A Look at 1956 Bunker Hill
Los Angeles Examiner / USC Digital Archives
[digitallibrary.usc.edu]
Mrs. Mary Conner Rasche stands in front of the Melrose Hotel in 1957. The hotel, which her father built, was one of the buildings torn down when the hill was cleared for redevelopment.
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — Several years before Bunker Hill redevelopment turned from talk to one of the nation's largest redevelopment efforts, USC cinema student Kent MacKenzie made this 17-minute short documenting life in the neighborhood left atop the hill.
Five years later -- still years before the hill would truly be cleared -- MacKenzie would go on to make "The Exiles," a film about Native Americans living on the hill.
Film link spotted via LA Observed.
Update (Tuesday): The Vimeo link was removed overnight after a takedown request by Milestone Film & Video, which distributes "The Exiles."
John Apodaca on August 02, 2010, at 06:25AM – #1
Great documentary on Bunker Hill. It's so sad this area was torn down rather than preserved. As a member of the Los Angeles Conservancy we believe in restoring and protecting historical sites such as these rather than tearing down and to put up strips malls and condos. Please visit http://laconservancy.org/.
Cheers,
John Apodaca
www.daddyosmartinis.com
Tim Quinn on August 02, 2010, at 06:29AM – #2
Wow . . . wow . . . wow.
Thanks for posting this film. It is great on so many levels. I have grown blase about the destruction of Bunker Hill since moving downtown, when I found it outrageous and frustrating. This film fleshes out the neighborhood to such an extent that once again I am shocked and perplexed that it would have been considered a good idea to destroy it. The often heard idea that it was run down beyond return can be seen to be absolute fabrication.
it is amusing to realize that Angels Flight was almost a thrill ride in its original location. Much different from todays sanitized version.
C'est la vie.
Eric Wang on August 02, 2010, at 07:41AM – #3
Thank you for posting this! I always wanted to find out more about Bunker Hill.
Jeff Alu on August 02, 2010, at 08:29AM – #4
Amazing to see this and such a well done docu! Thanks for posting it.
Guest on August 02, 2010, at 08:54AM – #5
great posting
ubrayj02 on August 02, 2010, at 09:51AM – #6
A few years ago I went to the downtown library and checked out an old VHS of "The Exiles". Kent MacKenzie died young but has left us a small glimpse of the human voice ringing out amongst all the pap about "progress", "modernism", and the like. To read that old newspapers from that era is to finally crack the code of behind why the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, the Community Redevelopment Agency, and various other powerful departments act the way they do toward the public interest.
Chris Vazquez on August 02, 2010, at 12:46PM – #7
Engaging documentary. Thanks for sharing blogdowntown!
Sean McElwain on August 02, 2010, at 01:10PM – #8
This has to be one of the most historically important videos regarding downtown I have yet to see - really appreciated!
I you have more please keep them coming!
Sean
Friskie Buffet on August 02, 2010, at 01:26PM – #9
fabulous discovery--thanks for posting. those were better times, in my opinion. i'll bet a lot of those old folks died shortly after being forced from their homes. what a crying shame, all that has been lost to "redevelopment."
Guest on August 02, 2010, at 07:35PM – #10
You reminded me how horrible the movie version of Ask the Dust was
Guest on August 02, 2010, at 08:50PM – #11
Los Angeles doesn't look so hot in old movies like that. A few quaint old buildings but much of the rest looked like Hooterville Hollow.
No wonder so many of the city's successful residents quickly and easily abandoned downtown ages ago and never looked back.
Guest on August 02, 2010, at 09:23PM – #12
@#11 wait, wait, wait... not so hot? have you ever been to san francisco? the city you are seeing in the film is what makes san francisco so cool.
no, we did have a city core. the soul that los angeles has been missing was bunker hill. los angeles suffered a major loss with the destruction of this community. let us not forget the lesson in this film, and be human about the people we are displacing during THIS generation of development. Thanks for this find, Eric.
Guest on August 02, 2010, at 10:31PM – #13
So in the fifties the Giant Penny was on the south-east corner of Third and Hill. They later moved to the north-west corner of Third and Broadway, currently the Pan American Lofts.
Thank you Eric for finding this!
Dan in LA
Guest on August 02, 2010, at 11:02PM – #14
My dad was in the CCC program after the depression. He worked in northern Ca in the forest as as fire fighter. He and a buddy from the east coast hitched down to LA to see Hollywood. When they got there it was a 1 light town. They went to downtown LA thinking it was like NY. He was greatly disapointed. When I was a hippie I told him that I was moving to LA. He laughed and said I would be board. "Downtown Orange NJ is more exciting"
Guest on August 02, 2010, at 11:54PM – #15
@12: the city you are seeing in the film is what makes san francisco so cool.
