L.A. is a city of neighborhoods. Like a giant patchwork quilt. You can live your whole life here and never see most of them. It’s just impossible. But each has its own history, personality, and, best of all, surprises. And those are everywhere. Like Hoover Walk and The Prospect Studios, tucked among a set of quiet residential streets in Los Feliz.
In the early 20th century, long before car was king, Los Angeles was growing in leaps and bounds. The siren calls of oil and Hollywood and wealth beckoned. The city wanted to grow and grow quickly. Housing and land was cheap. Farms, ranches and large plots of open land were traded away to make room for residential and commercial development.
By the 1920’s, housing tracts began to dot the scenic hills and ridges surrounding the L.A. basin. Pockets of terraced residential neighborhoods, like those in the Hollywood Hills, Griffith Park, Silverlake, the Franklin Hills, and Los Feliz were developed, featuring bungalows and “storybook” stylish homes. (Today we call these “character homes.” And they are highly $$ sought after.) No surprise there.
So many neighborhoods like these served to promote Southern California as the enchanting land of opportunity. Clearly the message worked.
Many of the newly developed neighborhoods were located just a few miles from DTLA (“downtown”) or other commercial zones. All were made very accessible by L.A.’s massive public transportation system. An elaborate network of interurban electric rail cars, trains and buses connected the city and its streetcar suburbs. (Automobiles were still mostly for the more affluent.)
But how to climb up to your amazing little cottage or manor in the hills after exiting the Red Car or a bus? Often by using one in the web of public stairways that cut through many of these neighborhoods. Usually rising from main streets and public transit stops below, these staircases rose almost vertically between houses, gardens, and past gates and walls. Typically, stairs were divided into several flights, each consisting of hundreds of steps. Some were decorated with tile, stone fountains, or planter boxes along the way. And they all were open to the public.
Times and modes of transportation changed. After WWII, automobiles were the thing. Freeways were built. And with regression in the use of public transportation came the deterioration of many of the hidden neighborhood stairways. Some were completely removed because they drew unsavory or unsafe activities.
Today, over 450 of the old public staircases remain. They are often called the “secret stairs” of L.A. Some have names and signs. Some remain in great shape. And some can be found in other hilly neighborhoods, such as Highland Park, Mt. Washington, Eagle Rock, Pasadena and South Pasadena. Locating and climbing these hidden stairs is a popular activity. One local author, Charles Fleming, has even published a guidebook, recently updated, to finding many of them.
Gotta admit that I am a bit obsessed with these old stairways. So finding “Hoover Walk” in Los Feliz on a recent Sunday morning was especially pleasing.
East Hollywood’s Hoover Walk rises up from the northern end of Hoover Street, a quiet cul-de-sac, to Prospect Avenue. The split staircase features a colorful mural,“Fluid City Rising,” painted by local artist Ricardo Mendoza. The mural depicts a winged eye gazing out from the center, a man and woman planting on opposite sides of the steps and hands pouring a bowl of cascading water down the actual stairs. Some of the water effect has faded, but the mural is still beautiful.
Half a block east, at the corner of Prospect and Talmadge Avenue, stands The Prospect Studios. It is so surprising to see a big movie lot with sound stages tucked into this quiet Los Feliz neighborhood. The fact that Talmadge Avenue is named for Silent Screen star, Norma Talmadge, is a sweet clue as to the interesting history of the studio. But that is a story for another time.
I wonder what tales the old Hoover Walk could tell. Built in 1923, it is located nearly kitty-corner from today’s Prospect Studios (which was originally built as the Vitagraph Studio in 1913. ) Hoover Walk must have been a great convenience to employees, starlets, and starving actors who hoofed it toward the studio gates. Who knows what famous folk may have climbed those steep steps on their way to an important audition?
