Bunker Hill, Los Angeles

Out now! Two years in the making, Marsak’s Guide to Bunker Hill is the only illustrated guidebook to each and every intriguing structure atop today’s post-redevelopment Bunker Hill.

You see, after Bunker Hill, Los Angeles and its companion Bunker Noir!, I thought it high time that—à la eponymous guidebooks like those of Murray, Baedeker, Fodor, Frommer, et al.—I produce a Marsak’s Guide for all those eminently visitable locations in LA’s open-air “museum of modernism.”

This all-new, 64-page, full-color guide includes a map, so that as you explore the Hill you may get your bearings and learn all about the building standing before you. But—with every Hill structure in Marsak’s Guide listed chronologically—it’s no less a joy to read while relaxing in your easy chair, taking in how the Hill’s architecture developed over time.

These are priced at $20; with shipping and handling, $25. If you are inclined to have one of these hot-off-the-presses (seriously, they’re still warm, being proudly printed in Los Angeles) send your $25 thusly:

Paypal: marsakster@gmail.com

as is the Venmo:  eckener@kingpix.com AKA @Hugo-Eckener

…or with a good old-fashioned check to Nathan Marsak, PO Box 412636, Los Angeles, Calif. 90041.  

Marsak’s Guide is also available on Amazon and eBay, should you with to go that route.

Spectrum showed up at the Flight the other day, where esteemed anchor Jada Montemarano asked some questions about what it is and why it’s great.

Take a look here!

On a related note, I also hold forth on the Flight in a video from some years ago, here:

This weekend being the LA Times Festival of Books, I expect to see you cavorting about the panels and performances but, amid your gambolling, please don’t forget to cavort on over to the Angel City Press tent (Booth #119, near the Tommy Trojan statue) and pay me a visit on either (or both) Saturday and Sunday, from 2-4.

And if I’m not enough of a draw (you did, after all, come see me last year), take a look at this stellar collection of talent:

Huzzah!

Poking about the internet today, I found this new-to-me movie posted by the Office of Image Archaeology. It’s pretty neat! The uploading fellow said if you know any locations post ’em in the comments, which I commenced on to doing, but then, ended up here.

The film has some nice shots of Hollywood, and the Civic Center, but for our purposes I will (as you might imagine) stick to the Hill—

Of course, watch the entire YouTube upload for some vintage 1960s Hollywood…which I was tempted to explicate but will leave that for the Hollywood folk.

Until next time! NM

Happy Presidents’ Day! Yes, I know it’s really Washington’s Birthday (it irks me George is not still celebrated specifically) but, I’ll accept it. After all, who morphed Washington’s Birthday into Presidents’ Day? The mighty Angeleno, that’s who: among those many things invented in Los Angeles, Presidents’ Day is among them, as it exists due to the tireless efforts of one Mr. Harold Stonebridge Fischer, he of Compton, California.

What do presidents have to do with our topic at hand? Well, among the many notable folk who have lived on or visited Bunker Hill—my recent post about Anna May Wong being one example—it is asserted by some that President William McKinley has a connection to the Hill. McKinley purportedly stayed in one of its most recognized landmarks, the Melrose Hotel, or, at least, made a Very Important Speech from the Melrose’s porch. Heck, I reported as much in this 2008 post.

The source of that information is a couple of unnamed little-old-ladies who got to chatting with Times reporter Ray Hebert on Grand Avenue in June 1957.

While chatting with Hebert, and the fellow salvaging sinks and whatnot from the doomed Melrose, one of the ladies stated she remembered standing on that very sidewalk watching McKinley on that very porch, “as if it were yesterday.”

McKinley on Bunker Hill would be a huge deal for us Bunker wonks. Love him or hate him—many being divided over his annexation of Hawaii, freeing Cuba, or purchasing the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico—McKinley was arguably the first “modern” president, and we must admire his administration for its monetary policy and a trade reciprocity that shrewdly pulled America out of the crippling 1890s economic depression. All that notwithstanding, I just get all giddy over the fact that McKinley was on Bunker Hill in one of my favorite buildings.

