As an enthusiast for old Bunker Hill, it's apropos of his having spent the $517 in 1867 on that scrubby, annoying bunch of hillocks that nobody wanted to trudge up; by '75 he'd figured out getting water up to the hill and had laid out Bunker Hill Avenue (it being the 100th anniversary of the Battle, after all). I wonder what he thinks, looking down on that hill now...

Painted like this?
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2738/...2b166175_o.jpg
(from here )

The big one on the right is the Bradbury, the prominent one center is the Stimson Block. At the corner of Spring and Third, The Stimson Block was the first six-story building in Los Angeles, the first steel frame building in Los Angeles, and the last major example of commercial Richardsonian Romanesque in Los Angeles when it was unceremoniously demolished for a parking lot in July of 1963 -- and it's still a parking lot.

Here's some random noir...nothing says noir like neon in the night...

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2486/...efb55f1b_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2635/...8b6e8b82_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2567/...7926b449_o.jpg
(This was the Wayne McAllister-designed VDK at Fletcher and San Fernando. Demolished.)

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2791/...7785f2d5_o.jpg
Check out how this became this. Of course now it's a parking lot for an Office Depot (west side of Vine south of Fountain). The Art Linkletter Playhouse, aka the Filmarte, didn't fare so well either.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2547/...dde4bf6e_o.jpg
Further up Vine, at Al Levy's Tavern, this guy needs a drink.

Great pic! I didn't realize that the Brew 102 building used to look like that. I remember it being more like a one-story brick warehouse. I assume that over the years the brewery ceased operations and the building was modified/reduced in height with all the brewery equipment being removed. And yeah, this looks like Aliso Street before the 101 freeway was built, I'm sure it was in the process of being built. I remember reading somewhere that when the current Aliso Street viaduct over the LA River was built in the 1940s, it was designed in anticipation of the freeway.

I found this on Youtube:

Downtown LA in 1898
• Video Link

I thought this was interesting as well:

• Video Link

You've made me very happy. :D

(Neglected to archive this one. It was probably just conversational in nature.)

I guess those gas tanks were gone even then. This looks like 1973-74, when I was away at college, and they are clearly absent here. Funny how I wouldn't notice something so obvious for so long, but then again, when I lived in Covina, I almost always took the Pomona Freeway or later the Foothill Freeway to points west; almost never the 10 to the 101 through downtown.

I like this simple skyline, with the new United California Bank building standing tall and apart from the other skyscrapers. It really was a sight to behold when it first went up.

-Scott

The Hotel Antlers?! At first I thought that might be a typo, so I checked out The Greatest Map Of Old L.A. Ever and discovered that there actually was such a place (lower center). Was Hotel Antlers maybe owned by The Elks? Their lodge was just up the hill, after all.

https://otters.net/img/lanoir/southofangelsflight.jpg
Library Of Congress

Oh, and there's "The Ems" again, up there on Olive within a stone's throw of Angels Flight. Might its name perhaps refer to the plural of the letter "M," rather than a misspelling of elm?

-Scott

"Los ANN-gliss"
 

Audible Old L.A.: I've always loved the lost pronunciation of "Los Angeles" as "Los ANN-gliss", which you hear in old movies, and in one of these You-Tube videos--it's in "Los Angeles 1955" several times (at about 3:30, 4:00, 4:25, 4:40). I grew up in New Orleans, which has its own vanishing pronunciation--"New Aw-yins"--

Beaudry, thanks for answering my questions from several posts back.
I'm a bit embarrassed I didn't know the Bradbury Building in that photo.

Anyway....
I appreciate all this information from every one of you...Sopas_ej....Beaudry.. Los Angeles Past. My head is spinning!


That said.....the map Scott posted from the Library of Congress is killer.
Are there other areas featured in that map as well?
I'd love to see them. :)

(Scott, I just noticed you have a link to the map...but I can't download it for some reason...go figure)




Here are a few more photos I found.


http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/9...useviewoil.jpg
usc digital archive


Above: My first question is.....are those oil wells in the foothills?

