[CityBoyDoug]

Originally Posted by Tetsu

Proximity to City Hall certainly had to have played a factor. The irony in the total destruction of Bunker Hill lies in looking at neighborhoods like Echo Park, Highland Park, and Boyle Heights and seeing the way that they are being gentrified now (for better or worse, I can understand both sides of the argument). What is happening with those neighborhoods certainly speaks to the way that many people of some means wish to live nowadays, i.e. not in the faraway suburbs. Had Bunker Hill not been completely annihilated, might it have become the first such gentrified neighborhood in LA?

And, I certainly do understand that, in any scenario, not everything could have been saved. Still, I look to nearby examples such as San Diego's downtown for reference - many older Victorian-era homes and commercial buildings are literally standing side by side with huge modern skyscrapers.

Not to nit pick - but none of the buildings at Heritage Square are actually from Bunker Hill, though they are certainly representative of the same era in LA.

I really think that one of the main factors that doomed the entire Bunker Hill area was the geological topography itself. The hills and the land were still very raw in 1955 and much of it was unusable.