But, of course, it never happened. It’s a neat story, but then so is “there was a streetcar conspiracy!” and “the Dodgers kicked people out of Chavez Ravine!” and those tales aren’t true, either. More analogous is the assertion that “Teddy Roosevelt stayed at the King Edward Hotel!” which, as has been pointed out, didn’t happen either. (Not that no-one ever stayed at the Melrose; it was the hotel of choice for any number of illustrious personages, e.g. Marshall Independence Ludington, though, he’s not exactly McKinley, is he.)

At this point, you might be wondering, what is this Melrose Hotel which McKinley did not in fact visit?

The Melrose was built in the spring of 1889, for Marc William Connor, designed by the firm of Joseph Cather Newsom. For reasons I go into here, I’m of the opinion that it is from the hand of Walter Ferris, Newsom’s draughtsman.

The Melrose soldiered on through the decades, gaining a second building to its north in 1902, remaining elegant to the end, before its 1957 demolition by the County.

There were a few notes in the news about the end of the Melrose. The 1957 Times article that spoke of McKinley’s presence described the old gal as grotesque and alarming and not unlike a snake, but worst of all, “out of place,” the true sin in mid-Century America:

In April 1957 the papers had made note of Lucy Davis, sole remaining resident of the venerable Melrose, being removed from her long-time home. In those blurbs, not only McKinley but old “Rough and Ready” Roosevelt himself bunked therein!

As I linked to above, Teddy Roosevelt was comfortably ensconced in the Westminster, not the Melrose (nor the King Edward). The question then being, if McKinley didn‘t stay at the Melrose, where was he?

McKinley made his way to the Van Nuys, two blocks south and five blocks east, well off of Bunker Hill.

Mind you, McKinley didn’t stay at the Van Nuys; he bunked with fellow Ohioan Harrison Gray Otis at The Bivouac. Members of his entourage, like George Cortelyou, though, stayed at the Van Nuys. A good summation of the 1901 McKinley trip is here.

But still, the little-old-ladies of 1957 insisted they had seen a McKinley speech. And they did, delivered from the balcony of the Van Nuys Hotel:

During his welcome reception at the Van Nuys, McKinley decided the throngs deserved an impromptu address, and asked Milo Potter where he might find the nearest suitable balcony. The President was ushered to the balcony of room 22, near the northeast corner of the second floor. That would be here:

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

So. No McKinley on Old Bunker Hill. “Awww,” you say, “now I’m sad. Surely at least one president visited Bunker Hill…”

Well, fear not! In October 1880 we were graced by the presence of Rutherford B. Hayes, who stayed at the Cosmopolitan Hotel, on Main near Temple, and then visited the northern reaches of Bunker Hill when he attended the agricultural fair at the Horticultural Pavilion. (You may claim that the Pavilion having been north of Temple Street, its location should rightly be called Fort Moore Hill rather than Bunker Hill, but, I consider the Fort Moore area a northern district of Bunker Hill, and, it being my blog, so there.)

Hayes spoke to a packed pavilion and then went off to look at all the boostery produce. Then he and his party dined at the New England Kitchen in the pavilion. Even in 1880, Los Angeles had theme restaurants; forty years before the immersive experience of the Jail Café, the ladies of the New England Kitchen dressed in Colonial garb.

Naturally, I contacted the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library, asking after any images that might exist of his Los Angeles trip. Unfortunately, while library archives contain some images of Hayes on his 1880 Western Trip, those images are of his adventures around Yosemite and Menlo Park.

As for the Horticultural Pavilion: it is oft said that the structure burned down, as so stated by Sarah Bixby in Adobe Days. However, its end was in actuality much less dramatic. The pavilion could never meet its mortgage, and it was pulled down in the spring of 1882. The area on which it stood was redeveloped as residential:

There has been no shortage of presidential trips to Los Angeles over the years, but I’m yet to discover further evidence of presidential appearances in predemolition Bunker Hill, apart from Hayes.

Bunker Hill adjacent, though…

Presidents still come to our fair city, visit downtown, and it often gets saucy, but none have the moxie (nor the mighty beard) as President Hayes, our Chief Executive of Old Bunker Hill.

