In 1912 , Los Angeles consider an fearless plan to reshapeits topography . A radical calling itself the Bunker Hill Razing and RegradingAssociation proposed to pump water supply from the Pacific Ocean , pipe up it 20 miles tothe city center , and spray the seawater through high - pressure level blue jet against a ridge ofhills to the immediate NW of business district Los Angeles . In all , the projectwould sluice away some 20 million three-dimensional cubic yard of shale and sandstone thatresidents knew as Bunker and Fort Moore Hill .
in the end dismissed as impractical , the association ’s planwas only the first of several system to erase the hills from thecity ’s landscape . In the late twenties , before the Great Depression intervened , the city came near to sweep up another plan by C.C. Bigelow , a mining top executive well - versify in the art of hydraulicking .
Among American city , the proposals were not withoutprecedent . Seattle had rinse away 27 blocks of Denny Hill between 1908 and 1911 . In1912 , Portland used some of the same machinery to flatten out Goldsmith Hill .
In Los Angeles , the proposals direct what business organisation interests and civic drawing card construe as an obstacle to the metropolis ’s ontogenesis . suburban area like Hollywood andColegroveboomed on the plains to the city ’s northwest , but the hills madethese new town hard to get hold of from downtown by streetcar . Because theycould not scale the hills ’ usurious easterly faces , the trolley circled around thehills , create constriction on the few route out of downtown .
At first , the city carved deep route swing andbored tunnels into the hillsto relieve congestion , but regrading offer a morecomprehensive solution .
dealings relief was not the only justification . Regrading offered the prospect of novel , vacant real demesne to adense central business territory that found itself cornered - in by the Hill . Though the city ’s most fashionable neighborhood had once perched itself atopBunker Hill , the stylish people had moved on , and the structures they entrust behind took on an progressively shabbier appearance . Regrading proposal promised towipe the architectural slate uninfected . And in later years , asBunker Hill ’s populationbecame older , short , and more multi - heathen , the proposals also promisedto remove communities deemed undesirable by developer .
A more small-scale programme eventually achieve those goalswithout razing the hill all . In the 1960s , L.A. ’s Community RedevelopmentAgency superintend an urban replacement programme that scraped some 30 invertebrate foot of soil fromthe top of Bunker Hill and replace the existing built environment with 27virgin superblocks clear for high - rise development .
But other hills — landmarks for more than a C — did fall behind from business district L.A. ’s landscape painting .
route cuts and hill regrading transformed several of downtown Los Angeles ’ tunnels , like the Hill Street Tunnels , show here at 1st Street in 1955 , into mere arch . [ Photo Collection – Los Angeles Public Library ]
Poundcake Hill ( named for its resemblance to the round , chubby afters intellectual nourishment ) was once home to the city ’s most prominent public body structure , include the Southland ’s first high school day and later an visit countycourthouse clad in red sandstone . Between the courthouse ’s 1936 wipeout andthe late construction of a new criminal justice center , Poundcake Hill wasflattened beyond acknowledgement .
Along the northerly edge of downtown , Fort MooreHill survives today in reduced form . The promontory once towered over thecity ’s historical plaza , and during the Mexican - American War , U.S. flock builtdefensive fortification that gave the hill its name . afterward it was home toa Protestant cemetery and then a fashionable residential neighborhood . Butduring the thirties steam shovels tore away at the hill ’s slopes for roadextension projects , and in 1949 they carved a mysterious canyon through the Benny Hill forthe Modern Hollywood Freeway . Dump truck bear aside some one million cubicyards of Fort Moore Hill to nearby Elysian Park , where the loads of grunge formeda nameless , hokey mountain .
Top image : digging of Fort Moore Hill , 1949 . [ UCLA Library – Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive ]
A serial of barefaced , treeless Alfred Hawthorne separated by gully once dominate downtown Los Angeles ’ western horizon . Here , Los Angeles High School towers over its environs atop Poundcake Hill . [ Photo Collection – Los Angeles Public Library ]
A county courthouse eventually replaced the eminent school day atop Poundcake Hill . To top the way , a contractile organ hoist the school onto stilt plover and , using a roller , horse cavalry , and human labor , moved the building across Temple Street and over several block to its new home . [ USC Libraries – California Historical Society Collection ]
Seattle and Portland provided examples of successful regrading projection . [ The American City ]
Before razing the full hill became a possibility , the urban center first tire tunnel through Bunker Hill . Here , a steam shovel digs the Second Street Tunnel circa 1921 . [ Photo Collection – Los Angeles Public Library ]
Workers trim down back Fort Moore Hill to extend Spring Street , shown here circa 1935 , northward . [ USC Libraries – California Historical Society Collection ]
grammatical construction of the Hollywood and Harbor throughway required crews to cut artificial canyon through Fort Moore and Bunker Hills . [ Herald - Examiner Collection – Los Angeles Public Library ]
Excavation work atop Fort Moore Hill revealed human remains , buried decades prior when the hill was home to a Protestant cemetery . [ Herald - Examiner Collection – Los Angeles Public Library ]
worker carve a road cut for Fourth Street into Bunker Hill in 1954 . [ Herald - Examiner Collection – Los Angeles Public Library ]
Two end of Bunker Hill , their surroundings completly transformed by regrading , get up for move . [ Security Pacific National Bank Collection – Los Angeles Public Library ]
modernistic pillar rise from a flattened Bunker Hill in 1971 . [ Security Pacific National Bank Collection – Los Angeles Public Library ]
Southland is made possible by a partnership between Gizmodo , theUSC Libraries , and the member collections ofL.A. as Subject . write byNathan Masters , the serial explores the urban past times of Los Angeles , include the lose landscapes and bury substructure that continue to influence the city we get it on today . This post antecedently appeared in a different edition on KCET.org as “ The Lost Hills of Downtown Los Angeles . ”
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