Bunker Hill (1914-1969): A Lost Neighborhood

“When postwar movie directors went looking for a gritty location to shoot their psychological crime thrillers, they found Bunker Hill, a neighborhood of fading Victorians, flophouses, tough bars, stairways, dark alleys and a funny little funicular in downtown Los Angeles. Novelist Raymond Chandler had already been there—where do you think he got the term “mean streets”? But the biggest crime was going on behind the scenes, run by the city’s power elite. And Hollywood just happened to capture it on...