In May of 2023 I had the honor of participating in a program at Central Library celebrating the 191st birthday of Angels Flight’s builder Col. J.W. Eddy. For my part I dug around whatever digital newspaper archives I could access and came up with a bunch of old stories about the funicular as well as Eddy that I then shared chronologically to the attendees.
One of the most curiousity-inducing pieces I found was an editorial brief published unsigned and without a headline in the October 15, 1905, issue of the Los Angeles Herald that took Eddy to task for a letter he published “complaining” about a proposal to build the Central Library atop Bunker Hill.
I had never known that Bunker Hill, specifically the intersection of 3rd and Hill streets, was a location being considered for the flagship branch of the Los Angeles Public Library. I had long known that downtown’s Central Park (later Pershing Square) had been a frontrunner site until community backlash against losing that open space led to that option being withdrawn. I had long just figured the 5th & Flower streets location was the result of that.
What made the editorial brief so frustrating was that in my further searches I could find no letter published by Eddy, and thus no context or counterpoint to what the Herald was objecting, because I’m one of those increasingly rare birds who wants to examine both points of view before coming to a conclusion. Instead, all I had was this one-sided rebuttal to Eddy’s reported concern that a planned library elevator would somehow compete with his railway, which struck me as a weird and petty battle to pick.
Fast-forward to December 2024 and like a pre-Christmas miracle I not only found the Eddy letter in question printed October 13, 1905, but the article that spawned it, published October 8, 1905, both in the Los Angeles Times (no wonder the Herald rather conveniently left its competitor’s name out of that brief).
Headlined “Lofty Site For Library,” over subheads “Eminence at Top of Angels’ Flight Suggested” and “Commanding Position for a Noble Building,” the article comes off as supporting what to that point was suggestion and offers that an “elevator might be built at the side of the Third-street tunnel without interfering with the tunnel, as an approach to the building from the lower level.”
I could see Eddy having a problem with that concept since an elevator from the tunnel would potentially impact his railway, but funny thing: he doesn’t rail (pardon the pun) on that point. Instead he agrees the location is ideal, but his primary issue is the proposed condemnation of all four corners of Olive and 3rd streets as that would include the obliteration of Angels Flight, an objective that he states would prove impossible given he’s only four years into a 30-year franchise.
His solution is for the library to pursue the properties adjacent Angels Flight to the south, namely the Crocker Mansion and the building down slope from that to Clay Street. He even recommends the placement of an elevator inside the building at a Clay Street entrance, allowing Library patrons the option of either walking up to it from Hill Street or taking Angels Flight all the way up to Olive Street and entering from there.
In short, that Herald brief is misinterpretive, misinformed bullshit. Eddy wasn’t “complaining” either about the elevator or the choice of Bunker Hill as the library’s home. His objection had to do with any proposal that would destroy his business. The nerve of that guy.
Ultimately, it was all moot. Four years later the new Elks lodge ended up being completed at the location next door to Angels Flight that Eddy wanted the library to go, and the Central Library down at 5th and Flower Streets. The fact that it took 21 more years for the library to be built, makes me wonder why so long, but that’s a mystery for some additional archive diggery and perhaps another post.
It may have only been a gleam in some library boosters’ eyes, but learning that Bunker Hill was being considered makes me a bit wistful at what might have been or what might have been changed. From the Times article: “Those making this suggestion point out that a library on this commanding spot would be as picturesque as a castle on the Rhine, and the talk of the country.”
So true. Can you imagine looking up from Hill Street and 3rd today? If the library was there, there’s a good chance Angels Flight would not only still be in its original location, but it never would have been shut down.
I’m not fool enough to think change wouldn’t have inevitably come to Bunker Hill in the form of redevelopment, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility to imagine that Bunker Hill would have been a harder place to wipe entirely away had such a jewel been set upon its crown.
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