And don’t forget to give us a follow on the Instagram!

My esteemed friend and Angels Flight co-operator Will, AKA saturdaystationagent, does great work on his Instagram regarding the Flight, like his timelapse photography (with longer vids of Life in the Station House uploaded to YouTube) as well as all manner of other Flight-flavored IG nuggets, one of my favorites being this. Plus, he documents the removal of tagging, which cannot be applauded enough (though we should remove hands along with the tags, as I have stated).

Anyway, lately Will’s been posting clips of the Flight from various classic pictures, like 1947’s The Unfaithful and 1949’s Criss Cross.

And that got me to thinking, hey, I seem to remember I put together an Angels Flight clip reel about ten years ago, projected onto the big screen at the Egyptian and then at the Million Dollar, but which has not been seen since.

So! Pop some corn, cast this onto your own big screen, and enjoy!

And be sure and follow Will’s page! He’s posted a number of rarely-seen examples in his “Angels Flight Plays Itself” series that I don’t have in my compilation, like M and Boston Blackie and Chicago Calling! and even modern stuff like City of Angels.

Oh, and Will’s got a big orange chonk. Everybody loves a big orange chonk!

*************

I would be remiss in my duties were I not to remind you: if you like Angels Flight, there’s a neat book that has it on the cover! If you’ve got that one, there’s another neat book that has it on the cover! And there’s another neat book that…doesn’t have it on the cover, but has lots about Angels Flight inside! Please click here to learn more.

There are three books about Bunker Hill and you’re going to want to get all of them!

***********

MARSAK’S GUIDE TO BUNKER HILL

Bunker Hill is an open-air museum of modernism, showcasing sterling examples of all the major postwar building styles, including Corporate Modern, Postmodern, and today’s contemporary architecture. Incredibly, it also still contains touchstones of the early 20th century, uniting us with Bunker Hill’s famed pre-redevelopment era!

The only way to know “what’s what” on today’s Hill is to get a copy of Marsak’s Guide to Bunker Hill, a full-color, 6×10″, 64-page glossy guidebook, with all the maps and photos and explanatory text you will ever need to make you an expert on Bunker Hill!

It is available for $25 postpaid.

Paypal is marsakster@gmail.com, and Venmo is @Hugo-Eckener. Copies are also available on eBay and Amazon. Read more about it here!

***********

BUNKER NOIR!

Bunker Hill was portrayed in crime fiction, and cast in film noir movies, because its dark alleyways evoked mystery … and in real life, many dark and mysterious goings-on occurred on the Hill.

I compiled all the true crime you could ever want — and more! — into one handy-dandy, full-color, 12×9″, 56-page magazine called Bunker Noir!

They are priced at a mere $33 postpaid. Paypal is marsakster@gmail.com, and Venmo is @Hugo-Eckener. They are also available on eBay and Amazon. Watch a suitably noir video about it here!

***********

BUNKER HILL, LOS ANGELES

The Big Book of Bunker Hill, Los Angeles published by Angel City Press, is hardback, 176 pages, and covers the entire story of Bunker Hill, soup to nuts:

It is available at all fine bookstores, and directly from the publisher:

Bunker Hill Los Angeles

https://acp.lapl.org/book/bunker-hill-los-angeles/

Read more about Bunker Hill, Los Angeles here and here and here!

*****

Mister Pineapple says get all three! He’s glad he did!

Fifteen years ago, I wrote a piece for the OnBunkerHill blog about a wonderful pile of dirt, specifically, an earthen contour as it rose above a parking lot at the northwest corner of Second and Hill Streets:

Alas, that particular plot of land and its pile of dirt is not long for this world.

It’s all being removed, and remade. Interesting fragments of the old area shall disappear, for example—one of the remaining pieces of Preredevelopment Bunker Hill—this bit of retaining wall that once shored up 419-21 West Second Street:

Won’t be there much longer, though. Here’s a piece of machinery removing that telephone pole, in anticipation of the vaster block-demolishing.

You may be familiar with Sunshine, Bunker Hill’s beloved palm elder—

—she too has been removed from the landscape, ostensibly to be replanted…somewhere.

And so it goes, all soon to be flattened.

The question being, what’s replacing our parking-lot-of-the-past?

According to the CRA, once upon a time, the parcel bounded by Second, Hill, First and Olive was destined to become an “office complex.”

The block has, of course, remained a parking lot since the 1950s, with the early-90s addition of a metro stop at its northeast corner—

Just for kicks, here’s that block by air in 1941:

Anyway, the northern half(ish) of the block, AKA Parcel W2, with the Metro stop and trees, is owned by the County. The southern part, W1, where lies our dirtpatch, is ostensibly owned by the Times. Since the Times is basically defunct, no telling what’s going on with that.

