Bunker Hill, Los Angeles

So, there’s much movement afoot regarding Cooper Donuts, and as I have covered that topic at length (this then this then this), it seems only fitting we dive back in, with these two things:

1. The City of Los Angeles is voting tomorrow to name Second and Main “Cooper Donut/Nancy Valverde Square,” and 2. there was a piece in the New York Times yesterday about the whole business. Let’s look at both!

The idea of naming the square dates back to December 2021. That’s when it was only supposed to be Cooper Donuts Square.  The contention being, that the Cooper Donuts at 215 South Main was the location of the famed 1959 uprising, the “first known instance” of “significant rebellion”.

However, as I have pointed out before, that is absolutely impossible, for two very good and simple reasons. You will recall, there is but a single, lone account of the riot—the one from John Rechy. Rechy stated, in no uncertain terms, that it happened in the spring of 1958…or spring of 1959. But as City building records conclusively prove (borne out by phone books and City directories), there was no Cooper Do-nuts at 215 South Main during either of those times. And, reason number two, Rechy’s lone account (and thus that which constitutes the whole of canon on the matter) of the riot clearly states it happened in the 500 block of Main.

What’s galling is that now people are falsifying history to an even greater extent. For example, Wikipedia. Someone went in to the Cooper Riot page and changed it to be about 215 South Main.

So what our deceitful Wiki-editor did—over the course of ten minutes last April 21st—was add in the fairytale address, then realized it now wasn’t between Harold’s and the Waldorf (as had been stated in the only account of the event literally ever) and thus weakly reworded it to say it was “near” these bars. Three blocks away.

But look! you say. It must be true because there are footnotes!

Yeah, no surprise, none of those footnotes actually say anything about 215 South Main. Because no-one even deigned to entertain such fabricated notions until a few weeks ago, when some people got hot to pass a motion through City Council.

Ok, so we’re all on board that there was no riot there (or in any Cooper’s since the only witness/lone teller of the tale has said it wasn’t at a Cooper’s). Ergo, the focus has shifted—yes the riot is a myth, but no matter, now what’s important is that Jack Evans, who ran Cooper’s, was an ally, and that Cooper’s should be recognized as “being the sole safe place for all LGBTQIA+ persons regardless of gender expression” (as stated in the Community Impact Statement, link here)—though we’ll ignore the fact that Cooper’s at Second and Main was across from the Archdiocese and the Union Rescue Mission, inarguably a tough area for out trans people in the 1950s, who would be more welcome in establishments a few blocks south…which is why Rechy decided to place the story on Main down by Sixth Street in the first place. (I should mention that the nomination still, of course, contends “The first recorded instance in the LGBTQIA+ community of gender-transgressive persons resisting arbitrary police arrest occurred at Cooper’s Do-nuts at 215 S. Main Street in Downtown LA in 1959” which its Government Author certainly knows to be an egregious falsehood.)

We are told the nomination is important because Cooper Donuts was a “safe haven.” I believe Jack Evans didn’t turn away customers if they had money. That doesn’t make him an ally, that makes him a capitalist. Nevertheless, this guy—

—Jack Chester Evans, a middle-aged (b. 1907) white man from Lorenz, Iowa, we are told by the family, was an ally. Not that there weren’t allies back in the day, but they’re usually progressive Jewish lawyers, not this guy.

Apparently, there’s some deep and affecting story there about how and why Jack and his wife, Colorado-born Marge, were America’s most unlikely allies during the days of the Boise Panic and the blacklisting of Frank Kameny. Seriously, what formative moment occurred in Jack’s life to make him an ally of unparalleled bravery? We want to know!

Recently, when the nominators of Cooper Donuts Square realized the whole Cooper story was pretty thin, they tied Nancy Valverde to it. Nancy is frequently mentioned as “proof” the riot happened, though it wasn’t until 2019, when asked about the subject by Los Angeles Magazine, she suddenly recalled that sixty years ago, she had heard second hand that something had happened somewhere. No matter; what is important, we’re told, is that she went to barber school near to the Cooper Donuts, had short hair and wore men’s clothes, and was welcome at Cooper’s (where she was particularly fond of the glazed donuts).

Now, I have no problem with a Nancy Valverde square, given as she is a famed activist and was trailblazing as an out lesbian in 1950s Los Angeles. But Second and Main? Really? Consider:

We are told in the City’s Community Impact Statement she went to Moler Barber School on Main near Third Street. That said, according to the Los Angeles LGBT Center, Valverde actually didn’t go to barber school: “getting her barbers license was an uphill battle, similar to the rest of her life. She was unable to go to barbers school because she didn’t finish school. However, one day, a man came up to her and told her that if she passes an IQ test, she could get her barbers license. After a lot of hard work, she passed her IQ test and became a barber.” 

