Gentle reader,
Right next to Angels Flight Railway, a secret garden is waiting for you.
Update December 2024: Kevin de Leon is no longer in charge of CD14, and this campaign to reopen Angels Knoll as a park is still active as we wait for new coucilmember Ysabel Jurado to staff her office. Subscribe and we’ll let you know when there are opportunities to be heard.
Seized by eminent domain in the 1960s, marketed unsuccessfully as a skyscraper development site over decades of booms and busts, planted with shade trees and briefly accessible as a public park in the 2000s, since 2013 these 2.26 acres have been locked up tight.
At the end of this month, the city has to decide if it’s going to buy “Parcel Y-1” from the old Bunker Hill Redevelopment Plan, and what to do with the land, including the Edwardian era retaining walls that are still hard at work.
After 11 years of explaining to irritated people that no, that park is not really a park, and no, they can’t go inside to enjoy the shade, breeze and views, we’re convinced the best use of “Parcel Y-1” is what everyone already thinks it is: as a park!
And we’d like to see it named after Leo and Helen Politi, two wonderful Angelenos who lived in and loved the Bunker Hill neighborhood.
Leo’s paintings, drawings and historic preservation advocacy helped keep Bunker Hill alive in memory, even as redevelopment displaced 9000 people and demolished all the pretty buildings and old gardens.
Leo lived long enough to see his old friends the Angels Flight cars Sinai and Olivet back on track, and just last year, his Bunker Hill paintings were installed in two galleries in the children’s department of Central Library.
If you like the idea of making Angels Knoll a real park, here’s how you can help:
Send an email or call the office at councilmember.kevindeleon@lacity.org or (213) 473-7014 and ask that the councilmember ensures that Angels Knoll and the Hill Street Plaza are open to the public permanently, and that the upper portion is named Leo & Helen Politi Bunker Hill Park.
We truly can’t wait to see you there!
Scroll down for updates as we continue to advocate for this precious spot in the heart of the city.
Yours for Los Angeles,
Kim & Richard
Esotouric
UPDATE 9/20/2024: Your calls and emails seem to be working, so don’t let up! Today, the councilmember submitted a motion (council file here) asking Mayor Karen Bass to help grant breathing room, 36 months to be precise, in the deadline for the city to purchase the land from the former redevelopment agency. If she acts, that would provide time to find the funds to make a real park out of Angels Knoll.
Update 12/10/2024: Kevin de Leon is no longer councilmember for CD14, and this campaign to reopen Angels Knoll as a park is still active. Subscribe and we’ll let you know when there are opportunities to be heard.
Update 1/20/2025: Developers Don Peebles and Victor MacFarlane’s Angels Landing Partners, who have failed to meet their obligations to build on the Angels Knoll parcel, have sued the City of Los Angeles for allegedly unlawfully terminating their contract, seeking $20 Million. If the case goes to court, will confessed racketeer Jose Huizar be called to testify about why he choose this team to develop the city owned parcel?
Update 1/30/2025: Our preservation pals who operate Angels Flight Railway inform us that all of the benches, famous from the film (500) Days of Summer and popular with fence-hopping citizens, have been removed from Angels Knoll.
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Our work—leading tours and historic preservation and cultural landmark advocacy—is about building a bridge between Los Angeles' past and its future, and not allowing the corrupt, greedy, inept and misguided players who hold present power to destroy the city's soul and body. If you’d like to support our efforts to be the voice of places worth preserving, we have a tip jar and a subscriber edition of our main newsletter, vintage Los Angeles webinars available to stream, in-person tours and a souvenir shop you can browse in. We’ve also got recommended reading bookshelves on Amazon and the Bookshop indie bookstore site. And did you know we offer private versions of our walking tours for groups big or small? Or just share this link with other people who care.
UPCOMING BUS & WALKING TOURS
• Highland Park Arroyo (Sat. 9/21) • The Real Black Dahlia (Sat. 9/29) • Know Your Downtown L.A.: Tunnels to Towers to the Dutch Chocolate Shop (10/5) • Broadway: Downtown Los Angeles’ Beautiful, Magical Mess (Sat. 10/12) • The Run: Gay Downtown L.A. History (Sun. 10/13) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 (Sun. 10/27) • Westlake Park Time Travel Trip (Sun. 11/3) • The 1910 Bombing of the Los Angeles Times Walking Tour with Detective Mike Digby (Sat. 11/9) • Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice Downtown L.A. (Sat. 11/16) • Charles Bukowski’s Westlake (Sat. 11/23) • Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue (Sat. 12/7) • Raymond Chandler’s Noir Downtown Los Angeles (Sat. 12/14) • Miracle Mile Marvels & Madness (Sun. 12/22) • Human Sacrifice: The Black Dahlia, Elisa Lam, Heidi Planck & Skid Row Slasher (Thurs. 12/26)
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