gsjansen, I'm glad you got to post your screengrabs from 'Backfire'. It gives us a great look at the Fremont and its surrounding buildings.


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If anyone's still unsure which mansions and apartment buildings/hotels were where on 4th Street, here's part of a panorama from 1930. From left to right (west to east) they are: the Castle Towers, the Hildreth Mansion, the Barbara Worth Apartments, the Gibson, the LaBelle, the Kiernan, the Gordon, the Crestholme, the Bronx, the Zelda, the Rose Mansion and the Fremont Hotel.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...0.jpg~original
Detail of picture in USC Digital Library


As you can imagine, there have been many previous posts on this part of Bunker Hill. The ones below are just a small selection:

Flyingwedge - Lots of pictures of mansions and apartments (including a tighter crop of the panorama above).
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...ostcount=19645

gsjansen - Great view looking west on 4th Street from Hill Street.
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...&postcount=994

MichaelRyerson - 4th Street Cut pictures and an aerial with numerous buildings named.
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...ostcount=23024

MichaelRyerson - The Zelda with most of its neighbors in various states of demolition.
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...ostcount=23048


When looking at the picture above, I noticed that some of the hillside below the 4th Street Cut/Castle Towers had been removed to make a small parking lot. It looks like the stairs between Flower and the 4th Street also disappeared.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...Towers1930.jpg
Detail of picture in USC Digital Library

For a reminder - here's how the hillside looked in 1916.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...Towers1916.jpg
Detail of picture in USC Digital Library

:previous: Excellent post HossC! I really appreciate the labels on that extraordinary panorama.

Here's a snapshot that we haven't seen on NLA. It shows a woman posing along an unnamed street in 1959.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/631/C8nyoa.jpgebay

I should recognize that Victorian, but at this point they're all jumbled up in my memory. (especially when turrets go missing and chimneys are truncated)

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Howdy E_R! I believe the photograph is looking North on Bunker Hill Avenue adjacent to the Salt Box

:previous:

You're right, gsjansen. From the description:

"333 South Bunker Hill Avenue. The stairway to the Salt Box at 339 South Bunker Hill Avenue at left. The green roof house is the 1888/94 Lady McDonald Residence at 321 South Bunker Hill Avenue."

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...nkerHillAv.jpg
Huntington Digital Library

And this one says:

"Looking northwest from the corner of 4th Street and South Bunker Hill Ave. The Salt Box at 339 South Bunker Hill Avenue and the house next door at 333 South Bunker Hill Avenue."

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...nkerHillAv.jpg
Huntington Digital Library

The first image is dated 11/1/57, while the second is dated 12/20/62.

"It was a great big white elephant of a place, the kind crazy movie people built in the crazy 20s. A neglected house gets an unhappy look. This one had it in spades. It was like that old woman in Great Expectations, that Miss Havisham in her rotting wedding dress and her torn veil taking it out on the world because she'd been given the go-by." - Joe Gillis Sunset Boulevard

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3905/...f4cdb967_o.jpgdesmond
Huntington Digital Library

641 South Irving Boulevard The Jenkins mansion used as Norma Desmond's mansion in Sunset Boulevard being demolished in 1957.

Response to HossC
 

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3855/...5feb84df_o.jpgLooking northeast from 5th Street and Figueroa, 1916

Nice, clear shot of the Castle Tower Apartments snuggled in behind the Briggs with the Hildreth Mansion peeking over the rooftops. In 1916 the slope below the Castle Tower is still intact with a staircase leading up to the 4th Street stub at Hope Street. This slope will be graded away for Flower Street parking and the staircase will be lost. But here it is still in use. It is possible to see just the barest corner of the Hildreth carriage house showing off the left edge of the Castle Tower (in sharp silhouette against the Glen Arm Apartments). But there is one particularly interesting thing in this image. Two properties north of the Hildreth is a little white blockish unnamed apartment building at 345 S. Hope Street. The Stuart K. Oliver house will be built on the lot between the Hildreth and this little apartment building. Moving north we can see that the Glen Arms Apartments are in place at 333 S. Hope Street and then the rather large, squarish Sawyer Apartments with the flat overhanging cornice at 327 S. Hope Street. And that is pretty much all of the cluster of houses and buildings in the immediate area north of the Hildreth on Hope for now we find a wide expanse of open ground before we come to the Rowan Apartments with the slab side and the large painted sign near the roofline. The address here is 122 S. Hope so we're looking across over two full blocks magically compressed by the camera lens. Next to the Rowan, in the shadows, is the smaller Bunker Hill Hotel (116 S. Hope and brand-spanking new in 1916) and just to the left of the Rowan and the Bunker Hill we can see the back of the Majestic Apartments at 702 W. 1st Street. But here's the interesting part (at least to me) look at the Hope Street roadbed above the retaining wall. Do you see it? It hasn't been graded yet! In fact, it is literally two wagon tracks cut into the hill side, no grading, no pavement, just a dirt track!And it appears the same goes for 2nd Street where it comes down and runs across Hope Street and, below the retaining wall, the Hope Street incline (which is graded and paved) where it runs down to the 3rd Street tunnel. Sorry for my enthusiasm but that's the neatest image of an unimproved Hope Street you're gonna find. There are lots of my favorite buildings in this shot but that little stretch of a rural Hope Street is the best part.