And so, our wee bit of vintage Hill topography is going the way of this:

Behold, the expansion of the Colburn, designed by Frank Gehry, scheduled to open in 2027. You may read more about it here and here and here and here.

And so, as a way of wrapping up what I began writing back in 2008, some pictures of good ol’ Second and Hill.

Of course, if you’re really hankering for old Bunker Hill topography, you can go hang out at the retaining walls and former Clay Street contour two blocks south. Still, I’d advise you make a detour to watch some of the Second and Hill demolition, to be able to say you Saw It When.

John Soltes, journalist extraordinaire, spoke with me recently about Marsak’s Guide to Bunker Hill.  He published said interview on his site Hollywood Soapbox…

…an interview you may read by clicking this link:

Marsak & Soltes Talk Marsak’s Guide

Go read it. I’ll wait. 

So now, having read the interview, you’re doubtlessly intrigued by the provocative palimpsest that is Bunker Hill, thus I suggest you do two things:

a) buy a copy of Marsak’s Guide to Bunker Hill. It’s easy, shoot me twenty bucks and you’ll have it in your mailbox before you can say Bonaventure. All the information about how to get your copy you may find right here:

Purchase Marsak’s Guide to Bunker Hill!

b) come with me this Saturday. I’ll be leading a charge up Bunker Hill, in search of architectural triumphs and failures, telling stories both divine and profane, and generally having a grand old time. Copies will be available there, naturally. (Plus according to all the weather prognosticators, Saturday will be our one day without rain in the next forty, so, get out while you can!) All the information can be had by clicking here:

Esotouric’s Bunker Hill Tour February 3rd

P.S. On a side note, if by some strange and unfortunate twist of fate you are allergic to cats, no, your copy will not have had felines lounging upon’t, rather, your Marsak’s Guide to Bunker Hill will come straight from the sealed box received from the publisher, then wrapped in archival tissue and posted in an unbendable cardboard mailer! (Copies covered in cat hair can be had for an extra charge.)

The Los Angeles City Historical Society was recently gifted a nifty collection of vintage images, which they Tuesday last, posted online:

And when that sort of thing happens, if there’s Bunker Hill involved, I’ll comment upon it, naturally (e.g. when this trove popped up on Google Arts and Culture).

Let’s get into into it. Part I: The Bunker Hill Stuff

Above, we look south from atop the Rowan Apts, which fronted on 123 South Bunker Hill Avenue (and 116 South Hope Street below). Our photographer peers across the rooftops: bottom left we see a wee bit of the roof-corner of 125 SBHA, then 133 SBHA, and 137 SBHA (with laundry hanging to dry in the backyard) and most prominent, with its witch-hat tower sticking up, is the north facade of 145 South Bunker Hill Avenue, best known as the Berke Mansion. At far left, one can see the unadorned west facade of the Dome at Second and Grand, and a bit of its bay-windowed north facade. Just a really, really unusual view. 

Now, WHY would such an unusual and particular shot be taken? Because it was captured by one Mr. James Daniel Horgan, a wholesale grocer, who lived at the Rowan.

Horgan came to Los Angeles from Wisconsin in 1904, and in the early 1920s lived at 1717 South Maple. Horgan moved onto Bunker Hill in 1923, living at 335 South Olive, where he stayed until 1927. He then moved into the Rowan, and remained through the 1930, ’40, and 1950 census. When he died in 1954, though, he was living at 3964 East Blvd, Culver City. 

Shots of The Rowan, Horgan’s home, are few and far between, but there is one in Bunker Noir!—

Now granted, that shot was unusual. Some of the shots of Bunker Hill are “usual suspects,” e.g. the Castle and the Melrose, arguably the most photographed of the Hill structures:

This is the Castle, 325 South Bunker Hill Avenue. This was shot post-1937, because the earthquake-damaged balcony and tower were removed when Margaret Pattison purchased the property in ‘37. A before-and-after showing tower and balcony:

And now the Melrose—

This is about 1932, when the Melrose still had its original cupola tops intact. They were removed after the ’33 quake, in tandem with a 1934 reroofing. 

The Melrose Annex (Thomas J. McCarthy, 1902) at left, and at right, the Richelieu. Note at far right the Moderne apartment building, which postdates these Horgan images to 1939.

Further north:

This is a pretty nifty shot, where Horgan stands at the north end of the Hill Street Tunnel and peers up to the Fort Moore area. The large structure at center-distance is the high school (Jasper Newton Preston, 1890), demolished 1936.

