Visual Materials
Looking East on 2nd Street, between Grand and Olive, 1953
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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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Looking east from Grand Avenue at 4th Street, 1953
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Note the Mission-style Fremont Hotel (architect: John C. W. Austin, 1902) at the corner of Fourth and Olive.
Book 3, pg. 19 / Neg. 6408
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Corner of 1st and Grand looking East, 1953
Visual Materials
The block was demolished in 1953.
Book 3, pg. 31 / Neg. 6163
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South side of 1st Street, between Hill and Olive streets, 1953
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 3, pg. 52 / Neg. 9874
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In 2nd Street Tunnel looking west, at night
Visual Materials
Neon signs for the Hotel President, 925 West Second, and the Shamrock, 825 West Second, which was inside the Hotel Clift at Second and Figueroa.
Neg. 10022
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From apartment at 243 S. Olive. Looking N/E, 1956
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From Hall's apartment window. The two large structures, center, are the back of the Hotel Northern at Second and Clay, and the Fashion League building at Second and Hill Streets.
Book 3, pg. 38 / Neg. 8983