So I’m on the Instagram, when there on the page of forgottenmadness_la, was this post. FMLA noted that the nifty image was part of a LIFE magazine feature titled “Ugly America,” shot by Walter Sanders. I flew immediately to the greater collection, archived at Google Arts & Culture, here. I am deeply indebted to FMLA for hipping me to this hoard, so, please go over and follow their IG page; it’s great work.

From what I can tell, none of Sanders’ images from this shoot, nor any “Ugly America” feature, ever actually ran in LIFE magazine. I certainly would like to read said piece, so I may see what actual arguments LIFE attempted to make.

Basically, Sanders went to Los Angeles and San Francisco in November 1945 and shot those intricate and ornate (read: ugly) structures found in their urban cores, along with some opposing shots of the new, orderly suburban developments popping up as part of the beautiful postwar world. In San Francisco, Sanders shot mostly in Chinatown, and when in Los Angeles, on Bunker Hill; those being the two most photogenically timeworn neighborhoods whose structures exhibit the greatest superfluity of ornament—which to the mid-Century mindset was not just ugly, but positively gauche, and vulgar.

Sanders’ shots on Bunker Hill include many of the “usual suspects” but also a number of rare and unusual images. I’ll begin with some of the more oft-photographed:

The Majestic, First and Hope Streets

The Majestic, AKA the Rossmere and the Lima Apartments, in a very dim capture. I’ll grant you it looks rather forlorn here, ugly by 1945 standards (moreso given the dreary lighting), but would we pronounce it so…today? I think it’s a rather remarkable building. It was shot by nearly everyone, from Dickerson in its early days to Palmer Conner and George Mann near the end; I wrote about it here (and here) and it gets a full-page spread in Bunker Hill, Los Angeles.

The Melrose and Richelieu, 130-142 South Grand Avenue

Sanders shot a pair of images of the Melrose, and one of the Richelieu, and this one of the two together. I mean, you’ve probably had enough of these characters after reading this. Now, I haven’t actually gone through all fifty-two issues of LIFE from 1946 to find this purported “Ugly America” article, but seriously, if you have that issue, shoot me some shots of it, because I’m dying to read the copy.

First Street, between Olive and Grand

Historically less photographed is that part of the world around First Street, between Olive and Grand, where Sanders took a few shots—

Above, the southwest corner of First and Olive (with the Mission-Revival Owens Apartments at 502 West First, in all its parapet’d and tile-towered glory), First Street running west up the right side of the image, shot from the towering dirt hill kittycorner.

From the same vantage point, at the opposite (northwest) corner:

The structure at bottom left in the above image is 501 West First (with 107 North Olive to its right). 501 West First shows up again:

Six years later, in October 1951, the Examiner shot that same corner when a Deputy Sheriff careened out of control and smashed into that callbox:

Sanders also shot the Nolen Apartments at 512 West First, mid-way up the block on the south side (it can be seen at left in both images taken from the hill)—

Below, we look down First from Grand, with the aforementioned hill in the distance, whence he shot the intersection of First and Olive:

The structure second from left, above, is 519/521 West First:

The Queen Apartments—529 California Street

The Queen makes its appearance in BHLA, of course, but it’s the straight-ahead shot we’re used to seeing (in online magazine articles, for example). What makes Sanders’ shots different are his standing further back, and shooting a wide shot from up the street:

The Weygand Apartments, 208 South Figueroa

You may be familiar with the wonderfully Neoclassical/Greek Revival Weygrand at 208 South Figueroa from this 1964 shot by William Reagh. Really nice to see this oblique angle from 1945:

Above, a shot of the back of The Weygrand, taken by Sanders while standing at the railing of the Second Street tunnel at Flower. A bit like this Nadel image from 1955, which Nadel shot from the Stanley Hotel.

J. P. Miller house–201 South Bunker Hill Avenue

The Miller (seen here in 1896) house is not the most unphotographed house on the Hill, shot as it was, and in color, by George Mann and Walker Evans. Still, I like this image, as it predates those two by fifteen years or so, and shows all sorts of interesting differences (like the loss of the upper railing and those ball-top newels, the enclosure of the back porch, etc).

Sanders also shot up at the back of the house from Second and Hope Streets:

Berke Mansion—145 South Bunker Hill Ave.

While standing on Second between Bunker Hill Ave and Hope Street, Sanders turned his camera to the Berke, which loomed o’er.

