Los Angeles High School in transit, 1886
Photo of the Los Angeles High School building, being moved over Temple Street as a couple of people look on. A man standing at the corner of Temple and Broadway (formerly Fort Street) watches a double trolley traveling by, and two people can be seen exiting the Clifton House on the left. The high school building would be placed on Fort Moore Hill on a site north of California Street and west of Hill Street where it would serve for another five years before being functionally replaced by a new structure, the second Los Angeles High School on Hill Street on the brow of Fort Moore Hill over-looking Sunset Boulevard. This original high school building would persist on the Fort Moore Hill site until it is demolished in 1950 to make way for the Hollywood Freeway. Photograph dated 1886.
LAPL
Aerial of Los Angeles, 1887
I've always liked this murky aerial. Aerial photo of Los Angeles on June 27, 1887 taken from a balloon. North is to the left. Note the farmland south of Second Street and east of Main Street to the Los Angeles River. The town's population was a little over 20,000 at this time. The circular form of the Plaza is visible to the center left. Of particular note, Poundcake Hill (look for the stub of Court Street pointing directly at it) is vacated for the coming construction of the new county courthouse which will be dedicated next year, in 1888, while the high school building has been moved and is visible over on Fort Moore Hill just above California Avenue.
waterandpower.org
here are some annotations to make it clearer,
Aerial of Los Angeles, 1887, annotated
Also it is easy to see how the intersection of Hill and Court Streets might be a safe haven for children at play. This from Sarah Bixby Smith's autobiography Adobe Days (1931, Jake Zeitlin), 'North of us were several houses containing children-and here I found my first playmates-Grace and Susie, Bertha and Eileen. The level street at Court and Hill, protected on three sides by grades too steep for horses, was our safe neighborhood playground.'
Also from Adobe Days, 'After a couple of years we built our own house in the same neighborhood on the southeast corner of Court and Hill Streets. It began as a seven-room cottage, white with green blinds to suit father. Later the roof was raised and a second story inserted and the house was painted a more fashionable all-over gray, to suit the ladies.'
The Llewellyn Bixby house was directly across Hill Street from the Bradbury mansion. It can be clearly seen here,
View of Bunker Hill from the Court House roof, C.C. Pierce, ca.1895
Court Street cul de sac (before the installation of Court Flight) is evident. Bradbury Mansion is shown at the intersection of Hill and Court Streets. The Bixby house (two story directly across Hill St. from Bradbury) appears at the center of frame. The Bixby house is partially hidden by trees and is not to be confused with the small cottage here at the very end of Court Street
C. C. Pierce Collection/The Huntington Library/Los Angeles Times