Quote:
Originally Posted by ethereal_reality
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No, it was never a park back then.
Bear with me, this may be a little long!
Just to get bearings, this is all about the property bounded by Angel's Flight on the north, 4th St. on the south, Olive St. on the west and Hill St. on the east. The western half of this area (bounding Olive) is the part with grass and trees. The eastern half is a steeper hill which flattens out at the bottom as it reaches Hill St., with a Metro entrance on the corner at 4th & Hill, and the ruins of old walls backing up against the hillside as you go north along Hill St.
Google Maps
Along the 4th Street side, the upper part of Angel's Knoll that's now covered with grass & trees was the location of a garage at the corner of 4th & Olive. North along Olive next to the garage was an apartment building once called the Wales, and beyond that there were houses. At 4th & Hill stood the Black Building (1913), and in between it and the garage along 4th was the (smaller & older) Hotel Antlers.
Here's 4th & Hill in the early 1900s, before the construction of the Black Building - you can see the Hotel Antlers further up 4th St.:
A Visit to Old Los Angeles
Here is the same corner in the late 1940s, with the Black Building on it:
From a Perry Mason fan site
If we go west on 4th St. to Olive and then turn around, on the left we can see the Hotel Clark Garage (1919) on the corner of 4th & Olive, followed by the Antlers and then the Black Building (1920s view):
USC Digital Library
Still at the corner of 4th & Olive, here's the view looking more north-ish along Olive in 1953 (when the Cole Brothers Circus was in town):
Onbunkerhill.org/Flickr
You can see an apartment building past the renamed Center Garage. A search of this thread resulted in a post from January by rick m that describes it as the Bailey Building, formerly the Wales Apartments, at 344 S. Olive.
Here is a great shot of the whole area of Angel's Knoll, circa 1913. We've gone a little further west on 4th St., so the intersection of 4th & Olive is in the right foreground with 4th St. stretching east into the distance:
USC Digital Library
The future site of the Hotel Clark Garage/Center Garage is the empty lot on the corner, and the rather large house to the left of the lot. Next to the lot facing 4th is Hotel Antlers, not a very wide building but very deep, and then beyond that the brand new Black Building (ironically, looking very white). Traveling north on Olive from the corner, next to the big house is the Wales Apartments. Further up Olive on that side are individual houses (apparently still there in the 1953 photo). On the Hill St. side of the Angel's Knoll block, aside from the Black building, the rest of the area contains several low-rise commercial buildings and at least one small hotel - the Pembroke. I don't know if these were replaced before the Bunker Hill redevelopment. If not, then the back walls of these buildings are the ruins that remain today along the base of Angel's Knoll.
On the 1921 Baist Real Estate map, narrow Clay St. is shown halfway between Hill & Olive in this block, starting at 4th St. directly between the Antlers and the back of the Black building, but none of the pictures I found are from a proper angle to see it. The Baist map shows several buildings facing Clay, mostly houses so they're not really visible in the 1913 photo of the block, because of the bigger buildings around them.