These days, of course, downtown Los Angeles is a jungle of skyscrapers and huge sprawling buildings, but once upon a Victorian time, it was peppered with mansions like this one. It was known as the Hildreth mansion, named after Reverend Edward T. Hildreth, who built his home in 1889 at 357 S. Hope St on the northwest corner of 4th St. This photo is circa 1928, by which time the Hildreth family were all gone and, like so many of its neighbors, had become a boarding house. And also like its neighbors, fell victim to urban renewal and was demolished in around 1954.
This is the northwest corner of Hope and 4th in February 2021:
They said Bunker Hill was “blighted” as a justification for tearing it down. The 2021 photo of the corner is an example of what I call a new urban blight. Like so many of the photos you have shown us of present day Hollywood, it is devoid of anything of real interest.
The Hildreth was around the corner from my home on Bunker Hill.
I just watched the old 1940s movie “The Curse of the Cat People.” There was an old Victorian house in it, and I wondered if it were a real house. Most of the rest of the movie was obvious sets, but that house looked real. I’ll have to see if I can find out!
Speaking of old movies, TCM recently showed a movie from 1947 called The Unfaithful. Starring Ann Sheridan, there’s an early scene where a person rides the original Angels Flight from the top down to the street below. The camera is inside the car, so we get to ride down Angels Flight to the street, while also seeing the cityscape spread out below. It was wonderful. (Later in the same movie, Sheridan and her husband, Zachary Scott, and their lawyer, Lew Ayres, arrive by taxi at the Ambassador Hotel, still near its peak of glory. Another treat.)
The Cat People was a real house. On West Adams. The people who did the Addams Family TV show wanted to use that house, but it had been torn down by the time they scouted the location. So, they used a house across the street for inspiration.