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Old Posted Dec 11, 2010, 3:36 AM
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Beaudry Beaudry is offline
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Originally Posted by malumot View Post
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Beaudry - You're the best. (Well a lot of you are.) I keep coming back here like moth to a flame. Thanks for all the recent posts, and the informative background.

In trying to answer a question I pose to myself (Why do I find Bunker Hill so fascinating?), here's a couple really brief reasons I came up with---

The hill itself. Sounds obvious, but......that was a VERY steep hill in parts, as Beaudry pointed out in his most recent Third Street photos. There was a reason why there was demand for such a thing as Angel's Flight. And 100 years ago they didn't have the earthmoving capability they do now. A little scraping and tunneling here and there but they pretty much worked with what they found....and that led to some very interesting streetscapes.

Take the Second and Third Street tunnels....If road-builders came upon that barrier today they would simply V-cut it. Ho hum. And no way would you get anything like The Sawyer (and many others) that are only three stories on the uphill end but 8 stories on the downhill side! I surely don't see unique curiosities like that where I live, on the Broad, Beige Plains of Irvine......LOL

The other thing I find fascinating is that so many of the structures are of the same vintage, which lends something of a consistency and repetition to the streetscapes. (By extension, the first rule of landscaping is repetition of a theme.) You have your late 19th century Victorians and early 20th century apartment/hotels, but the place was pretty much built out by the mid-1920s.

Most cities have become a hodgepodge of old and new architecture. The result usually isn't very pleasing. Or even jarring, if one considers NYC's Grand Central Station juxtaposed against the Met Life Building. And to be fair, the New Bunker Hill works pretty well precisely because of that same reason...it is pretty much ALL more modern architecture.

Back to work. Thanks again to all the posters.
I think you hit the nail on the head. Reminds me of the quote from Ask the Dust -- "The hotel was called the Alta Loma. It was built on a hillside in reverse, there on the crest of Bunker Hill, built against the decline of the hill, so that the main floor was on the level with the street but the tenth floor was downstairs ten levels." (Fante's Alta Vista, on the W side of Bunker Hill Avenue [at 3rd], rode the down the hill à la the Sawyer.)

But then, if architectural homogeneity is a motivator, wouldn't the same be arguable for Irvine? I may be proven wrong, but will we mourn Tustin so when it's erased come 2050? (Of Bunker Hill's allure there are no quick answers, but at least the road to understanding her is paved with enormous pleasure. However bittersweet it may be.)
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