Huh? SF looks cool because it looks like the boondocks?!
Whitman Lam on August 03, 2010, at 12:07AM – #16
It's called historical architecture ... create a historical district where at least it looks like we had some sort of cultural preservation. A city's character should not be defined by the newest flashiest building. We should preserve what we can for future generations.
What you see today is a stucco and concrete mess that will be torn down when it becomes obsolete.
Guest on August 03, 2010, at 12:28AM – #17
So what if it all had become a North Beachified island in the center of L.A.?
How the hell could the Central Library ever have been saved?
How could so much of the senior citizen complexes have been constructed outside of Downtown without the tax income from so many skyscrapers?
True, the urban design mistakes of the early years have become legendary, but there would have been no Bunker Hill Stairs and for that alone, I have only praise.
Yeah, ask the dust.
Guest on August 03, 2010, at 07:11PM – #18
Tragically the video has been removed. If anyone finds another way to view or rent or buy it, please share.
Smart development must include the rehabilitation of historically significant communities(not just buildings) as well as entirely new development. The short sighted disposable redevelopment that marks so much of LA's recent history could have been avoided with a little bit of historical sensitivity. Caruso just spent $400,000,000 in Glendale to build a tiny fake version of what we could have preserved, at least in part, here in downtown.
We constantly bump into European tourist hoping to visit a non-existent Los Angeles. Many are shocked to find that we destroyed a real community to put in a freeway and a few skyscrapers. Sure, those offices and their tax dollars are necessary, but it is only a lack of imagination to think we couldn't have both.
This discussion is vital so that we learn from the past and tenaciously preserve the little bits of history that are left us.
Dan in LA
Guest on August 03, 2010, at 07:56PM – #19
Yeah, since Paris is a great city because they never went in and razed everything to put in apartment blocks with ground floor retail and mixed-income housing underneath Mansard roofs or anything.
It's not like LA has tens of other old neighborhoods with Victorians in them or anything.
I love how NYC has a quaint little Victorian community preserved in time in the midst of all those evil, soul-less skyscrapers completely devoid of any character.
I can't believe that Los Angeles grew over the past 75 years and they dared to change a thing about it! Didn't they realize they destroyed everything LA stood for?! The city is ruined now that Angel's Flight has been moved half a block away and the hill of run-down Victorians that nobody wanted to buy and fix up in the 1950s has been razed!
Give me a break. And I would love to meet just one single European tourist who is confused because he can't find the hill downtown with Victorians on it. No, he didn't come for the Hollywood sign, Rodeo Drive, or any of the other places everyone and their grandmother has heard of, he came for the Victorians that haven't been there for over 50 years.
Now, I am glad this video was posted, and I am happy to get a glimpse into the past, and learn some more about the stories of the people who used to live Downtown. That said, I still love Downtown for what it IS TODAY, and the awesome places that are there NOW.
Guest on August 03, 2010, at 08:06PM – #20
"Many are shocked?" Oh, really?
I doubt most Europeans even believe Los Angeles has much of a history that predates the mid-20th century.
I read when the Olympics were held in L.A. back in 1932, people across the Atlantic weren't even sure where the city was. They knew where San Francisco was located, but they had no more than a faint idea where the other large town in California was.
If modern-day Europeans visiting L.A. are shocked, it's more likely because as they're looking over the city, they are totally underwhelmed by how rundown and unattractive -- and non-Hollywood glamorous -- so much of it is.
Guest on August 03, 2010, at 09:47PM – #21
Napoleon knocked down lots of Paris. And Robert Moses took out lots of NYC. We still love love Paris and NYC.
Don't make stuff up.
Guest on August 03, 2010, at 10:20PM – #22
Communities like old Bunker Hill were so very modest (painfully modest) in scale, sophistication and prosperity, that were I alive back then, I'd have been super skeptical about southern California ever surpassing the second-rate (maybe even third-rate) metro areas of America. But downtown did go into decline for at least 50 or more years, so I'd have been partly correct.
J-M on August 04, 2010, at 09:36AM – #23
Very disappointed that Milestone Film & Video requested the video be taken down. I would have loved to have bought The Exiles and didn't know it was available on DVD, but I'm getting tired of this crap about restrictions on videos online. This was a great place to advertise The Exiles by leaving the Bunker Hill clip instead of just removing everything. Great film and shame I couldn't share with friends (who also might have bought the DVD).