Angels Flight and Lost Victorian Mansions - All in Downtown L.A.

I never knew Los Angeles had a funicular until my recent visit (see yesterday's post about L.A.'s fabulous "Last Bookstore").  Observing this little cable railway known as "Angels Flight" - practically engulfed by the surrounding skyscrapers - I was reminded of Virginia Lee Burton's nostalgic books The Little House and Maybelle the Cable Car.  Both books deal with city growth and urban development.

We started at the lower entrance to the Angel's Flight funicular on Hill Street.

And just like Maybelle, Angels Flight has a story of its own...In 1901 a funicular railway was built to carry passengers down from hilltop homes to the burgeoning downtown area. The funicular ran between Hill St. and Olive Street, a distance of some 300 feet. The railway was dubbed Angels Flight (no apostrophe) and was billed as the world’s shortest railway with a fare of five cents each way. 

It operated uninterrupted until 1969 when it was dismantled and the cars put into storage. In 1996 the railway was rebuilt a block away using the same cars and much of the original structure. However in its new life it serves more as a tourist attractions than a functional part of the City.

Looking up toward California Plaza

Inside the funicular, beginning our ascent.

At the top - anyone going down?

Arriving at the little railway station at the top of the track in an area called "California Plaza", we paid our 50 cents and asked the kind man in the ticket booth, "What used to be here at the top of the hill before the modern skyscrapers, museums, condominiums, and hotels that we see now?"

The little station/ticket booth/information center at the top
of the incline, where you arrive at what is now California Plaza

He told us, "This is part of an area known as Bunker Hill.  By the late 1890's it had become a very wealthy and prestigious neighborhood, full of Victorian homes and luxurious hotels.  People loved the view...

But after World War I, with increasing urban development, wealthy families began relocating to areas like Pasadena. Bunker Hill became pretty seedy, especially after the Great Depression. Many of the old homes were subdivided to accommodate renters...

From Virginia Lee Burton's The Little House

After World War II, the freeways pushed even more people out, finally causing the downtown area to become empty of residents...

During redevelopment in the 1950's and '60's, the abandoned houses were eventually torn down or moved to other neighborhoods."

He finished his little history lesson by saying, "Go home and google 'Bunker Hill Victorian homes' on the internet so you can see how it once looked."

So I did.  And I was sad that at least some of the original areas of Bunker Hill couldn't have somehow been saved in the redevelopment!  All that's left is the funicular.  Look at what's been lost...

Bradbury Mansion, 1890 (Hill Street)

Bunker Hill 1900

And gained...

Bunker Hill today

Interesting side note:  In the 1940's and '50's, Los Angeles - especially Bunker Hill - became the perfect backdrop for Film Noir movies.  This intriguing photo montage video,  from the website American Film Noir, gives you a tour of how Bunker Hill looked back then.  Go here to see vintage photos of Angels Flight from Film Noir.

There is a blog post, "The Lost Victorian Mansions of Downtown LA" with lots of images of the Bunker Hill neighborhood before it was demolished in the late 1950's and '60's -  here.

This website has an amazing progression of photos of the original site of Angels Flight, beginning with how the street looked in 1898 and ending in 2003!

Does your city have any hidden (or lost) treasures?  Get out and explore - on foot, or from your computer!

Welcome to The Last Bookstore (and more) in Los Angeles!

My friend and I planned an outing to downtown Los Angeles yesterday.  Our main goal was to visit "The Last Bookstore" on the corner of 5th and Spring Streets.  What a find!

We decided to take the train to avoid all the traffic and parking challenges.  And it was so much fun to arrive at Historic Union Station.  It feels like you've just stepped out of a time machine.

The Last Bookstore was a pretty long walk from the train station, so we hopped on the Metro and got off at Pershing Square.  We quickly found the bookshop,  just a couple of blocks away, and squealed with delight at the first thing we saw upon entering:  a checkout counter constructed of old books!

The cavernous inside of building, which originally housed a bank, is quite grand - complete with columns and gorgeous painted high ceilings. We explored the main floor a little bit on our way to the back staircase. I'd read that the upper mezzanine level is literally a labyrinth of used books, with many priced at just $1.00!   This is what greeted us going up the stairway...

There were crazy paper sculptures and artwork everywhere, but the best part of the whole place was a tunnel made of books, leading to the rooms with all the $1.00 books!  We found thousands of books, organized loosely into sections - but not alphabetically by author - so be ready for a search. In some areas we had to navigate around boxes of books (the owner buys books from local non-profit organizations who've had them donated). 

Meandering our way past the shelves and shelves of books, we found a fun area full of hardbacks organized by color. I bought several children's books, including  Dogger, by Shirley Hughes, as well as a book - Film Music, A Neglected Art: "The History and techniques of a new art form, from silent films to the present day" - for my son who has a degree in film animation.  He's going to love it!

My treasure find was a hardback copy of Caldecott & Co. (1988), by Maurice Sendak.  I got if for just $6.00 in the lower level of the store. The book is an anthology of Sendak's essays on writing and illustrating for children. The ''Caldecott'' of the title is the Victorian illustrator Randolph Caldecott, one of Sendak's great heroes.  He also highlights Beatrix Potter, Walt Disney, Maxfield Parrish, George MacDonald, Jean de Brunhoff, and Mother Goose (to name a few).

Our next stop was Grand Central Market for a quick lunch.  Right around the corner was a building I'd been wanting to see ever since watching the movie "The Artist".  I loved the stairway scene, and I was so pleased to discover that it was shot on location in a building in Los Angeles: The Bradbury Building.  It was pretty plain looking on the outside, but walking in the door, I gasped and smiled at the same time as the lobby opened up before me into a space that I wished I could enter everyday!

Why can't we design places like this anymore???  Think how happy people would be to walk into a workplace such as this every morning, as opposed to the stale, municipal structures of today!  Seeing old buildings makes me SO nostalgic for the past (more on that in my next post).

My friend had never been to the Los Angeles Public Library, so we walked there next.  If you saw my blog post from two years ago, you'll remember that I had a fun jaunt there with my daughter and her friend (who happens to be the daughter of my fellow sight-seer on this trip!)

The outside of the Los Angeles Public Library is surrounded
by an iron gate full of book quotes.

This is the breathtaking ceiling in the rotunda where the children's library is located.

We had one more interesting historic place to see before heading home.  More about that in my next post...