The Backyards of Olive Street

In images worthy of Leonard Nadel, Sanders, standing on the dirt incline near the back of the Melrose, captured the cluttered back yards of the 100 block of South Olive.

The white structure, center, 129 South Olive, gets a shot of itself in the book:

The Gibson—635 West Fourth Street

Now we’re getting into some meaty meat. The Gibson at Fourth and Hope is one of my favorite structures:

Zelda Best Keel had married Fred Gibson in Ohio in 1898; they came to Los Angeles and built the Gibson, at 635 West Fourth St., designed by Zelda’s brother Jesse Reece Keel, in the fall of 1903.  She then married Harvey La Chat in April 1907 and they built the Zelda in 1908, also designed and built by the J. R. Keel & Co.  She, her brother and their families all lived and died in the Zelda, though they, perhaps fortunately, did not live to see its end. The widening of Fourth Street for the freeway cut took out both the Gibson and Zelda, in the summer of 1954.

Shots of the Gibson are few and far between, so I was immensely gratified to be rewarded with this one:

I mean, notice how the humble Edwardian-era grocery became the world’s most noir liquor store.

The Francis—129 South Grand/128 South Bunker Hill Avenue

In 1905, Mrs. Fannie Mansfield, widow of Francis Mansfield, engaged architect Arthur L. Haley to built and apartment building between First and Second, that ran from Grand to Bunker Hill Avenue. It was to be known as the Mansfield, but she soon changed its name to the Francis.

I’ve only found one proper image of the 131-129 S Grand Avenue frontage, which has its entrance on the south corner of its subtly asymmetrical, plastered, Mission Revival façade:

But have you ever seen the Bunker Hill Avenue side? That one is all bilateral symmetry, and covered in traditional shiplap:

And you may say, well, yes, Nathan, there’s an image of the Francis’ 128 South Bunker Hill side in the Palmer Conner collection:

To which I say not good enough! You can’t even see the quatrefoil! But:

Those then are the Bunker Hill images from Sanders’ November 1945 trip out west; remember, though, they account for about only 10% of the shots from this set. As I mentioned before, Sanders went to other parts of Los Angeles, and up to San Francisco, in his search for Ugly. Some quick examples:

LOS ANGELES

SAN FRANCISCO

It’s fascinating to get a glimpse into what was considered ugly in 1945, and how that fit into greater cultural prejudices against old buildings (I go into this a bit on p. 64 of BHLA—e.g., the 1941 play/1944 movie Arsenic and Old Lace, in which we learn to stay away from the Victorian house on our block, as it is likely inhabited by psychopathic, poisoning spinsters). One wonders how Sanders, who lived till 1985, felt about his role as a documentarian come the early 1960s, when the Bunker Hill streets he walked in 1945 were depopulated and demolished.

Compare the 1945 LIFE shoot with one from eighteen years later titled “Doomed…It Must Be Saved” in which Walker Evans shot Bunker Hill. That feature described a great number of buildings America could not afford to lose…of course, the 1963 LIFE feature didn’t look kindly on anything as recent as fifty-year-old buildings, just as the 1945 feature looked upon fifty-year-old buildings with a jaundiced eye.

Of course, today, on post-redevelopment Bunker Hill, things aren’t looking so hot for fifty-year-old buildings, either. We’re just hitting that sweet spot when building owners really like messing with their properties.

We’ve seen this recently, when KBS Realty built up the south half of the 1965 Union Bank Plaza. Yes, the majority of the Eckbo gardens at the north half were spared, but only after a fight (then, after KBS’s $20-million renovation, they promptly turned around and sold the property…for a $50-million loss).

We’ve seen this recently, at the 1968 Bunker Hill Towers, which had balconies stuck on and were then painted battleship grey.

We’re seeing this now, as the 1974 Sasaki-Walker designed park at the Security Pacific plaza will soon have a 366-unit tower covering the southeast corner.

We’re seeing this now, as the 1975 World Trade Center will have a skyscraper attached; it’s unclear whether its intact 1970s lobby with 1000′ foot-long Tony Sheets bas relief The History of World Commerce will survive the build.

In any event, those then are the Hill shots captured by Sanders in 1945. Thank you for reading! And as I continue to uncover new (to me) Bunker Hill images, I shall endeavor to bring them to you here.