Horgan’s photo dates to about 1934. For a similar shot captured in 1919, turn to page 47 of Bunker Hill, Los Angeles:

Then there’s this vexatious fellow:

I get the feeling that we’re situated somewhere in the criminally underphotographed Temple/Beaudry area, perhaps around Bixel at Court. Is that dark shape upper-right-distance the Sisters Hospital up on Sunset? This will take more study, but for the moment, we press on.

PART II — NOT BUNKER HILL

Not Bunker Hill, but pretty nifty nonetheless, with a lot from the adjacent Civic Center area.

One of my favorite structures in the whole of Los Angeles architectural history:

LAPD Central, at 318-24 West First St., built in 1896, designed by Charles Lincoln Strange as a Romanesque Revival fortress. Its facade was damaged in the Long Beach Quake, and so its front was rebuilt and modernized in the spring of 1934…but only the top two stories, which made for a curious amalgam indeed. The “architect” for the facade remodel was the City’s Bureau of Construction. Never thought I’d see this work under construction. This building is so important (and Bunker Hill Adjacent) it merited inclusion in Bunker Noir!—

Central was demolished in 1956, and State Office Building #2 (Stanton & Stockwell/Anson C. Boyd, 1960) would be built on the site; the force had moved three blocks east over to the new Police Facilities Building.

We head a bit further east:

The old red sandstone Courthouse (Curlett, Eisen & Cuthberton, 1891) was already having issues before the quake.

Despite the tower being lowered significantly, after the ’33 quake, the whole works were condemned, and demolished in the spring of 1936:

Next door is the Hall of Records (Hudson & Munsell, 1911), which persevered all the way until 1973. 

Here’s the Times building—we’re looking at the NE corner of First & Broadway:

The first Times on this site (Caukin & Haas, 1887) was, of course, famously blown up by organized labor, killing 21 workingmen, and destroying the building. This replacement (Kremple & Erkes, 1912) was made superfluous and dispensable with the construction of the new Times building across the street. Ergo, it became the site of the new State Building. Strangely, because of issues removing the 1912 Times building (it was commandeered by the City for CIvic Center improvement, but the City and the Times could not come to agreement on compensation for years, and then the City and County argued over title), it co-existed with the new State Building for years, before finally being demolished in early 1938.

The mighty State Building (A. C. Martin, 1931) was felled in 1975. Once you could go stand on the wonderful marble flooring of its lobby, recently torn up and in some landfill.

Speaking of the new Times Building—

Of course I don’t have to introduce this fellow…

…but if you’ve any questions on the matter, I suggest you read the book.

Now we’re getting a little further afield—

This is looking up Weller Street. The Salvation Army at left was 129 Weller; the structure at the end of the block is the corner of First and Los Angeles.

Here we are atop the roof of the hotel at the northeast corner of Second and San Pedro:

We look west on Second to Brunswig Drug’s excavation site at 360 East Second Street, late 1930, skeleton up in early-mid 1931. 

Brunswig Drug lost four buildings to the 1930 widening of Spring Street. Thus they moved operations from their historic 501 North Main Street location to here. This Art Deco wonder—a quintessential American interbellum daylight factory—was designed by the firm of Albert C. Martin.

This structure is still there, sort of; it had three stories added and was reskinned by Reeves Associated Architects in 1985-86.

Here, we look south down Second; the intersection is Rose:

At bottom left we’re looking northeast: the soap company, far left, is at First and Hewitt, the gasometers behind at Jackson and Center.

A couple shots of County Hospital’s construction and completion:

Lastly, some things much further afield—

This is the Pacific Electric depot, 1450 Ocean Avenue, Santa Monica.

And this is Point Fermin lighthouse:

And lastly—

Why, it’s the statue of Gen. John J. Pershing, all the way up in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. A couple links to Los Angeles: San Francisco’s Pershing is by Haig Patigian, who produced the major sculpture for our lost, lamented Richfield Building. And, of course, we have Pershing Square! (Or we do for the time being, unless bands of misguided and ill-informed philistines succeed in renaming it.)

And so goes my identification of—some of—those images posted by the Los Angeles CIty HIstorical Society. Their post contained sixty total, so there are plenty more for you to look at, including a handful that stumped me totally…your job is to identify those not featured here, and email me so I might update this post. Thanks in advance, you crazy kids you!

There’s a wonderful new exhibit up at the Central Library—a vaster collection of Leo Politi’s original paintings from his celebrated book Bunker Hill, Los Angeles: Reminiscences of Bygone Days (Desert-Southwest Publishers, 1964).

