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Hall (Theodore) Photographs of Bunker Hill, Los Angeles and
Environs
photCL 384
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Table of contents
Contributing Institution:
The Huntington Library
Title: Theodore Hall photographs of Bunker Hill, Los Angeles and environs
Creator:
Hall, Theodore
Identifier/Call Number: photCL 384
Physical Description:
16.3 Linear Feet
(34 boxes, 7 binders)
Date (inclusive): approximately 1939-1962
Abstract: A collection of photographs chiefly
documenting the Bunker Hill neighborhood of downtown Los Angeles before and during
redevelopment in the mid-twentieth century. Also includes images of residents and adjacent
districts of Los Angeles.
Language of Material: Materials are in
English.
Open for use by qualified researchers and by appointment. Please contact Reader Services at
the Huntington Library for more information.
The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to quote from
or publish images of this material, nor does it charge fees for such activities. The
responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is one, and obtaining
necessary permissions rests with the researcher.
[Identification of item]. Theodore Hall photographs of Bunker Hill, Los Angeles and
environs, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Irving Haines, November 1993.
Theodore Seymour Hall (1880-1963) was born in Honolulu, Hawaii to William Wisner Hall and
Elizabeth Archer Van Cleve Hall. He attended Berkeley High School, in Berkeley, California,
and Harvard University. In 1909, he married Ruth Houghton, and they had two children:
Houghton Seymour Hall (born 1910) and Winslow William Hall (born 1912). Hall worked in
various managerial positions, and in 1920 was manager of the Standard Chemical Company in
Alameda, and lived in Oakland, California. In 1925, Hall had settled in New York, working in
industrial banking. He and Ruth divorced in 1929, and the same year, Hall married Edna Kofal
Davison; they lived in Long Island while Hall worked as a bond salesman and sales executive.
By 1938, the 58-year-old Hall was again divorced and living on Bunker Hill in Los Angeles,
as a roomer at the Sherwood Apartments on South Grand Avenue. He took up photography and was
befriended and mentored by Irving Haines, a local commercial photographer, and Haines' wife,
Martha. Hall joined outings of Haines Camera Club, which met downtown on Olive Street. In
1952, Hall was living in the Cumberland Hotel on South Olive Street (Bunker Hill), which he
later vacated because the building was scheduled to be torn down. In 1960 he was living at
the Engstrum Apartments on West Fifth Street. Hall died in 1963, in Los Angeles, at age
83.
The Bunker Hill neighborhood of Los Angeles was an enclave of wealthy residents and grand
mansions at the turn of the century. By the 1920s to 1940s, it had transformed into a
mixed-use urban residential area with a more transient population, and went into decline.
The Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles proposed the Bunker Hill Urban
Renewal Project, which was officially adopted by the Los Angeles City Council in 1959. The
CRA acquired Bunker Hill properties, relocated residents and businesses, and began
demolishing buildings and clearing land, changing the landscape dramatically.
This collection contains approximately 9,000 negatives (2 ¼ x 2 ¼ inches), 7 binders of
contact prints of a large portion of the negatives, and 3 photobooks (11 x 14 inches). The
photographs were taken by Theodore Hall, an avid amateur photographer and resident of Bunker
Hill, Los Angeles from 1938 to 1963. Photographs depict the historic structures and streets
of the neighborhood before and during the urban renewal of the 1950s, when buildings were
razed and much of the hill was lopped off and graded. Hall photographed houses, storefronts,
signs, architectural details, cars, and often the residents: shopkeepers, newsstand vendors,
local children, and people on their front porches. A diverse population including African
American, Asian American, Latin American, and white residents are pictured in everyday
activities in the neighborhood. Grand Central Market, the downtown food and grocery
emporium, is featured extensively in detailed images of vendors, customers, neon signs, and
food stalls. Also seen on Bunker Hill are hotels and apartment buildings, the Angels Flight
funicular railway, Victorian mansions turned into rooming houses, liquor stores, and
construction crews grading land and pouring cement. Many historic buildings are seen in
disrepair, and some are pictured in the midst of being torn down.
Other Los Angeles sites depicted are: Union Station, City Hall, Olvera Street and the
Plaza, churches, freeways, and automotive tunnels. The contact print binders also contain
Hall's photographs of friends, social gatherings, camera club members, practice portrait
sessions, annual visits to family in the San Francisco Bay Area, and a few day trips in
Southern California.
Some of the Los Angeles architects whose buildings are represented are: John C. W. Austin,
Austin and Brown, Welton Becket, Dodd and Richards, Frederick R. Dorn, Edelman &
Barnett, Theodore A. Eisen, Charles O. Ellis, Arthur L. Haley, Marsh and Russell, T. J.
McCarthy, William H. Mohr, Joseph C. Newsom, John Parkinson, John Cotter Pelton Jr., James
M. Shields, Lewis A. Smith, Train and Williams, George Herbert Wyman, and Robert Brown
Young.
Processed by Huntington Library staff, circa 1996. In 2022, Suzanne Oatey created a finding
aid. The three photobooks contain captions by Hall, which have been transcribed in the
container list. Supplemental information in the Scope and Contents notes has been provided
by Nathan Marsak, author of "Bunker Hill Los Angeles: Essence of Sunshine and Noir" (Angel
City Press, 2020).
Organized in three series:
Series 1. Photobooks, 1939-1962
Series 2. Contact prints (photographs), approximately 1951-1961
Series 3. Negatives, approximately 1939-1962
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
RESTRICTED: Photographic negatives (Boxes 2-33) housed in cold storage; extended retrieval
and delivery time required.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Negatives (photographs)
Photobooks
Photographs
Photographs -- California -- Los Angeles -- 20th century
African Americans -- California -- Los Angeles -- Photographs
Apartment houses -- California -- Los Angeles -- Photographs
Architecture, Domestic -- California -- Los Angeles --
Photographs
Architecture -- California -- Los Angeles -- Photographs
Asian Americans -- California -- Los Angeles -- Photographs
Boardinghouses
Bunker Hill (Los Angeles, Calif.) -- Photographs
City Planning -- California -- Los Angeles
Hispanic Americans -- California -- Los Angeles --
Photographs
Hotels -- California -- Los Angeles -- Photographs
Los Angeles (Calif.) -- Photographs
Los Angeles (Calif.) -- Buildings, structures, etc. --
Photographs
Low-income housing
Mansions -- California -- Photographs
Olvera Street (Los Angeles, Calif.) -- Photographs
Urban renewal -- California -- Los Angeles -- Photographs
Wrecking -- California -- Los Angeles -- Photographs
Grand Central Market (Los Angeles, Calif.)
Angels Flight (Railway) -- Photographs
Austin, John C. W. (John Corneby Wilson), 1870-1963
Becket, Welton
Train and Williams (Firm)