Why Los Angeles Destroyed One of Its Richest Neighborhoods — Bunker Hill

Los Angeles once had a hilltop neighborhood filled with grand Victorian mansions, wealthy families, elegant hotels, and sweeping views of downtown. Then, within a few decades, most of it was gone. Bunker Hill began as one of the city’s most prestigious addresses, but as Los Angeles expanded, the neighborhood changed dramatically. Old mansions were divided into apartments, downtown business interests pushed westward, and city planners increasingly saw the hill not as historic architecture worth preserving—but as land standing in the way of a modern city. In this documentary, we uncover why Los Angeles decided to erase Bunker Hill, how urban renewal transformed the area, and what happened to the homes, streets, stairways, hotels, and residents that once defined one of the most recognizable parts of old Los Angeles. We’ll explore the neighborhood’s rise from an exclusive residential district, its decline during the early 20th century, the political and economic forces behind redevelopment, and the enormous projects that eventually replaced its Victorian skyline with office towers, cultural institutions, parking structures, and modern high-rises. But this story is about more than buildings. It is about who gets to decide what a city should become—and what gets sacrificed in the process. Today, Bunker Hill is one of the most important parts of Downtown Los Angeles. Yet beneath the glass towers and modern streets lies the memory of an entirely different neighborhood—one that Los Angeles deliberately removed from the map. This is the story of Bunker Hill: the wealthy neighborhood Los Angeles destroyed to build its modern downtown.