Since you’re on this site, you’re likely familiar with Politi’s work, up to and including his Bunker Hill book. Should you not have a copy, at any given time there’s usually a few on eBay. (My advice? Splurge and get one of the signed copies, which include some of his fanciful, colorful art as part of the inscription.) Politi’s book is especially important in that it served to humanize the Hill and tell its stories, adding depth to those photographers (Reagh, Hylen et al.) who so dutifully documented the disappearing landscape.

So, LAPL has framed and displayed a collection of Politi paintings, with didactic panels that include language from his book, and it’s a thrill to see the originals in the flesh. You might ask, what is the Library doing with this unparalleled collection of Politi pictures, anyway?

It’s 1965. Bunker Hill’s demolition had thundered along for years, a stone’s throw from Central, the librarians therein forced to contend with assorted wrecking crews’ constant clangor. Politi’s newly-published Bunker Hill images were immeasurably important (and just plain wonderful) so the librarians requested the Board of Library Commissioners help purchase a selection of Politi’s paintings for the library’s Special Collections Department. The Board wrote a check to Politi for $3,000 ($29,524 USD2023) to attain an assortment of his Hill pictures. Sadly, after accession, the pictures disappeared to the library basement for nearly sixty years. 

How and why did the museum thus, then, arrive at the idea to finally mount this exhibition now? I have no idea. I do know that the good folks over at Esotouric called up John Szabo in the fall of ’22 and said hey, we’re putting together a Leo Politi tour with the Politi family, for a year from now—can we get our tour into Special Collections to see some of the original pictures? Library personnel were non-committal until, bang, a year later, Central opened the exhibit, three days before the Esotouric tour!

Again, one can only surmise regarding correlation and causation and all that; all I know for certain is that the tour was a huge success, and I’m proud to say I was in attendance to talk about Politi’s art as it related to Old Bunker Hill. 

Which got me to thinking, maybe I’ll take you on a little tour of the Politi exhibit. I grabbed my copy of Politi’s 1964 masterpiece and headed over to Central, to capture for y’all a bit of what’s there.

I can’t tell you what a thrill it is to get up close and personal with these works. The ability to get in there to examine the brushstrokes, and take in every little detail, is incredible. 

There are surprises, too, like pictures that don’t appear in his Bunker Hill book:

A Politi work I have always found especially endearing is his depiction of 246 South Bunker Hill Avenue, with its tenant, Rose. 

Politi describes Rose: always accompanied by her faithful dog, always feeding the pigeons, always taking care of the neighborhood animals. Note what appears to be a big ol’ orange kitty snoozing on the porch rocker—

Well, I was thrilled to discover Rose appeared amongst the color images shot by George Mann, where she is—what else?—brushing said big ol’ orange kitty. Naturally, I paired the Politi and the Mann in my book:

At this point you’re saying Nathan! I’m sold! I’m rushing out the door to take in this wonder, where is this incredible display? Well, first you want to find the Central Library (and unlike the rest of downtown, library parking is super cheap, especially on weekends or after 3:00). From the Flower Street parking garage, I advise you go around and in through the Fifth Street entrance, so you can peer up at Bunker Hill. Here is what the library (and the Fifth Street entrance) looks like from Bunker Hill:

Bertram Goodhue designed Central Library, though Goodhue died early in its construction and the project was brought home by Carleton Winslow. It opened July 1926 (I’m expecting great things at the centennial). Head into the north entrance and up the stairs—

—into one of the most sublime interior spaces in the world. The zodiac chandelier is by Lee Lawrie; the decorative work in the rotunda was painted by Julian Garnsey; the murals, oil on linen, are Dean Cornwell.

Then turn and head into the Children’s Room (originally the History Department) and marvel at one of the other most incredible interior spaces in the world.

Beams are again, by Garnsey, and the murals—originally located in the west entrance tunnels—are Albert Herter. Herter’s murals are neither as beloved nor as well known as Cornwell’s rotunda murals, but dear lord, they are incredible.

And then…on either end of the Children’s Reading Room…are the two rooms replete with Politis. 

I hope you’ve enjoyed our little trip to LAPL Central. But again, please don’t think you’ve sated yourself with just this post. There’s more than a dozen pictures on display, so I’ve only just scratched the surface, and they must be seen up close to be appreciated—my photos do not do them justice.

And now, like Rose of Bunker Hill Avenue fame, I’m going to go give some love to a big ol’ orange kitty!

