Lillian Hunt? Oh my gosh, she operated a School for Strippers. We must not forget Lillian.!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...pscibc7qk6.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...pszencqolz.jpg
mediacashe

I knew I'd heard of the Crown before Beaudry:

And thx for trying to straighten of the Tempest Storm story. I'm happy to let her keep her secrets.



Great post CBD

I'd say yes, it would never be confused with Nob Hill. But the Hill was not nearly as bad as many other parts of town—see Nadel's images of the areas around Aliso, 7th & Mateo, Fickett Hollow, all the places where there was heavy industrial-meets-residential mixed use. BH had its better parts (up on Bunker Hill Ave was much nicer than this area around Figueroa, and the part of BH about the west end of the Third St Tunnel was pretty dodgy, and north of First, but then, north of First was taken by the Civic Center/Music Center, and didn't get wiped because it was downtrodden).

Point being, the City went after BH in the 30s because of the national housing acts, and in the immediate postwar years they wanted to cash in on all that Federal money, and the local legalities to declare the Hill a "slum" involved all sorts of well-meaning jargon about "the common good" and being "progressive" and the Hill was a nice, cohesive plot of land—most saliently, it had not only lots of pensioners, but many other voiceless folk (communists, homosexuals, and the like) directly adjacent City Hall—and was as such declared slum-clearance Redevelopment Area #1 in 1949.

The real question is, what if the City had simply looked to code enforcement? If a mix of old and new is desirable, then I agree a quantity could have been excised, and the better parts retained. My two cents anyway.

But in answer to your few final sentences, yes, Heritage Square is still there! But the sole two houses to be saved from Bunker Hill are not...they were carted off there in March of 1969 and, because the City didn't bother to fence or otherwise protect them, they became party houses and were burned to the ground by vandals in October of that year.

As to the displacement, yes, the City did a shameful job. When the Bunker plan finally made it over its legal hurdles, Councilman Roybal particularly opposed it on the grounds of its inadequate relocation provisions and failure to provide senior housing. 9,000 people, a vast majority the urban elderly poor, shuttled off with the promise that they'll have first place in the sexy new high-rise community; but they removed people in the early-60s, and the Angelus Plaza senior living complex didn't open till the early-80s. Imagine you're 75, displaced, given a pittance, and told to come back in twenty years. Good luck!

So let me end with some Bunker Hill pix that counter the conventional narrative of it being a blighted area casting long shadows across darkened alleys (and so on). The accounts I've heard were it was calm, and quiet, and people liked living there just fine. Because of low car ownership, and there being stores on every corner (with residential above), it kind of typifies the sort of "New Urbanist" neighborhoods we attempt to engineer today...

The 300 block of S Bunker Hill Ave
https://c4.staticflickr.com/5/4068/4...8e7b3b5b_o.jpg

201 S Bunker Hill was always known for being kept in tip-top shape
https://c8.staticflickr.com/8/7405/9...c220964d_o.jpg

300 block of S Olive
https://c4.staticflickr.com/5/4058/4...fd08d6f7_o.jpg

244 & 238 S Bunker Hill
https://c6.staticflickr.com/5/4071/4...4c1121a2_o.jpgall above, lapl

Third and Grand—proving that not all the apartments were big wooden firetrap-lookin' things, sometimes you had crenellated parapets and witch-hat towers
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3287/...68a1507e_o.gifcushman

Some of those pics--Bunker Hill could almost pass for Nob Hill. I had no idea. A pity more of these neighborhoods weren't preserved. L.A.'s Alamo Square. Now we have West Adams and old Pasadena and maybe a few others. Pretty much the last vestiges of widespread Victorians. This is what happens when (possibly) corrupt politicians smell big money and start bulldozing things. The irony is that some of those Vics would sell for millions today.

Urban "Renewal" should follow the Hippocratic Oath--"First, do no harm". Imagine Bunker Hill with a mix of these old houses and apartment buildings, refurbished, with some tall buildings and hotels mixed in some blocks where appropriate. Leveling the Hill was like tearing down the sacred tree in "Avatar". Gone forever. I'm all for well designed skyscrapers on empty lots and to replace truly decrepit buildings, and of course in the core financial district there must be skyscrapers. But the Bunker Hill neighborhoods in these old pics look totally functional and even attractive, and thousands lived there. They should have been preserved where possible.

DTLA would have been better and more interesting if they tread more lightly with the "redevelopment" of Bunker Hill. Thankfully L.A. still has the hundreds of historic structures between Hill and Main Streets. Now many are being refurbished, and appreciated. The rebuilding of Bunker Hill should of course include tall buildings, but emphasis must be on restoring the pedestrian streetscape that once existed. Buildings on podiums won't do.