Also, I was able to place the following photo because of the handsome building in the lower left hand corner in the above photo. The usc archive didn't know exactly where to place this photograph....they were confused because the firemen in the parade are from San Francisco.



http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/5...eptinparad.jpg
usc digital archive


In the first photograph I recognized Los Angeles' first High School as the white building with the cupola on the far left hand side of the pic.
But it didn't seem to be in the right location.


http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/6...ghtemplean.jpg
usc digital archive

Above: Los Angeles High School on Fort Moore Hill.



http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/7...oolfromtem.jpg
usc digital archive




http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/1...oolonfortm.jpg
usc digital archive









I was confused until I found the next two photographs.


http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/9...oolonnbroa.jpg
usc digital archive





http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/9...oolmoving1.jpg
usc digital archive


They moved the damn thing!


Do any of you in Los Angeles know the story behind this?

Oh...and here's one more I just found in my file.


http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/910...tmoorehill.jpg
usc digital archive

I would certainly think twice before I posed beneath it.

Amazing how they moved these buildings-- there were a number of big houses moved from the MacArthur Park area to around Hancock Park when that developed--which is why you see the odd Victorian in that area--but the school is really huge. I think the school building was on "Poundcake Hill" first and then moved to Ft Moore Hill-- not sure exactly where Poundcake is/was-- Ft Moore Hill was in the path of the freeway I think--not that that's why they moved the school, of course. Scott? Beaudry?

I think you're correct GaylordWilshire, several of the glass negatives
had 'Pound Cake Hill' as a location.

I thought perhaps 'Pound Cake Hill' was the same location as Fort Moore Hill,
just a different/earlier name. It could very well be an entirely different location.

One negative mentioned it being moved to Sand Street. ??

The school was originally at Broadway & Temple, built in 1870 (or 1873).

That was Pound Cake Hill and the school had to be moved because that's where they decided to drop the new courthouse, so it was raised on a rolling trestle and moved across Temple to the bluff of Ft. Moore Hill in 1887, pretty much just above Olive.

Then in 1891 they built that other brick HS with the square tower you always see. That one I believe burned in 1937. I'll take a page from the Scott playbook and give you some Worthington-Gates:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2695/...d6ca8f79_o.jpg
There's the 1891 HS rightish-center, and the 1870 HS is about an inch above the tunnel on the left...pretty much like in the first photograph.

Things got really nasty in 1949, I mean, they moved it up a giant hill in the 1870s for crying out loud...there was a plot of land just north of the proposed freeway, west of Grand, owned by the State, the California State Historical Association appealed to Governor Warren to move the school, there was a whole preservation movement...but there were also endless Letters To The Editor going on about the silly, vile movement that was preservation. I guess they thought it smacked of Communism, anything delaying for five seconds the demolition of the Old. Before 1950 the old HS was toast, and we've all driven over the site a hundred times on the Hollywood Fwy.

(Apparently the doorway of the HS went to the new HS at 4600 W Olympic, though I haven't been over to check it out...)

...I think I've got it pretty well covered but I'd welcome corrections or additions. Hey, it's one in the blessed AM.

Seeing those pics of the old LA High School being moved reminded me of a story I read some years ago about a moving company in LA that used to move houses, and in the 1920s, made headlines by moving a multistory building in downtown LA.

I didn't remember the name of the company or the building that was moved, but doing a search on the USC digital archive I came across two pics of the Alhambra Hotel being moved in 1924 by the Kress House Moving Company; this has to be what I read about a few years ago. The 1920s and 1930s was the golden age of house moving because back then it was actually cheaper to move a house than to build them, according to what I read. But moving the Alhambra Hotel was a big deal. I don't remember why it had to be moved.

http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/5593/chs43831.jpg
USC archive

http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/9986/chs43832.jpg
USC archive

OK, now I remember the story I read; it had to do with a building called the Commercial Exchange Building at 8th and Olive; this from the Larchmont Chronicle:

"In a 1925 newspaper story, Kress was said to have moved about 250 structures the previous year, earning his firm more than $1 million. The widening of Spring, Olive and Flower streets brought Kress plenty of work. He saved the 13-story Commercial Exchange Building at Eighth Street and Olive from demolition in 1935 by cutting a five-foot section from its middle and sliding the west half of the building toward the eastern half. The half he moved weighed 5,000 tons."

From the USC archive, the Commercial Exchange Building:
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/5...gcitbui059.jpg

Am I going to complain about needing to go to bed, or am I going to talk about oil wells? Well, duh.

Yep, those are derricks, a lot of people assume that LA oil production is Wilmington/Long Beach/Signal Hill, and those are important to be sure, but later in the grand scheme of things...

