Arts & Entertainment

Stair Street Ghosts to Haunt Mount Angelus on Sunday

For the first time in nearly 20 years, all of the neighborhood's stairs will be open to the public.

What better time of year than Halloween to stir up a few ghosts?

Local artist Louisa Van Leer will do just that this coming weekend with a tour through Mt. Angelus' long forgotten stair streets.

Mount Angelus' stair streets will be opened for self-guided tours on Sunday, Oct. 30 from 3-6 p.m., an evening Van Leer hopes will revive both the neighborhood's long neglected walkways as well as some of the spirits who played a key role in the area's history.

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"We're bringing some key historical figures in local history into the modern day by seance," Van Leer said. "And we're bringing the stairs back to life, too."

Just who are those ghosts that will haunt Mount Angelus on the Eve of Halloween? Van Leer said most of their names should be familiar to anyone who frequents the hilltop neighborhood near the corner of York Boulevard and North Figueroa Street.

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Van Leer explained that many of Mount Angelus' streets--Garrison Drive, Hosmer Walk, Stowe Terrace and others--are named after key figures in the woman's suffrage movement. As Van Leer said she learned though some research, all of those names were friends and colleagues of the neighborhood's original developer, Cora Pond-Pope.

"Pond-Pope was an influential shaper of the woman’s suffrage and temperance movements in Boston," Van Leer wrote in an article for the Highland Park Heritage Trust. "Pond-Pope named many of the Mt. Angelus streets and stairways to pay tribute to influential figures in her life, from well known activists in the women’s suffrage movement to abolitionists whom she admired."

Van Leer said she began unearthing Mt. Angelus' ties to the suffrage movement when she became curious about the neighborhood's curiously named streets. It was then that she also learned that Pond-Pope had the stairs erected to provide access to rail and trolley lines, the most popular forms of transportation in the early 20th century.

Much like the area's largely forgotten ties to the suffrage movement, Van Leer found that the convenience of the Mt. Angeles stairs had become a hazy memory.

An act of the city council in 1987 gave property owners--who complained that the stairways had become a hangout for ne'er-do-wells and escape routes for burglars--permission to lock the stairways. Currently, access is blocked to five of Mt. Angelus' nine stairways.

"I went to every property owner and asked if they could open the stairs for a weekend," Van Leer said. "I have yet to meet anyone who wasn't supportive of the idea."

Van Leer said that on Sunday, tour attendees will be able to walk the stairs while greeted by ghosts from Highland Park's past.

Actors portraying Pond-Pope acquaintances like abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, suffragette Mary A. Livermore and others will haunt the stairs, reading texts that were penned at the height of the suffrage movement. Fittingly, the event will commemorate not only Halloween, but also the 100th anniversary of women winning the right to vote in California.

If visits from ghosts of progressive-movements past aren't enough, Van Leer said that the tour also promises a crafts table for youngsters, public art and a performance from local indie-rockers Artichoke. Attendees are encouraged to attend in costume.

"It's a little crazy and convoluted," Van Leer said. "Sort of like the stairs."

For more details, check out Van Leer's Stair Street Ghosts Blog.


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