I believe Mike Connors was nicknamed 'Touch' by his high school basketball teammates and was still known as 'Touch' after the war when he played at UCLA under coach John Wooden.

Wow! I always say, if it's worth doing, it's worth OVERDOING.

Here's another of my rare excursions into Julius Shulman pictures of private houses. This one is "Job 0148: Kimpson House (Long Beach, Calif.), 1940".

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...1.jpg~original

Here's the back of the house. I've omitted a close-up of the patio area.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...2.jpg~original

A look down the hallway, past the stairs, to the living room.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...3.jpg~original

There are no pictures of the kitchen or upstairs rooms. The only other image I omitted was of view of this table from inside the house.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...4.jpg~original

All from Getty Research Institute

The Kimpson (or Kimpson-Nixon) House is fairly well documented. The text below is from socalmodern.com. There are some recent interior pictures at the link.

This innovative and historic home was designed by renowned architect Raphael Soriano and is regarded as one of his purest achievements in International Style residential architecture. Built in 1940 and located in what is now the prestigious neighborhood of Alamitos Heights, the home is unique in its dramatic geometric form, which was designed to fill the interior with natural light through a horizontal band of windows that run the length of the structure. Soriano directly oversaw the building of the home, which he designed for indoor-outdoor living in the Southern California climate.

The house stands at 380 Orlena Avenue, and now has much closer neighbors. It was put on the market for the first time in 2012.

http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/z...5.jpg~original
GSV

You can also read about the house at laconservancy.org.

House of Torture.....
 

Can't say I like the aesthetics of this one at all. It looks like a blockhouse. I'd feel institutionalized living there.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/640...922/I66hps.jpg

:previous:Yes it is t2. lol.

I meant artichoke. I eat steamed artichokes often. Artichokes look nothing like avocados. ;)
__


Avocado Stand at 790 North Vine Street, 1927.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/128...924/2DbpPi.jpg
Vagabond Magazine, 1927 / old file




An earlier ad in the Vagabond had Avocados misspelled.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/800...923/4J5BUa.jpg

Were avocados considered an exotic delicacy back in the 1920s?
__

I remember your post on Soriano's Polito House.

Raphael Soriano (1904-1988) also did Julius Shulman's own Hollywod Hills house in 1950. No doubt Shulman photographed it.

Another of Soriano's is the Lukens house in Jefferson Park, which came within a whisker of being demolished. The savior used Shulman's photos to guide the restoration:

Before

After

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/4O...NJ0=w1366-h768
ncmodernist


Only 12 of Raphael Soriano's buildings survive, but some of those are mangled.


.........................................................................

I love artichokes e_r, but am fabulously allergic to avocados.

When Beaudry mentioned displaced Bunker Hill pensioners it reminded me of this photograph I re-discovered in one of my older files.

Although I don't have a date for the photo, these three gentlemen could very well have been three of the displaced.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/924/UOWcXb.jpg
old file

Does anyone know where exactly these steps were located?




I've enlarged this detail to see if I could read the other sign.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/640...921/EHkhvi.jpg
detail

Nope.....still can't read it.

Do you think it's the NUMBER for the apartment building...

or is it the name of the cross street (if so, that would make this a T intersection)



_

:previous:

I don't know what the sign says, but I believe they're sitting almost under Angel's Flight.

Those supports on the right sure look like Angels Flight

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/nA...366-h768-rw-no
pinterest

Museum of Narrative Art
 

You're sure on a tear today CBD. What do you think of this?

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/nP...366-h768-rw-no
LAT

"Los Angeles will be home to George Lucas' $1-billion museum"

The Arcade Palm will be untouched (I hope)

:previous: Yep, I believe you're both right. I'm kind of embarrassed I didn't figure that one out.


Let's take a closer look at the three men before we say good-bye to them.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/102...923/hXgdAG.jpg
detail

I can't imagine it being very pleasant to sit so close to Angels Flight.

Don't you think it was probably very noisy in that spot....rickedy-rackedy...clunk clunk..screech...(you catch my drift)


Did you'all notice the person sitting in the same spot in tovangar2's photograph.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/102...922/v6wFYv.jpg

Despite the noise, it must have been a popular spot.
__

In an image we've seen here before...handsome Mike in his 'Vette passing under the Flight

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7256/7...0a24ffb5_b.jpg

With road-grading , that bottom step has been left high and dry. Must have been difficult for older people, but it makes a nice seat.

:previous: I hadn't noticed that. Good eye t2.