^^^
Agree! I just read it last week! This part of a review I read of the book explains part of why I enjoyed it so much:
The book tells the story of Bunker Hill twice. First is the written story accompanied by pictures. Then it goes through the chronology again pictorially with text accompanying the photos. This made an impact on me as I was first grappling mentally with the geography and the wonder of what was once there, while in the second telling all of the pieces started falling into place in a way that helped me visualize, or experience in my imagination, the neighborhood as if one was looking at it on Google Street View.
Also, we've mentioned on NLA, as does this book, too, the film The Exiles which was filmed on Bunker Hill. There is a person who goes by CitySleuth who has a website called Reel SF, subtitled "San Francisco movie locations from classic films." The first paragraph of the "About" section describes what the website is about
:
For the past 17 years I have pursued a passion for movie location hunting in San Francisco. Not just any movies - they have to be classic movies. In other words older movies, often film noir in genre, so that I can compare this extraordinary city as it was up to a century ago with how it looks today. I have researched, hunted down and in some cases simply stumbled upon hundreds of locations spanning many movies and I plan to share the fruits of my efforts through this blog, building it up movie by movie, location by location, presented in a 'Then' and 'Now' format. I can't think of a better way to get to know the city, for me that is, but through this blog, for you too. Its sole intent is to inform and to educate. It generates zero income and displays zero ads. It represents, quite simply, a labor of love in celebration of an extraordinary city.
I stumbled on the site once looking up something about a favorite film of mine and have enjoyed the site off and on since. If something in a film he is spotlighting was filmed in a Hollywood Studio or actually in Los Angeles, that is covered, too. Which is why I bring this up now. A few years ago he did a now and then comparison of the film The Exiles precisely because the Bunker Hill locations were often used to represent parts of San Francisco set films. He has a special forward for each post for that film: ( A Bunker Hill movie in a San Francisco blog? CitySleuth explains why
HERE. )
In that explanation he's very complimentary: [First]
As it turns out, L.A.'s Bunker Hill and S.F.'s Telegraph Hill had much in common with their turn-of-the-century wooden buildings, steps and steep streets. And second, because in researching these sites over the years CitySleuth has come to know and love the old Bunker Hill so well despite never having been there and despite its total erasure by the end of the 1960s. So imagine his delight in coming across this wonderfully restored movie and witnessing the preservation of sorts of so many locations from a bygone era. Such nostalgia, ergo it cried out to be shared.
There are thirteen separate posts detailing sections of the film and phtos of now and then sleuthing. It's a great additional read for anyone interested in Bunker Hill...and where it was/is now.
http://reelsf.com/the-exiles-1961
P.S.: I went to the site and sent him an email alerting him to this new book.