There is, course, no better way to ring in the holiday season than with a three-hour tour, specifically, one focused on serial killers, bar brawls, gangster abductions, desecrated cemeteries, and other horrible happenings. Oh, and a subterranean race of Lizard Men.

Two weeks from today—Saturday, December 17th—the good folk at Esotouric are hosting the Bunker Noir! True Crime on Los Angeles’s Bunker Hill tour. Which shall be led by yours truly, pontificating ecstatically about the Hill’s dark past (peppered with the odd take on its contemporary architectural landscape, I’m sure).

For all the information you need, click below:

https://esotouric.com/event/bunker-hill-noir-12-17-22/

BUNKER NOIR! TRUE CRIME ON LOS ANGELES’ BUNKER HILL TOUR

See you there! God bless us, everyone!

Quick, how many former residents of Bunker Hill have appeared on United States currency? I can hear you now yelling “ooo! ooo! DeWitt Clinton!” but sorry Horshack, no, and you’re way off.

We’re talking about a woman, and on a coin. At which point you wise up and say “ahhhh, right—because I read this, I know that Susan B. Anthony was on Bunker Hill!” and while I’m impressed you remember that, strictly speaking Anthony was a houseguest on the Hill, not a resident.

The answer, of course, is Anna May Wong, of 351 South Flower and 241 North Figueroa Streets. She, who dons a new twenty-five cent piece:

At which point you ask, well now, was she ensconced in one of the famed Bunker Hill mansions? The answer would be no: she was born in a modest gabled structure on Flower, and where she grew up, 241 North Figueroa, was a simple, small, two-story wooden structure. I’m yet to find a decent photo of it, but we do have a drawing—

This image appeared in one of the “Rediscovering Los Angeles” features in the Times, as penned by Timothy Turner and illustrated by Charles Owens.

How and why did Anna May live in this laundry?

Wong Sam-sing, 41, married Lee Gon-toy, 15, in San Francisco in 1901. They moved to Los Angeles, 117 East Marchessault Street, and had a daughter, Lew Ying (whom they called Lulu) in December 1902. About 1904 they moved into the thick of Bunker Hill, to 351 South Flower Street, where Wong Liu Tsong, whom they called Anna May, was born in January 1905.

The Wongs move into 241 North Figueroa in late 1907 (some sources state the Wongs moved into 241 in 1910, but they appear in directories at that address in 1908).

The Wong family owned a laundry, as was typical of Chinese-Americans at the time, laundries being one of the few professions open to their race.

Like I said, we don’t have a decent photo of the structure, but at least we have a photo—

Liu Tsong/Anna May labored at the laundry with her siblings and attended the California Street public school on Fort Moore. When she and Lulu were bullied at that school, her parents pulled them out and placed them in the Presbyterian Chinese Mission School, 766 Juan Street, in Chinatown.

Anna May became enamored of the motion pictures. When she was 14, she got a bit part in The Red Lantern. A couple years later she had dropped out of school, landed the lead in The Toll of the Sea, and the rest is history.

Turner’s predictably pre-PC depiction of the laundry runs like so:

The structure at 241 N. Figueroa was built in the summer-fall of 1907 by covered-wagon-pioneer Aurelia Jane Hargrave Corker (widow of John Roden Corker; Aurelia’s legal battle with her stepson over Corker’s estate made the papers in the late 80s-early 90s ) who lived at 139 South Figueroa. 241 was 20×70, and had a 200sf bedroom addition to the back in 1911.

Aerials and maps give us a sense of where this was:

As can be seen, 241 became the site of a large office building, designed by Novikoff Engineers and built in the spring of 1952.

And now you’re wondering, well why doesn’t that perfectly serviceable Late Moderne building look like that now? Because in 1972 it was remodeled so as to visually conform with the 1970 Arthur Froelich & Associates-designed County Health Department Central Administrative Offices at 313 North Figueroa.

In Bunker Hill, Los Angeles there’s a whole section on famous folk who bunked on Bunker (I recently added James Oviatt to the list) including pioneering woman like Edith Head and Margrethe Mather. I didn’t make the Wong connection in time and it breaks my heart she didn’t make it into the book.