There was nothing but a little seepy brea until Doheny's first shaft, fall of '92, which was near where Beverly crosses Glendale; by '95 derricks lined First Street. By '97 the area bounded by Figueroa, First, Union and Temple held over 500 producing wells--one could climb between derricks without touching the ground. Three out of every five barrels produced in California came from that field, and California produced a quarter of the country's oil. The big strikes in Signal Hill, Huntington Beach et al were still twenty years away.
Check out this map, 1906:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2490/...fe593f85_o.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2459/...ef087f6a_o.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2648/...308dd10f_o.jpg
...and this isn't even all of them (you'll notice there are none around the aforementioned Fig/Temple area, this is just a map of a certain sand, that is, a particular stratigraphic substructure).

California St ran right underneath Fort Moore, but when the high school was perched there atop, it was called Sand Street...

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2730/...48dd60f4_o.jpg

(from here)

I wonder if that doorway survived when the 1917 Olympic Bl HS was torn down and replaced with the current monstrosity after the Sylmar earthquake--here is a website with some sad pictures of the demolition. Is the door in there somewhere? http://franklinavenue.blogspot.com/2...gh-school.html
Here is the school in one piece: http://theusgenweb.org/ca/losangeles...h%20School.jpg

That's a sad tale. I did not know the story of the fate of the 1917 high school before...

Here's a photograph of the ill-fated Los Angeles High School on Olympic.
This was the third L.A. High School.


http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/4...sangeleshi.jpg
usc digital archive






Below: One more of the first Los Angeles High School in it's last days.
For some reason I just love this building. I think it's proportions are perfect and pleasing.



http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/7...ngeleshigh.jpg
usc digital archive

Earlier, I forgot to post this photograph of the old High School and it one of the best.
Here it sits proudly on the hill.

There is one other reason I wanted to post it.
I've been intrigued by the rather large elongated/horizontal building
in the distance. It almost looks like a train shed or livery stables.
Whatever it is, it's quite impressive for this early date.

Does anyone know what it is? Scott, Beaudry, Sopas_ej, GayloreWilshire?


http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/916...lesfromfor.jpg
usc digital archive

Yeah, after reading about the 1870 doorway going there and I didn't know anything about that school...I took a "bing maps" flyover and could only think "what the h---?" -- this'un on Olympic & Rimpau was John C. Austin, a half-million dollar (10,517,000 USD2008) tudor-gothic that, when it opened, there was a lot of public grumbling that it was too far from the city. It was surrounded only by barley fields and dirt roads. Those pictures on Franklin Ave are really heartbreaking.

Thirty-five other schools suffered major structural damage via Sylmar but the only other school to be demolished was Van Gogh Elementary in Granada Hills. It seems like this school, famous as the school of Thurmond Clarke, Fletcher Bowron, Norman Topping (and the setting of Room 222 for pete's sake) could have been shorn up and retrofitted.

I know, now I'm getting all worked up about it. Here's a bunch of noteworthy news regarding its final days --

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2501/...3c872e5b_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2641/...9fbde081_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2505/...e0a42b2a_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2698/...566c188d_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2671/...d0e830a3_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2722/...143b7295_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2573/...3c638274_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2675/...28e65923_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2630/...9f2cc798_o.jpg

One can only assume when the new prison structure was erected on Olympic, they tossed this portal like so much more rubble.:hell:

Since the article said the frame was set up on the grounds to be incorporated into a new building...I just wrote and email to the principal. We'll see what happens! On the hunt for the old portal!

^^^Good luck on your portal hunt Beaudry.
It will be interesting to see what you find out.

This is what Los Angeles High School looks like now, courtesy of Google Earth:
http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/2...highschool.jpg

It's like why did they even bother with the lame tower...

^^^My god, that tower is a crime against architecture.

That's why that cop's there. Somebody's going to get popped and do a stretch for that thing. CSI: Architectural Investigations Unit.

Hmmm. At first I thought it might be the covered bridge shown crossing the Los Angeles River at Macy Street in the 1877 bird's eye map.

https://otters.net/img/lanoir/covere...street1877.jpg
Library of Congress

Given the vantage point and angle of the photo in question, however, it can't be that bridge.

I vote for it being a train shed - and a very large and fancy one, at that.

