Quote:
Originally Posted by Tetsu
Ooh, very nice. Never seen the Ems' Victorian neighbor to the south other than the occasional turret poking up behind photos of the Ems herself. Anybody know anything about the house?
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I know, isn't it great? It's there in the 1888 Sanborn. From what I can tell, it was built by Howard W Mills, a real estate agent, as he's listed as at that address in the 1888 Voter Registry, and there in the 1893 Directory. The earliest mention of 327 in the papers is this, from 1895.
LA Herald, Jan 11, 1895 newspapers.com
By about 1898 Mills sells the house to attorney Roscoe Edwin Hewitt (Mills moves to 438 S Grand—a large residence that disappears between the 1906 Sanborn and the 1910 Baist—and after 1910 Mills & Co are lodgers at the Fremont) and the 1900 Census shows Hewitt there with his wife, son and daughter, and four boarders. In September of 1908 the Hewitts sell the "old-time residence of nominal value" to "a retired furniture manufacturer of Clinton, Iowa" and presumably it becomes a full-on boarding house after that.
LA Herald, Sept 12 1908, newspapers.com
At some point 327 is sold to the Ems, because in 1948, the demo permit says "Demolition of existing building and conversion of site to expand owner's parking lot on adjoining property on the South."
So let's talk a bit about this parking lot on the site of the former 327:
metmuseum
So, as you all know, there's an
entire book devoted to Bunker Hill as it appears in film and fiction. Every so often another movie pops up, previously undiscovered! I've discovered one, in which a bit of it takes place right in said parking lot! It's called
The Narcotic Story, and you can watch it on YouTube right
here.
It's all worth watching, if you go for over-the-top period pictures about "hypes" who are "holding" and all that good stuff; at minutes 37:00 and 55:00 the side of the Ems is featured, and the big takedown of the pusher at 1:08 is something to behold. Then at the very end, as one of the ladies descends into prostitution to feed her junk habit, she propositions a john outside the
May Hotel, at 209 S Olive. A cinematic masterpiece!