Also, she was arrested repeatedly for being butch. (And yet, she was accepted at Cooper’s!) “Valverde liked to look dapper when she was young. She purchased men’s slacks and button down shirts and got them tailored to fit her slender frame (from here).” I find it a little odd she was arrested repeatedly for just that, in that there was a fad for 1950s women looking boyish in general. Anyone with even the most rudimentary knowledge of women’s fashion, knows that post-1947 Bold Look into the 1950s, even the most vanilla housewife began wearing trousers with button-down shirts, and cutting their hair short; pixie cuts (and the less severe “Italian Cut”) were all the rage, e.g. Shirley MacLaine and Audrey Hepburn during the time—up to including my own mother who, 22yo in 1959, had short hair and dressed quite boyish, as was distinctly à la mode.

Point being, Valverde would have been accepted at Cooper’s because…why not? Women looking like boys was pretty common, but what Rechy specifically calls out is that boys in tight capris and midriff shirts were the picked-upon donut patrons: it would have been a lot easier for Valverde-in-trousers to go fetch herself a donut, rather than some transgressive boys, especially at a Cooper’s directly across from St. Vibiana’s and the Rescue Mission.

And yet Valverde was arrested repeatedly under LA’s arcane 1898 anti-masquerading law, Ordinance 5022…before she and her attorney overturned that law in court!  But what raises an eyebrow is there’s never any evidence of when or how this happened. What date? What court? What judge? This would be a matter of public record down at City Archives, but I’ve got enough to do without going down to Piper Tech to find out. Someone please write me and give me the details, because I’d really like to know. I mean, for example, here it states she overturned the law in 1951. And yet, here it states she overturned the law in 1959. Well? (Protip: she was in fact never arrested under, and neither challenged nor overturned, anything called “Ordinance 5022,” despite what the City’s nomination states; 5022 didn’t exist after 1936, having been renamed Municipal Code 52.51.)

As I’ve said, I’m all for recognizing Valverde, but she didn’t spend much time at Second and Main, when she (perhaps) went to barber college at Third and Main. It seems like the Law Library, or more to the point, her barber shop on Brooklyn Avenue where she was hassled by LAPD, would be more deserving of a plaque. 

Nevertheless, despite all this, when City Council votes to name Second and Main “Cooper Do-nuts/Nancy Valverde Square” on Wednesday, I have NO doubt it will be passed unanimously (just as it was passed unanimously by the Board of Public Works a few days ago). Despite conclusive proof there was no Cooper’s remotely near that corner during the time of the claimed uprising, atop the fact that the only witness said it didn’t happen there anyway; despite reasonable doubt that Cooper’s was “the sole safe place for all LGBTQIA+ persons regardless of gender expression” (Jack Evans an ally? And besides, we do have evidence of what Cooper patrons looked like in 1959, and I’m not seeing a lot of midriffs and capris); and man, this whole newly-tacked-on Nancy Valverde bit is kind of just “well, we have to put a Nancy Valverde plaque somewhere, this location is as good as any, I guess.”

II.

As I mentioned above, there’s an article in yesterday’s New York Times about Cooper Donuts. I’m in there! There’s not much I really need to add, that isn’t covered in the above. 

Wellll, except it seems there’s always one more piece of information that requires commenting upon…like some bizarre whack-a-mole of “alternative facts.” See near the end of the NYT piece, where it mentions there was a Cooper Donuts at 243 East Fifth? And then links to Cooper Donuts Instagram post?

So, there was an Evans Cafeteria (it was never a Cooper’s Donut) at 243 East Fifth, and it was only there briefly. 243 became an Evans Cafeteria in 1953, and remained so for three years until that location went out of business in mid-1956 (the space thereafter became a bar called the Pioneer Cafe). “This site was a place of refuge for the LGBTQ community, and a symbol of resistance against police brutality and oppression.” Um, what? How? While I don’t have a shot of 243 East Fifth in its brief stint as a Cooper’s pre-1956, here’s 243, converted from a Cooper’s to the Pioneer Cafe, in 1959:

On a related note, here’s an interesting tidbit: we’re supposed to believe anything Jack Evans touched equals #LGBTsupporter and #LGBTrights because he was a trailblazing ally (again, on that we have no evidence, and have to take the family’s word on the matter). But we can say this with certainty, Jack Evans sure didn’t care much for unions and union workers!