-Scott

A covered bridge had crossed my mind as well, but I wasn't sure if California ever had covered bridges
(I thought they were built for more harsh climates).

But your map from 1877 shows that California did in fact have covered bridges.
So thanks for posting Scott...I learn something new every day from this thread.

Built in 1858 as a market, this building became Los Angeles' 1st City Hall.


http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/1...tyhall1858.jpg
usc digital archive






http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/9...thouse1872.jpg
usc digital archive



http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/8...tycourthou.jpg
usc digital archive




Around this time, the usc archive starts labeling it the Temple Building.
At first I thought it was just a mistake (there are many photos mislabeled in the archive).



http://img264.imageshack.us/img264/3...thousetemp.jpg
usc digital library





But then I came across this photograph from 1885.


http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/3...thousetemp.jpg
usc archive



So...I take it, the 1st city hall (or court house as it's often labeled)
was, over the years, enveloped by surrounding buildings that eventually
created the Temple block.

Is this correct?

Below: This is another photograph from 1880 of the Temple Block.
You can make out the lightning rod/spire of the old courthouse.

The building on the right is the Downey block.





http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/1...aintemplew.jpg
usc archive






Below: A better view of the Downey Block in 1887.


http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/4...yblockacro.jpg
usc archive







Below: Another view of the Downey Block center left 1888.
Does anyone know what the fine building is that's closest to the camera?

That's the Nadeau Hotel in the distance.


http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/2...lockonmain.jpg
usc archive

This is a 1875 photograph of the first offices of the Los Angeles Times.
The label says it's the Downey block.





http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/581...ceofthelos.jpg

usc archive



Again, I'm a bit confused.
I don't recognize this building in any of the photographs
I have of this area (and roughly in the same time period).

Perhaps this building was replaced by the building in the above photos.
I guess it's possible.....there is a 10 years difference from the above pics.



One clue (I guess you could call it that) is a banner on the Downey Block in the fifth photo in my post #534.
It says BOOKS.....perhaps it's the same company as in the above photograph but in a newer building.


Detail from post #534.

http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/3...thousetemp.jpg
usc archive

I have an old book, Yesterday's Los Angeles (part of series covering various US cities) that includes a picture of the first HS from this same time (same young trees surrounding it)--with the first city hall off to its right. From that picture's angle, the large horizontal structure would be behind it. The same book also has a picture of the depot of LA's first railroad (apparently begun Oct 1869, to San Pedro/Wilmington), which the caption says was at Commercial and Alameda. This is a picture of the same depot:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2119/...865325ea20.jpg

The big building could be that first depot enlarged after the Southern Pacific took over the LA-San Pedro line in 1873, or another, bigger one in the same location. It seems to me that Commercial and Alameda might be the location of it given the angle of ethereal's photo.

Here is a map from 1908 of L.A.'s railroads and electrified railways.



http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/623...ngeles1908.jpg
usc archive

It shows Commercial Station on Alameda but I haven't been able to find any information or photos.



http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/6...ngeles1908.jpg
usc archive


Above: The first station that caught my eye on this map was the Arcade Depot,
also on Alameda. I was able to find several photographs of this impressive structure.




http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/293...rcadedepot.gif




Below: The Arcade Depot in 1900.


http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/9...arcade1900.jpg
usc archive











http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/7...rcadedepot.jpg
unknown




http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/3...cadedepot2.jpg
unknown




http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/6...onalamedas.jpg
usc archive





Below: And last but not least my favorite find.

This photo was listed under photographs showing vacant lots.
To my surprise when I enlarged it, there was the Arcade Depot in all it's glory.


http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/4...sopacificd.jpg
usc archive

This is the Arcade Southern Pacific Depot looking east on 5th Street in 1890.
Notice the 'Narcisse House' on the right.

GaylordWilshire....could the mystery building in the old high school pic be
this one.....or is the Arcade Depot too far south?

I'm thinking that the Commercial Station on this map is the one in the picture, the Arcade Depot being too far south on Alameda. The San Pedro RR station (Commercial Sta) was built in 1869; the SP took over the line and station in 1873, which I'm guessing was the main station (enlarged by the time your pic was taken) until Arcade was built in 1888. Looking at your map, I think that Poundcake Hill is too close to the first city hall (going by the other picture I have in a book showing the school with the same young trees, with city hall to the right in the distance--taken maybe from Grand and California/Sand) so I'd say that the picture you posted below is the school soon after it was moved to Ft Moore Hill in 1887. Looking at your map, I think maybe your picture was taken toward the south from Grand St or Bunker Hill Av nr Ord, so that city hall would have been behind it. (Hope this makes sense.)

