That would start to change in 1910s as the hill became an impediment to westward expansion and the free movement of automobiles.
For the early years of the 20th century, Bunker Hill remained a vibrant, flourishing community. With the money now gone, Bunker Hill shifted from being an upper-class enclave to a white-collar one, and, eventually, to a working-class neighborhood. The wealthy elite of Los Angeles made their exodus to more remote and exclusive neighborhoods like Angeleno Heights, West Adams, and Westlake through the turn of the 20th century.
ca.1890 (Photo courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection)Īnd though Bunker Hill had some two decades as the city's crown jewel, the neighborhood slowly grew more crowded (and undesirable) with apartment buildings and commercial development moving in. President Theodore Roosevelt would stay on the hill in 1903, adds Pugsley.Ī view of Hill Street (foreground) with the eastern slope of Bunker Hill behind.
President William McKinley would stay at The Melrose during his 1901 visit, the same year the Angels Flight funicular opened. The glitzy Melrose Hotel was opened in 1881. At the corner of Hill and Court Street, Lewis Bradbury, who made millions by investing in Nevada's Comstock lode, completed construction on his tony mansion in 1887 (six years before he built his namesake commercial building, which still stands today, at Broadway and Third streets). Opulent mansions and hotels lined the streets. And by 1888, more homes were populating the eastern part of Bunker Hill facing downtown.īy the end of the decade, Bunker Hill had become one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in the still-booming Los Angeles. A population explosion then hit Los Angeles, bringing the town from 11,000 residents in 1886 to 50,000 in 1887, notes Merry Ovnick in Bunker Hill In The Rearview Mirror: The Rise, Fall, And Rise Again Of An Urban Neighborhood.
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