There is, as you are doubtlessly aware, a Marsak-penned Bunker Hill trilogy—

And while I am certain you own the best-selling, award-winning Bunker Hill, Los Angeles (makes a great Christmas gift! buy yours here!), it may just be you have neither Bunker Noir! nor Marsak’s Guide to Bunker Hill—or you do, but your architecture-loving cousin doesn’t…and neither does you mother, who has all sorts of weird stories about Bunker Hill from her time there in the 1950s (transcribe and forward those to me immediately, btw).

So, might I advise you take advantage of the wonderful HOLIDAY SAVINGS on Bunker Noir and Marsak’s Guide, both now 30% off! Marsak’s Guide, regularly $20, now $14! Bunker Noir, regularly $30, now $20! (I know, Noir! is thus actually more than 30% off, but what can I say, I like round numbers.)

Best thing to do is Paypal (eckener@kingpix.com) or Venmo (@Hugo-Eckener) me for one or both. You do that, and I’ll pay postage! You buy them from eBay/eBay or Amazon/Amazon, you’ll get the same incredible holiday discount price, but you’re on the hook for postage.

Order now, get them for your holiday gift-giving! Or just take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime sale price—good till the end of the year!

This Sunday! Come on out to the Rare Books LA Antiquarian Book Fair in (the unbelievably gorgeous and important) Union Station!

I’ll be lecturing about the Bunker Hill book and the work that went into its production, in On Archives and Archivists: Building Bunker Hill, my overly-illustrated, terribly-talky talk about spelunking libraries, chasing private collections, and maintaining one’s own archive of rare ephemera.

TAKE A LOOK AT THESE PRESENTERS on the Angel City Press Author’s Stage. Two days of these titans!

All the talks, including mine, are FREE, though you do need to have a ticket to the event in general. (Oh nooooo, you must wander the high point of interbellum Los Angeles and peruse rare books and maps and paper from incredible dealers, my word, the hardships you endure.) Get your tickets to the Fair here.

See you Sunday!

Each of Marsak Manor’s five felines is possessed of markedly distinct opinions and temperament. So, the kitties having perused our recently-published Marsak’s Guide to Bunker Hill, I asked them to discuss their favorite building. Read what they have to say, below: 

PUMPKIN PATCH

“The Subway Terminal is my favorite, as its design references the glories of Europe, but was also built to facilitate interbellum technological prowess. I just purr over that sort of delicious interplay. That said, I’ve heard the structure has since lost its monumental rooftop urns, which hurts my heart. Please tell me that amongst your many endeavors, you are working on their restoration?”

GHOSTIE

“The Courthouse and Hall of Administration, obviously. They evoke the calm, confident charm of the Late Moderne, arguably the most elegant of Postwar building styles. Note the cool hand of Paul R. Williams. It’s a shame these two structures are so misunderstood.”

BORIS

“What’s funny is, it’s the worst buildings on Bunker Hill that intrigue me, which makes them my favorite, in an odd way. I mean, people make a lot of noise about the spiritual emptiness of those muscular granite-clad Reagan-era office towers, and those intrigue me too, but for my money it’s really the whole collection of Kamnitzer-Cotton projects on the Hill that are both insanely forgettable and yet burn themselves into your memory with a sort of aggressive vacuity. I see this guide covers Peter Kamnitzer’s bland Promenade condo complex and the goofy Grand Promenade Apartments, but the most egregious of his work has to be Promenade Towers. Which are great, if you dig jagged, angry concrete filing cabinets. Kind of our version of the khrushchevka yet somehow even worse. Like, it’s common to think of the eighties as just so much new wave-colored depthless giltz, but this perfect storm of overbearing ugliness typifies the true heart of 1980s America, wouldn’t you say?”

LARB

“Nathan, I have glanced at your book containing images and descriptions of Bunker Hill’s contemporary architecture. The very idea is, of course, distasteful, and the actual physical production of this little effort of yours is both garish and crass. While I have issues with your first book, Bunker Hill Los Angeles, at least therein you discussed Andrew Jackson Downing and Charles Eastlake. This product, though, is a gauche, gaudy delve into a debased modern world, to which I prefer not to be exposed, thank you.”

MR. PINEAPPLE

“I like this one cuz it’s funny!”

——————————————————————

Should you (or your cats) wish to gauge the worth and merit of Bunker Hill’s architectural offerings—from the 1901 Third Street Tunnel to the 2023 Regional Connector Station, and everything in between—be sure to pick up this nifty, 64-page guide! They are $25 postpaid, which you may remit via Paypal to marsakster@gmail.com or Venmo to eckener@kingpix.com, or send your cash/check to PO Box 412636, Los Angeles, CA 90041. They are as well available on Amazon and eBay.

This is a limited run, and when they’re gone, they’re gone!