Could the building in the photo be the old River Station, where the Corn Field State Historic Park is now?

There was a local news story about it about a year ago-- to read and watch the video of the news story, click here.

________________________________________________________________

And from the LAPL, here's a picture of the interior of the Arcade Depot:
http://jpg3.lapl.org/pics49/00074492.jpg

According to the LAPL, the Southern Pacific Railroad built the Arcade Depot in 1885 in competition against Santa Fe Railroad. It replaced the adobe house of William Wolfskill and its surrounding orange grove, the largest in Southern California. It was demolished in 1914 and replaced with the Central Station, a larger and more modern railroad passenger depot. It, too, was later demolished. I realize now that the site of the Arcade Depot is now occupied by a large warehouse-type building.

BTW, I love the 1908 map of Los Angeles, ethereal. I like looking at the now vanished street grid, before the freeways and before the destruction of Bunker Hill. It's also cool to see 10th Street denoted as such before it was renamed Olympic Blvd.

Sopas: Go to Scott's "Los Angeles Past" posting of Sept 24, 2009:

http://losangelespast.blogspot.com/s...&max-results=5

Click the link there and Scott will have led you to an amazing trove of interactive maps. (I have a PC so had to download Firefox, which is free and a quick operation.) You will lose a night of sleep.

sopas_ej
Thanks for posting that photo of the interior of the train shed at the Arcade Depot.

That photograph completes my mental image of the Arcade Depot. :)

The Room 222 High School, Walt Whitman. It looked so beautiful...when I was a kid I wanted to go to High School there....well not the real one....Walt Whitman....had a crush on Pete.

La Brea Tar Pits
 

Hi, I'm new here. Stumbled across this page just now and thought I'd contribute. In college I did a paper on how the La Brea Tar Pits changed. These are some of the pictures I stumbled across when I was going through books at the Page Museum, where I did a lot of my research.

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f2...abrea/1914.jpg
^View looking northwest from Pit 4, February 1914. Santa Monica Mountains in the background.

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f2...abrea/1921.jpg
^Aerial view of Rancho La Brea, 1921. The street cutting diagonally through the middle of the photo is Wilshire.

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f2...abrea/1931.jpg
^Same angle, different elevation 10 years later in 1931. You can see the La Brea Tar Pits more clearly in this picture just south of the oil derricks.

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f2.../1922-1955.jpg
^You can see the intersection of Wilshire Blvd. (running top to bottom) and San Vicente (cutting diagonally across). The top was taken in 1922. The bottom in 1955.

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f2...ncholabrea.jpg
^To give you Angelinos an idea of the area Rancho La Brea covered.

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f2.../wilshire1.jpg
http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f2.../wilshire2.jpg
^Wilshire Blvd. 1920's (?).

That growth is just amazing.

I was just about to say the same thing. The difference between the 1921 and 1931 views is particularly striking.

mayxbo5 - could I perhaps have your permission to post those two pictures in my Los Angeles Past weblog? (If so, how should the photo credits read?) A lot of my blog entries are "then & now" comparisons, and this is certainly one of the more interesting such comparisons I've seen in quite awhile...

-Scott

Great photographs mayxbo5.....welcome to the thread.


Below: You might find this photo interesting. It's looking east on Wilshire from Fairfax in 1929.



http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/3...eastonwils.jpg
usc digital archive

Nathan....thanks for answering my question...and with graphics. :)
I somehow missed this post earlier. -ethereal

It's interesting to see the site of the future May Co/LACMA, and that Fairfax was the western end of the famous Wilshire streetlamps (and the new "Miracle Mile')-- I saw Chris Burden's Urban Lights a year or so ago, but don't remember if the tall Wilshire lantern is among them. Anyway, that installation is great--best seen at night, of course--like being in a cathedral, as I once heard it put. Btw, What is that odd walled building with towered entrance on the site of the future Mays/LACMA?

Here's another impressive view of the high school on Olympic, this time with a streetcar in front.


http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/526...3rdhigh192.jpg
usc digital archive