Quote:
Originally Posted by ProphetM
No, it was never a park back then.
Bear with me, this may be a little long!
(truncated from orig post)
Here is a great shot of the whole area of Angel's Knoll, circa 1913. We've gone a little further west on 4th St., so the intersection of 4th & Olive is in the right foreground with 4th St. stretching east into the distance:
USC Digital Library
The future site of the Hotel Clark Garage/Center Garage is the empty lot on the corner, and the rather large house to the left of the lot. Next to the lot facing 4th is Hotel Antlers, not a very wide building but very deep, and then beyond that the brand new Black Building (ironically, looking very white). Traveling north on Olive from the corner, next to the big house is the Wales Apartments. Further up Olive on that side are individual houses (apparently still there in the 1953 photo). On the Hill St. side of the Angel's Knoll block, aside from the Black building, the rest of the area contains several low-rise commercial buildings and at least one small hotel - the Pembroke. I don't know if these were replaced before the Bunker Hill redevelopment. If not, then the back walls of these buildings are the ruins that remain today along the base of Angel's Knoll.
On the 1921 Baist Real Estate map, narrow Clay St. is shown halfway between Hill & Olive in this block, starting at 4th St. directly between the Antlers and the back of the Black building, but none of the pictures I found are from a proper angle to see it. The Baist map shows several buildings facing Clay, mostly houses so they're not really visible in the 1913 photo of the block, because of the bigger buildings around them. |
The Prophet! Thanks much for your investigation of the knoll back in the day. May I add to the tale? This area has always fascinated me and this is precisely the kind of post I love to go off on...(those of y'all with short attention for the long winded should start scrolling ahead now...)
So here is the area in question:
sanbornmapsvialapl
specifically,
this area --
---as it was in 1951.
Let's take a look at our beleaguered park area in 1906:
Here's a shot looking across its northern edge --
libraryocongress
The place with the balconies is 350 S Olive (twenty-four rooms, and 50x95 feet, lost in 1919 when the
Clark Garage is built). Note the Wales at 344. Interesting place; Thomas Bailey and his brother
Wellesley were tireless fighters for the leper, and although Thomas is not as well-remembered in the history of the
Mission to Lepers in India, he was its organizing secretary and traveled the world to spread the word. While in Los Angeles about 1896, he and his brother-in-law came to realize that beside all this Christian charity, a clever thing to do would be build apartments on Bunker Hill! So they did, putting up the Wales sometime ca. 1903.
usc
The Wales not long before its demolition --
calstatelibrary
Now let's peer down 4th St:
usc
There's the Hotel Antlers.
private
This is a largely unknown 1902 work by Robert Brown Young, architectural titan of the boom years. This was a commission by AJ Reithmueller; Young had already done two buildings for Reithmueller, the 1896
346-348 S Hill (AKA Engine Company #3) and the 1898 Hotel Aldine (right hand side of
this image) at 326 S Hill.
Now, the Black Building at Hill and Fourth. More attention may get paid to its neighbor across the street, the
Wright & Callender, because who in the name of hell tears down a giant 1905 Parkinson & Bergstrom? (BTW, you have to go buy the new
Parkinson book!) Abraham Edelman is best remembered as using reinforced concrete in Harris Newmark's 1899 Blanchard Music & Art Bldg, and he built the first reinforced theater for Morosco, not to mention the twenty or so other major office buildings, schools, synagogues...but the Black Bldg, by Edelman & Barnett, was a 1911 Beaux-Arts wonder.
usc
George and Julius Black erected this glazed-tiled, mahogany-paneled masterpiece on the site of the Cowper homestead; the papers at the time noted that the "shack" on the corner, where the pioneers of Los Angeles were still hunkered down, was an "eyesore" along this up-n-coming thoroughfare.
calstatelibrary
Now you see it -- (note the Mutual Garage in the far background):
usc
lapl
Running along Hill St:
usc
Look, it's the nascent Knoll...
lapl
(Note the Luckenbach Bldg in the distance in the upper image; also by Edelman & Barnett, 1910. Unadorned ultramodern and super important, but outside the scope of Angel's Knoll. Thought I'd mention it anyhow, and while I'm on the subject of demolished north-side-of-Hill-twixt-3rd-and-4th, the Ferguson Bldg, there behind the Luckenbach, was designed by George Wyman, the architect who did the Bradbury. Where people get this idea that he only did the Bradbury I'll never understand, especially since that myth has been debunked. He DID do the
Tajo, which was awesome. But I digress.)
However, speaking of the aforementioned John Parkinson, two doors down from the Black Bldg at 349 South Hill, the Parkinson-designed University Club is erected in 1905. Later demo'd without so much as a thought.
usc
Ah, but it's getting late. (And you're getting tired, no doubt.) I have a whole bunch of stuff to add about Clay Street between 4th and 3rd, as it ran right through Angel's Knoll, but that will have to wait!