In the 40s, the urban hygiene movement targeted many other places than Bunker Hill. One such location was the Ann Street neighborhood, located in Dogtown (so named for the racket caused by the inmates of the nearby Ann Street Animal Shelter) adjacent to new Chinatown.
This 1940 photo (zoomable
here) shows a row of shacks with a large building on the next block.
calisphere.org
The street sign at the left is legible and says "Magdalena" which puts the camera in the 200 block of E. Ann Street looking NW and makes the large building on the next block the Ann Street School. [There is still an elementary school by that name at this location, but it is new construction.]
Here is a reverse view taken from the school looking SE over an industrial wasteland, with some eye-candy for the railroad enthusiasts.
calisphere.org
calisphere.org
In the distance next to a water tower is a large sign reading "Cudahy." This was a meat packing company on Macy Street; today it is the site of the Twin Towers jail.
A Sanborn map from c. 1950 shows that the William Mead Homes housing project has replaced the slum structures, and Ann Street now ends at Magdalena. This makes it impossible to get a "now" version of the first photo with GSV.
lapl.org
From the Wikipedia entry on the William Mead Homes:
The site was funded with the federal Housing Act of 1937. The proposal to build the site was rejected in December 1940 because of high land purchase costs (averaging $23,900 per acre, when other developments were as low as $2400). 8 acres (3.2 ha) was owned by the Consolidated Steel Corporation. The remaining property was on land bequeathed by William Mead, an early Los Angeles politician.
The land price was reduced to $20,000 an acre by January 1941, but didn't proceed until a federally-backed United States Housing Authority loan signed by Franklin D. Roosevelt was given on March 12, 1941.
It was built in 1941-1942 and contains 449 units in 24 buildings, replacing approximately 100 substandard dwellings on the site. It occupies 15.2 acres (6.2 ha) and was constructed by the Herbert M. Baruch Corporation for $1.2 million. David Gebhard and Robert Winter state the details "slightly suggest the late 1930s Moderne."
Residency in the project was limited to low-income American citizens who had lived in Los Angeles for at least a year. It was also part of a "Negro quota" system, which mandated a maximum of 7 percent black occupancy. This changed to 15% in January 1943, and was completely removed in July 1943 after pressure and protests by the National Urban League, California Eagle, Los Angeles Sentinel, NAACP, and the CIO union. The development was opened for war workers in March 1943.
Part of the project was built on an oil refinery and a hazardous waste dump. In 1994, cancer-causing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons were found at levels 19 times the safe level following testing by the California Department of Toxic Substances Control. Playgrounds and gardening spaces were closed, and a $1.5 million soil removal and cleanup project was required in 2000. The refinery was operated by Amalgamated Oil Company, which was later purchased by Texaco. The waste dump was operated by Witco Corporation, now part of the Chemtura Corporation. At the time, the project was home to 1400 residents, many Latino and Vietnamese. The Housing Authority sued ChevronTexaco for the cleanup costs in April 2003.
Here is a Bing bird's-eye view of the area:
www.bing.com/maps
And here are 1940s vintage views of denizens of the Ann Street School: some staff...
calisphere.org
...and some remarkably cheerful smallpox vaccine recipients:
calisphere.org
I suspect the faces may have been less cheerful a few minutes before this picture was taken