It mentions his Evans Cafeteria at 215 and, note final sentence, the associated address of aforementioned 243 East Fifth, i.e. Fewster’s “Picketed by the AFL” Cafeteria, before its three-year stint as an Evans Cafeteria. Fewster’s is also associated with Jack Evans:  Fewster’s Cafeteria was the establishment of Louis Dufferin Fewster, Jack Evans’ brother-in-law, which is how Jack took over the lease in 1953.

III.

While I have you here, let’s address the elephant in the room. You know, where you say “why is this Marsak guy being such a JERK?” Look, it’s not my fault people are altering Wikipedia with lies and I have call them out on it. Seriously, I don’t want to be the guy righting repeated falsehoods all the time; I did it two years ago with one blog post (because it was related to Bunker Hill), pointing out the impossibility of the tale, and other people keep doubling down to insist it’s true, so the thing keeps snowballing. 

In yesterday’s New York Times piece Rechy states he was was weary of the “baffling hostility that has persisted” around his account, calling it “undeserved, incorrect, malicious, infuriating and, yes, saddening.” Really? I’ve no doubt you’re infuriated and saddened, but, the only account that’s incorrect is yours, sir. Simply searching for objective reality, utilizing empirical over anecdotal evidence, and relying on discoverable facts about this tale is assuredly not undeserved, and there has been—anyone and everyone will admit—nothing malicious or hostile about it. 

Apparently, though, doing research is HATE. Let’s look at some other typical reactions to my having poked at the story:

Note in the first sentence: should you question the establishment narrative, you are part of an “activist hate group.” So, said activist hate group consists altogether of me, which is kinda rich (since as a short Jewish tweedy historian I don’t exactly come off as a skinhead or whatever), and my pals Kim & Richard of Esotouric, whose politics are ultra-progressive Left (and who I might add have a upcoming tour about Gay downtown LA). Plus no one has in any way tried to “stop” the nomination or monument process. My job as a historian is digging up the truth; what you do with the truth is your business. That you choose to ignore, or worse, deny it, is rather telling.

Another typical comment:

Note the bit “Some armchair historians have claimed that the Cooper Donuts couldn’t have taken place, but we have multiple accounts of people, like Nancy Valverde, who know of the riots and serve as proof that such an action did occur.” First of all, “armchair historian” is pretty funny, since I’m literally a historian, and have never been anything else (resulting in far too many phonebooks). But whatever, more importantly, when Mr. Zappia states regarding Cooper Donuts “we have multiple accounts of people, like Nancy Valverde, who know of the riots and serve as proof that such an action did occur” I would counter (and I hate to sound like a broken record, but) no, you don’t have multiple accounts, you have zero accounts: there was a) Rechy, lone and sole witness who told the (impossible/improbable for so many reasons) tale 45 years after its alleged occurrence and who then flatly stated “there was no riot at Cooper’s”; and b) Valverde, who wasn’t there, but sixty years after it purportedly happened and was pressed on the matter, at which point remembered she’d heard second-hand that something had happened, with no mention of Cooper’s. Those are, strictly speaking, the opposite of “proof.”

IV.

I love two things:  history, and downtown LA.  People are running about abusing both, so it’s only natural I’d try and right those wrongs. If I’m the one who’s wrong, well, no-one has even made so much as an single effort to refute my claims. Rather, they want to say that I “hate” because they feel like I should be wrong. But the fact is, history matters, and when you build it upon a specious, spurious foundation, it makes the whole thing stink.

Some stories don’t stink. Why not, for example, monument the site of Blanchard Hall, which is *actually* documented? What about the Crenshaw Women’s Center? Well the City is super hot to tear it down, so they’re tearing it down. 

What about the two sites associated with gay civil rights activist Morris Kight? 1822 West Fourth, for example, would be a great monument, except developer-lovin’ YIMBY Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez is especially active in the fight to TEAR IT DOWN. Kight’s McCadden address might have a chance, though. Unfortunately for it, it doesn’t have the sex appeal of men dancing and singing in the street and making hardened Parker-era cops flee in terror.

Again, I am quite certain the motion will pass through Council tomorrow and the corner will be our newest monument. What’s troubling—besides our society’s wanton general disregard for truth—is that this monument will forever have the stain of falsehood upon it. All the good intentions in the world do not make confirmation bias, and an ad nauseam repetition of fake news, into reality. And then calling critical thinking and fact checking “hate” is an ugly way to shut down those who question the dominant narrative. 

But, now it’s a monument, and you, having read this post, know the truth. Accuracy and fact being as useful as a chocolate teapot in this town, so, enjoy your new monument not to truth, but to truthiness.

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!