So while we rejoice that this groundbreaking icon, a trailblazing stalwart for representation, is honored on American currency, just remember…Bunker Hill!

First, one must establish what gift is best, in this spookiest of holiday seasons—the answer being a copy of Bunker Noir!, of course, replete as it is with horrible horrors, terrible terrors, and all manner of wacky weirdness.

Now, you may purchase copies directly from me, and I have as well made them available via Amazon and eBay.

But what fun is that? I would suggest you take a trip down to Grand Central Market. Not only can you ride Angels Flight across the street, and chow at the market (I’m particularly fond of pupusas from Sarita’s, and recommend the work of Tacos Tumbras a Tomas), you can in fact pick up a Bunker Noir!…right there in the middle of the action!

UPDATE! Due to overwhelming demand, the ADSLA has added ANOTHER tour! Yes, tickets for a November 6th ‘encore tour’ are now available. Buy soon: we anticipate them to sell out rapidly! Click here! https://artdecola.org/events-calendar/spooky-oviatt-tour-2022-encore

It is the Spooky Month! There’s certainly no dearth of spookified going-ons around town, but if I may make a suggestion: endeavor to take the Art Deco Society’s upcoming Spoooooooky Oviatt Penthouse tour!

There are a number of reasons to do so—for example, if you’ve never been in the Oviatt penthouse, that’s some bucket-list-Art Deco right there, arguably the finest Deco interior in all Los Angeles. And if you have been inside, you ain’t seen nothing like this twist on the the tour, replete with tales of its resident g-g-g-ghosts!

This tour is being led by Marc Chevalier, who knows everything about the Oviatt Building in general, the penthouse in particular, and is hip to all the juicy details regarding it and its builder, James Oviatt.

But far be it from me to suggest something that doesn’t have a Bunker Hill connection—James Oviatt, on his arrival in Los Angeles, lived on Bunker Hill. In my book I cover some of the famed folk who bunked on Bunker Hill: Edith Head, Jack Webb, John Wayne, Lon Chaney, et al., but somehow haberdasher-to-the-stars James Oviatt was left off the list. So:

Oviatt was twenty-one when he came to Los Angeles in 1909.

He shacks up in a three-flat apartment house at 308-310 South Grand. There are two images of 308-10 in Bunker Hill, Los Angeles before and during its 1963 demolition:

A shot of the place about 1960, snapped by Arnold Hylen:

One can just imagine James going to work in 1909—suited up, heading out the door, during right down Third, taking Angels Flight down to Hill, crossing Broadway, to the Douglas Block at the corner of Third and Spring, where he was a window dresser at the C. C. Desmond haberdashery.

In 1910 Oviatt has made his way down to the flats, in a little two-year-old bungalow at 632 West 43rd Place. Evidently he realized “damn, it’s taking me forever to get to work” so in 1911 he’d moved back to Bunker Hill:

Oviatt returns to Grand Ave. about four blocks north of his old place at 308 South Grand, into the Carleton, 232-236 North Grand. The Carleton appears in Bunker Hill, Los Angeles on page 102.

The Carleton was designed and built in 1905 by Warren Chancellor Dickerson, who lived in and managed it until he passed in 1936, thereafter being managed by his widow Elmira. It was purchased by the Department of Water and Power after Elmira passed in 1942. The DWP intended its headquarters to go on that block, and demolished the Carleton in late 1950 (that and other adjoining blocks were later sold to the County for its Courthouse project, and the DWP built its General Office Building a bit further west).

James Oviatt lived at the Carleton through 1911, until in 1912 he resettled into the brand-new Los Angeles Athletic Club. From there, of course, it is a tale of his glorious ascendancy, from boardinghouse to penthouse, before his downfall.

But back to the Carleton for a moment—I’m going to share something with you no-one has ever seen. It’s a shot by Arnold Hylen, standing on the porch of the Carleton looking north, captured about 1949.

AAAAAAaaanyway, those then are two of the first places James Oviatt resided in Los Angeles, before fame and riches and building the world’s greatest penthouse. And now YOU are going on this tour:

And to do so all you have to do is click here:

https://artdecola.org/events-calendar/spooky-oviatt-tour-2022