A VIEW FROM THE SKY

This photo shows a nice aerial of downtown LA.

Crown Hill is circled in blue. My place is just below the green dot. 

( If you click on the photos in this blog they will open full size)

COLUMBIA PLACE

Columbia Place is a California apartment building that was constructed in 1923 for people who wanted to live and work near downtown Los Angeles.

At the time Columbia Place was built, there were electric trains that ran up and down the street, making it easy to reach jobs in downtown without a car.

Here is an old postcard showing the electric trains running through downtown.  We used to have the most extensive train system in the world!

Owning an auto was still only a fantasy for most people in the 1920s, so being within easy reach of employment was important.  The trains are long gone now, replaced by cars and freeways, but downtown is still just a hop skip and jump away!

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The architecture of Columbia Place is unique to the west coast.  It is one of the only "walk-up" style townhouses built in Los Angeles.  There are three rows of two-story flats with path ways between.

The neighborhood here is very diverse and home to residents from all walks of life.  It's a community where people know each other and say hello when they pass by.

Downtown Los Angeles went through a rough time in the 80s and 90s and is currently in the midst of a revival along with adjacent areas like Echo Park.

Below is a short documentary from 2007 about the neighborhood.  It features Ray Vatia, a life long resident of Crown Hill.  Parts of the video show the inside courtyard of Columbia place which used to have many empty "bank owned" apartments. Over the past few years, the majority of these townhouses have since been purchased and restored.

You can double click for full screen:

Columbia Place Intro from Crown Hill Chronicles on Vimeo.

THE REAL O.G.

This is a photo of Mr. Henry Clayton Witmer, who founded the neighborhood of Crown Hill.  His family came from Wisconsin and had made their fortunes building the largest wagon train operation in the world, to accommodate the westward expansion of the United States.

In 1850 the Witmer family arrived in California and purchased 900 acres atop a hill near downtown and named it "Crown Hill."  At that time there were 5,000 residents in Los Angeles. 

Following in his family's transportation footprints, Henry Clayton and his brother started the first "horseless cable car" with a trolley that connected residents from Crown Hill to downtown.

At the same time, the Witmers built and founded the California Bank in downtown Los Angeles:

In the 1880s, Henry and his two siblings constructed large Victorian estates next door to one another on a dirt road and named it "Witmer Street."  His sister's home is still standing today,  and is now designated as an historic landmark for the city.  It can be seen at 1425 Miramar Street, LA 90026:

THE LOS ANGELES OIL BOOM

In the 1890s Crown Hill was the epicenter of a massive oil boom. Miners Edward L. Doheny and Charles A. Canfield bought a $400 lot at Colton Street and Glendale Boulevard. They purchased it from the Witmer family, which at that time owned 650 of Crown Hill's 900 acres.

According to legend, Doheny had seen a cart with wheels that were coated in tar. When he asked the man where the substance had come from, he pointed to the northeast, in an area called Crown Hill. Forty days later, in November 1892, Doheny and Canfield struck oil by using a 60-foot eucalyptus tree as a drill. The boom was on.

By 1897, the once quiet Crown Hill neighborhood was overrun with promoters, drillers and more than 500 chugging and wheezing derricks. Gingerbread houses and neatly trimmed gardens were quickly transformed by homeowners and leasing companies attempting to turn their backyards into pay dirt.

A local music teacher, Emma Summers, was one of the most successful investors in the first years of the initial boom, and by 1900, Summers controlled half the production in the original Los Angeles Field. For obvious reasons, Summers became known as "California's Petroleum Queen." 

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A History of Belmont High

This is an introduction to Belmont High School.

Belmont is one of the first public schools in the city, and has educated downtown kids for nearly 100 years.  When it was founded in 1923, students nicknamed themselves "The Sentinels" due to their position atop Crown Hill with of view of the mountains on one side and the downtown skyline on the other.  

Below is an aerial photo of Belmont in 1973, right after its renovation.  My townhouse is the blue square:

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Originally this land was the site of a Native American village, but over the past 150 years it has also been home to oil wells, a hotel, and 3 different schools.  Back in 1885 it was called the Belmont Hotel:

Two years after the photo above was taken the hotel would catch fire.

The Los Angeles Fire Department had just been formed, and since this was before cars, they carried water by horse drawn wagon.  

Unfortunately, the horses couldn't pull the water up the steep hill in time to save the hotel from flames.  You can see the possessions of guests on the front lawn as the hotel burns:

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After the fire, the land was sold and turned into a girl's school called Belmont Hall:

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In the early 1920s LA Unified School District purchased the land for $100,000 to build a public school. It was designed after east coast colleges with courtyards, a bell tower, and brick walls. Belmont High opened in 1923 with 500 students and 28 faculty.

Here is an aerial view from the 20s. My house is the pink spot, and had just been constructed:

In the late 40s, downtown Los Angeles was experiencing a radical shift. The US was coming out of WWII.  The downtown area had seen an economic decline since the depression in the 1930s. Freeways and tract homes were built in the outlying areas of Los Angeles that allowed families to move to the suburbs and abandon downtown.

Above is a photo from 1949 of students and faculty rallying for better conditions at Belmont.  Below is the original Belmont bell tower.

In 1969, the old brick buildings at Belmont were demolished to build newer and more modern school, as seen in this promotional pamphlet from 1973:

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Belmont High School has been one of the most influential public schools in California.  Over the years, it has served tens of thousands of LA residents, and continues to educate many of the students who live in the downtown area.

A VIEW FROM CROWN HILL

Here are some photos looking out from the top of Crown Hill over the years.

This first picture is facing north from Crown Hill in 1887. The Witmer family's Second Street trolley is at the intersection of Lakeshore (now Glendale Blvd.)and 2nd Street, heading east toward downtown. A grocery store and real estate office stand on the corners.  Click on any of the picture to see them large:

This next photo shows the Pacific Electric Red Car exiting the tunnel beneath Crown Hill at 2nd Street and heading north up Glendale Blvd in the late 1930s.

And here is the same intersection about ten years later, facing east from Crown Hill. 
The Beverly Bridge was a WPA project built in 1942. It allowed 1st Street traffic to overpass 2nd Street and Glendale Blvd where the Red Car train exited the tunnel (notice the tracks): 

This is a view of downtown Los Angeles facing south east from Crown Hill in 1973:

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Many of the people who walk the streets of Crown Hill today don't know it's history.  When asked where they live, some say "near Echo Park," "Westlake," or "downtown."  

The name Crown Hill may have been forgotten by most, but this area has played a very important role in the history of Los Angeles which cannot be erased.