Update 6/6/2017: LA denizen Professor Gideon Kanner wrote about this case a couple of years ago on his blog.
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For those of you in the Los Angeles area, you may want to check out an upcoming lecture at the Central Library.
On Thursday, June 8, 2017 at the Mark Taper Auditorium, the library is presenting "Siege at Fort Anthony," about a 1964 eminent domain battle stemming from the "ill fated" Hollywood Museum, a vanity project of "motion picture industry heavyweights headed by Sol Lesser, Gregory Peck, Mary Pickford and Walt Disney, decided to create a museum showcasing the history of movies, radio and television to be located across the street from the Hollywood Bowl."
Everyone but Mr. Anthony left on their own:
The place: The Cahuenga Pass, opposite the Hollywood Bowl.
The conflict: An eminent domain showdown between, on one side, the Los Angeles County Supervisors, powerful motion picture interests, and Peter J. Pitchess, the Sheriff of Los Angeles. On the other side, Steven Anthony, an ex-Marine and Barney’s Beanery bartender who loved his young family’s storybook cottage in the Hollywood Hills and just wanted his day in court.
Los Angeles Public Library and Los Angeles historian Richard Schave (Esotouric bus adventures) invite you to join us for a special presentation on the Siege of Fort Anthony, with special guests Elona Anthony (Mrs. Steven Anthony), Hollywood historian George Kiehl, Bunker Hill native son Gordon Pattison, L.A. historian Nathan Marsak, and Fort Anthony defender John Maljevic.
The program reveals the history of a lost neighborhood and the efforts of one brave man to preserve it in the face of powerful forces of Urban Renewal and civic transformation in the County of Los Angeles.
But he held out, finally being removed by the sheriffs. For those of you wondering where the Hollywood Museum in presently located, this story has a not unusual ending:
As for the "essential and necessary" Hollywood Museum, mismanagement of funds, lack of organization and internal squabbling caused the project to be abandoned, and the site that was once a picturesque hillside community became what the county supervisors actually wanted all along: increased parking space for the Hollywood Bowl.
