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!

TWO AUTHORS LIVING UNCONVENTIONAL LIVES AS ARTISTS AND HOMESTEADERS IN NEW ENGLAND

There are two very successful women author/illustrators whose endearing children's books were a result of their rather unconventional lifestyles as artists and homesteaders in New England in the mid 1900's. Unlike the glamorous Hollywood women of movies and television, these mothers lived a rural lifestyle of gardening, raising sheep, cooking, sewing, nurturing their children, and painting. The first is Virginia Lee Burton. The second is Tasha Tudor.

Virgina Lee Burton, after writing for her high school newspaper, winning a scholarship to the California School of Fine Arts and Design, and taking ballet class, ended up going to Boston Museum School of Fine Arts and enrolling in drawing classes. She married her teacher, George Demetrios, a sculptor, and moved to Folly Cove in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Besides her full life of country living, music, dance, and friends, Burton began writing and illustrating for children and said that most of her subject material came directly from things she had seen or experienced in her own life. She would sketch her book illustrations in her studio first and then write the text. Her son said, "As my mother wrote...she read portions to me, my brother, and a handful of other neighborhood children, to test it out...she knew she had the right text when all the kids were attentive until the end."

Tasha Tudor, on the other hand, drew her sketches first and then made up the stories to go with them. She also lived in New England. She resided first in a farmhouse in New Hampshire and later in Vermont, in a world of her own creation. Her drawings reflected her surroundings of a life that would have been lived in the mid 1800's: she spun and wove flax into cloth, sewed her own wardrobe of long dresses and skirts, cooked on a wood-burning stove, dipped her own candles, kept an orchard, flower and vegetable garden, geese and ducks, and milked her own goats.

Tudor, like Burton, attended Boston Museum School of Fine Arts. She wrote and illustrated close to 100 children's books, two of which received Caldecott Medals - MOTHER GOOSE, (1945) and 1 IS ONE (1957). Her pictures are old fashioned and enchanting, painted in soft colors, with lots of animals and children in country farm scenes.

Unlike Tudor's style, Burton's art is bright, detailed, and symmetrical. It often features large - female - machines (such as the steam shovel Mary Anne, the cable car Maybelle, and Katy the tractor) and humanized objects (like the Little House) which must survive industrial growth and challenges. Her book The Little House won a Caldecott Medal in 1942.

Besides working on her books, Virginia Lee also taught lessons in art and textile design to her neighbors. Out of this came the Folly Cove Designers, who went on to become a nationally known artistic community in the tradition of the Arts and Crafts Movement!

Tasha Tudor went on to illustrate Christmas and Valentine cards, as well as calendars. She brought to life with her pictures several stories by other famous authors...including, The Wind in the Willows, The Secret Garden, A Little Princess, and A Child's Garden of Verses. These books would not be the same without her enchanting illustrations!

For a detailed account of the life of Virginia Lee Burton, who died of cancer at the age of 60, look for the book A LIFE IN ART, by Barbara Elleman. For more information on Tasha Tudor, her books, and her legacy (she died at the age of 92), go to http://www.tashatudorandfamily.com/, or read THE PRIVATE WORLD OF TASHA TUDOR, by Tasha Tudor and Richard Brown .

Books by Virginia Lee Burton: CHOO, CHOO; MIKE MULLIGAN AND HIS STEAM SHOVEL; CALICO THE WONDER HORSE, OR THE SAGA OF STEWY STINKER; THE LITTLE HOUSE; KATY AND THE BIG SNOW; MAYBELLE THE CABLE CAR; and LIFE STORY.

Some books by Tasha Tudor: PUMPKIN MOONSHINE; 1 IS ONE; A IS FOR ANABELLE; THE DOLLS' CHRISTMAS; CORGIVILLE FAIR; AMY'S GOOSE; AROUND THE YEAR; BECKY'S BIRTHDAY; FIRST POEMS OF CHILDHOOD; FIRST PRAYERS; TASHA TUDOR'S FIVE SENSES; TAKE JOY! THE TASHA TUDOR CHRISTMAS BOOK.