Every spring, L.A.'s popular time travel blog 1947project reinvents itself. Usually, that means editrix Kim Cooper announces which year's newspapers the bloggers will be scouring for horrifying forgotten murder tales (1947, 1927 and 1907 have all been featured).
But this year's 1947project is different...
"Bunker Hill is old town, lost town, shabby town, crook town.... Out of the apartment houses come women who should be young but have faces like stale beer; men with pulled-down hats and quick eyes that look the street over behind the cupped hand that shields the match flame; worn intellectuals with cigarette coughs and no money in the bank; fly cops with granite faces and unwavering eyes; cokies and coke peddlers; people who look like nothing in particular and know it, and once in a while even men that actually go to work."
–Raymond Chandler
What: The launch of On Bunker Hill, the newest 1947project time travel blog
Gone is the chronological crime-a-day format--though there's always room for a great murder. But On Bunker Hill aims to be a house-by-house survey of the great old downtown residential neighborhood that was demolished to create the high rise district that shares its name, but none of its charms. The blog's nine contributors, including authors, librarians, bloggers, psychologists, film scholars, art historians, artists and tour guides, will be digging deep into historic archives to uncover the most fascinating tales of more than a century of life on Bunker Hill.
Bunker Hill in the 1870s was early Los Angeles' most distinguished address, an enclave of grand Victorians, gorgeous gardens and clear-skied views out to Catalina and beyond. By the 1910s the wealthy had moved on, and the Hill's mansions became rooming houses. Up on the Hill, life moved at a different pace. Writers Raymond Chandler, John Fante and Charles Bukowski came and were captivated by the place. Painters Leo Politi, Kay Martin and Millard Sheets made its rotting hotels and sad-eyed residents the subject of their art. And down at City Hall, planners schemed about how Bunker Hill could be declared a slum, its old houses pulled down, its people moved along, leaving a blank slate where skyscrapers could grow. By 1970, Bunker Hill was a field of dirt.
The ON BUNKER HILL website is organized like a map, and as new stories are added, it will be possible to stroll down the street and through the decades, marking the historic happenings along the way. The public is invited to visit, explore and contribute their own memories of the place.
1947project is the brainchild of Kim Cooper, pop music historian ("Bubblegum Music is the Naked Truth"), tour guide (Esotouric bus adventures), preservation activist (Save the 76 Ball) and event promoter (Scramarama). She's joined ON BUNKER HILL by Ed Fuentes, Joni E. Johnston, Nathan Marsak, Mary McCoy, Joan Renner, Christina E. Rice, Richard Schave and John Toomey.
News 