USC digital archive/California Historical Society Collection, 1860-1960

As an old car buff, the car on the right looked more like a Chrysler product than a Ford. I did some checking and it’s a 1939 DeSoto. Here’s an advertising postcard for it.

http://i1331.photobucket.com/albums/...ps2aeadf76.jpg

http://i1331.photobucket.com/albums/...psf90ab401.jpg

Digital Stereo image
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Can anyone identify this building near the Plaza?
 

Can anyone identify the building near the Plaza, that I've marked with a red arrow? I think the photo is circa 1950, but am not sure.

This will be part of a long juicy thread that I'm working on. ;)

http://wwww.dkse.net/david/Plaza.bldg.jpg

As Hoss and GSJ have already said we're looking north on Bunker Hill Avenue. I just want to add over here on the right, next to this neat '56 Chevy wagon
is the back of the 4th Street/Grand Avenue garage built on the bones of the Brunson. Neat picture.

Sure, that's the Brunswig Drug Company annex on New High Street which was built maybe two properties north of Prudent Beaudry's old house. I think your pic is maybe a little later than 1950 as the freeway appears to be up and running. Maybe 1953-4 at the earliest. By the way, by this time your building (along with many other commercial buildings in the Civic Center area) had been leased by the state and municipal court systems to provide actual court room space and storage as the loss of the County Courthouse in 1933 was finally being felt, the 'temporary' bungalows on Poundcake Hill having become completely insufficient.

Thanks for all the extra information, MichaelRyerson, especially about the ungraded section of Hope Street.

345 South Hope was the Hope Vista Apartments according to the CDs from 1911 to 1942. The 1909 CD names 345 Hope Street as the B & C Apartments. The image below is from a pictorial guide to South Bunker Hill, originally posted by e_r over four years ago in post #1245.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...eVistaApts.jpg
Detail from Online Archive of California

I thought there must be a better view in one the aerials, and I was right. This is from the 1954/55 Goodyear blimp series which has appeared on these pages many times. The Hope Vista is the one to the right of the Stuart K. Oliver house.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...VistaApts2.jpg
Detail of picture in USC Digital Library

As Michael R said, it is the New High Street Brunswig Drug Annex building.

Here's another view taken from city hall in 1969 that clearly shows the building

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5004/...a6150b93_o.jpg GSJ
I think I had originally found this image on the USC site.......but not entirely sure............

Los Angeles' changing downtown.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/537/fdeakr.jpg
westcoastarch.http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4zN6scOEiP...comparison.jpg

A comparison between 1950s LA and 1980s LA.

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Here's an interesting postcard.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/102...537/sqBt6f.jpgebay


While searching for the address of the Davis Bakery (which I never found), i came across this excerpt from some trial papers dated 1920.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...633/zC52ja.jpg
www.casetext.com

Anyway, I'm mostly curious about the two houses that appear in the postcard. Why are they in the picture?
Was it because they were located across from the bakery? Did the bakery president..or the vice president live in them?
-or was this the only lot they could find nearby that would hold 60 wagons.....who knows!?

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Wow, I had forgotten all about the pamphlet HossC.
I think it merits a second viewing. Too bad the names aren't included with the pictures (hint. hint. :))

Auto Club of South California's contribution to the battle of Los Angeles 1942

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5594/...4d24928b_o.jpgGSJ
Huntington Digital Library

War is hell............................................

Okay, I might take this on. Give me a couple of days to sober up and then I'll tell ya. By the way, do we think the names are all in the mysterious CDs? Anybody got a lead on the names of the owners of the house on the NW corner of 4th and Grand Avenue and/or the name of the owners of the house on the SW corner of 4th and Hope Street?

screen cap from the new Centurions - 1972

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5561/...cb5e5ae4_b.jpgGSJ

I recently had the displeasure to watch the miserable 1968, (filmed in 1967), flick "The Split".

An amazing cast, but a lousy story, horrible direction, and just an all around throw away to be missed............

.....except for a two minute scene of Jim Brown getting out of his car above Beaudry with a great view to the rapidly diminishing bunker hill skyline.

for this scene alone, I recommend tracking down the flick, (but only of course if you are a hardcore Los Angeles fanatic..........)...........(but then again, if you are reading this, of course you are indeed a hardcore fanatic........)

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3900/...05be84cb_b.jpg GSJ

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3860/...0debb995_b.jpgGSJ

Mr. Ryerson....while you sober up, and I Sober down, you might want to try the WPA household census cards and employee records at USC digital libraries....

I have tried in the past to wade my way through this onslaught of information..........eventually throwing up my hands at the enormity of the records, without being a Los Angeles resident with a free access library card to the library's sanborne maps, I gave up.

But I will have the next drink in your honor...go man go! :cheers: