Office towers and museums sit on a raised plateau above downtown, linked by plazas and a short funicular railway.
What Bunker Hill looks like
Bunker Hill is a plateau of office towers and museums above downtown, its edges reached by stairways, an outdoor escalator and a short funicular railway. Grand Avenue runs along the top past the arts buildings, and a run of raised plazas links most of the towers at a level above the street.
The is four mirrored glass cylinders around a central atrium, with glass elevator pods running up the outside of the shafts in full view of the street below. 's glass shaft rises to a lit glass crown, and 's twin glass towers share a three storey glass atrium at their base. Most of the hill's towers went up between the 1970s and the 2010s.
's stainless steel panels curve and fold along Grand Avenue. sits next door behind a white honeycomb lattice of diagonal openings, and the across the street is a low sandstone building whose galleries sit mostly below the plaza, lit by pyramidal skylights at street level. Restaurants and food trucks line the sidewalk between them, with olive trees set out in planters along the curb.
climbs about 300 feet at close to a one third grade between Hill Street and , its two orange cars sharing a single cable. An open air network of elevated bridges connects several of the towers above street level, and the descend from Hope Street past a fountain toward the Central Library.
Shot in Bunker Hill
Bunker Hill's Victorian houses were still standing when several films used the neighborhood in the 1950s and 1960s. The 1955 film Kiss Me Deadly shot at a mansion on Bunker Hill Avenue and on the steps beside Angels Flight. Joseph Losey's 1951 remake of M used a different Victorian house on the same street. Cry Danger, also from 1951, used the New Grand Hotel at Grand and Third as its fictional Crosley Hotel. Kent Mackenzie's documentary The Exiles followed young Native Americans living in the neighborhood's rooming houses at the end of that decade. A low-budget 1965 film called Angel's Flight was shot without permits during the 1962 demolition and ends on the funicular itself. Almost none of the buildings from those films are still standing.
La La Land, 2016
Angels Flight
Angels Flight had already been closed to the public for safety reasons when the production reactivated it for one day in 2016, so Mia and Sebastian could ride it during the film's montage. Safety officials barred any further filming on the railway afterward. It did not reopen to the public until the following year.
Bosch, 2018
The Amazon series takes its name from a Michael Connelly novel titled after the railway. The production got special permission to film scenes on the real cars just before Angels Flight's public reopening in the fall of 2017.
Perry Mason, 1966 and 2020
The original Perry Mason used the funicular in a 1966 episode called The Case of the Twice-Told Twist. It was the only color episode the series ever made. HBO's 2020 remake filmed there as well.
In the Line of Fire, 1993
The Bonaventure elevators
The hotel's Green Square, Red Circle and Yellow Diamond glass elevators each carry a bronze plaque marking a film shoot. In the Line of Fire and True Lies were filmed there in the same month in 1993. Forget Paris followed the next year. Interstellar's production shot at the hotel in 2013.
John Portman designed both this complex and the Westin Bonaventure, and Peachtree Center repeats the same beige concrete office towers linked by elevated bridges above the street. Both were built out mostly between the 1960s and the 1990s, on a similar scale to Bunker Hill's own towers. Peachtree's bridges are enclosed rather than open air, so a wide shot that includes one gives the difference away. Try searching elevated bridges office towers now.
Embarcadero Center in San Francisco, California
This is a third John Portman project, four office towers around a raised plaza with a shopping concourse below it. The tallest reaches forty five floors, and the paved plaza sits above street level in the same way as Bunker Hill's own. San Francisco's bay light and hills read differently in a wide shot, so tighter frames on the plaza and towers hold the illusion best. Try searching raised plaza office towers now.
Renaissance Center in Detroit, Michigan
The Renaissance Center is a fourth Portman project, round mirrored glass towers grouped on the riverfront rather than a hilltop plaza. The main tower's cylindrical glass shape is close to the curved glass of the Bonaventure itself. Frame away from the Detroit River, since open water in the shot gives away a waterfront rather than a hilltop. Try searching round mirrored glass towers now.
