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Angels Flight Café and apartment houses on Olive Street near 3rd


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    Detail at West 3rd and Olive streets — 1962

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    The Angels Flight Café opened in 1933. The neon sign likely dates to the 1936 remodel. In the distance can be seen the recently-constructed Court House. The Victorian structure to the left of the man is 238/236 South Olive.

    Book 1, pg. 44 / Neg. 14089

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    Cumberland Hotel Apartments, 243 S. Olive, 1962

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    The Cumberland Hotel (architect: Marsh and Russell, 1904). This is where Hall moved in 1952. There are numerous shots of its interior in the contact sheet binders. Hall moved to the Engstrum Apartments at Fifth and Grand when the Cumberland was marked for razing.

    Book 3, pg. 34 / Neg. 14105

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    Astoria Apartments on Olive near West 3rd

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    The Astoria at 248 S. Olive (architect: Arthur L. Haley, 1904). Its neighbor, the Hill Crest, 258 S. Olive, was built in 1905 by Col. Eddy of Angels Flight fame, and designed by Henry Cogswell. It was demolished in September 1961.

    Book 1, pg. 43 / Neg. 10229

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    Olive Street end of Angels Flight, and control house

    Visual Materials

    This collection contains approximately 9,000 negatives (2 1/4 x 2 1/4 inches), 7 binders of contact prints of a large portion of the negatives, and 3 photobooks (11 x 14 inches). The photographs were taken by Theodore Hall, an avid amateur photographer and resident of Bunker Hill, Los Angeles from 1938 to 1963. Photographs depict the historic structures and streets of the neighborhood before and during the urban renewal of the 1950s, when buildings were razed and much of the hill was lopped off and graded. Hall photographed houses, storefronts, signs, architectural details, cars, and often the residents: shopkeepers, newsstand vendors, local children, and people on their front porches. A diverse population including African American, Asian American, Latin American, and white residents are pictured in everyday activities in the neighborhood. Grand Central Market, the downtown food and grocery emporium, is featured extensively in detailed images of vendors, customers, neon signs, and food stalls. Also seen on Bunker Hill are hotels and apartment buildings, the Angels Flight funicular railway, Victorian mansions turned into rooming houses, liquor stores, and construction crews grading land and pouring cement. Many historic buildings are seen in disrepair, and some are pictured in the midst of being torn down. Other Los Angeles sites depicted are: Union Station, City Hall, Olvera Street and the Plaza, churches, freeways, and automotive tunnels. The contact print binders also contain Hall's photographs of friends, social gatherings, camera club members, practice portrait sessions, annual visits to family in the San Francisco Bay Area, and a few day trips in Southern California. Some of the Los Angeles architects whose buildings are represented are: John C. W. Austin, Austin and Brown, Welton Becket, Dodd and Richards, Frederick R. Dorn, Edelman & Barnett, Theodore A. Eisen, Charles O. Ellis, Arthur L. Haley, Marsh and Russell, T. J. McCarthy, William H. Mohr, Joseph C. Newsom, John Parkinson, John Cotter Pelton Jr., James M. Shields, Lewis A. Smith, Train and Williams, George Herbert Wyman, and Robert Brown Young.

    Book 1, pg. 27 / Neg. 8200

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    From Apartment building on S. Olive Avenue showing, at right, original Hill on 1st Street

    Visual Materials

    Looking down Olive to the intersection at Second, shot from the Cumberland Hotel. At corner, the backside of the Claridge Hotel. The Mansard roof structure at Second and Olive is the Hotel Argyle (architect: Robert Brown Young, 1887). See also Photobook Volume 3, pages 38 and 39.

    Book 1, pg. 58 / Neg. 7903

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    Manhattan Café on West 3rd Street

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    Located at 520 West 3rd, in an apartment house.

    Book 1, pg. 41 / Neg. 12960