“Los Angeles, give me some of you!” writes John Fante in Ask the Dust. “Los Angeles come to me the way I came to you, my feet over your streets, you pretty town I loved you so much, you sad flower in the sand, you pretty town!”
The Italian-American writer moved from Colorado to California in 1930; he started a number of different jobs while trying to get some attention on his writings. Success arrived in the Thirties with the short story Altar Boy, followed by the so called “Bandini saga”, from the name of the protagonist: Wait until Spring, Bandini (1938), Ask the Dust (1939), Dreams from Bunker Hill (1982) and The Road to Los Angeles (1985).
John Fante’s alter ego Arturo Bandini moves through the streets of Bunker Hill, telling stories of everyday life in a poor neighborhood populated mostly by immigrants, in a city that seems to be far away from the Hollywood lights, yet familiar and much loved. Bandini, like Fante, is trying to find his way to success.
A hundred years later, that neighborhood no longer exists, but some of the places described in those novels are still there. You can still walk through Bunker Hill and get lost in Bandini’s old city.
In 2010, the City of L.A. declared the corner of 5th & Grand John Fante Square. Here starts your tour, at the foot of the old Bunker Hill neighborhood where he lived and of which he wrote.
Walk north to the Los Angeles Central Library, where everything started; here a young John Fante used to borrow books, and here, years later, Charles Bukowski discovered Ask the Dust, one of the novels he loved most. The library is also mentioned in the novel.
John Fante
From here, you can walk to the top of the Angels Flight. The funicular once connected Hill Street and Olive Street to transport residents up and down the hill. Now, the hills no longer exist; the neighborhood was completely cleared in the Sixties due to a controversial project of redevelopment. But in 1996 the Angels Flight was rebuilt and it’s now located between Hill Street and California Plaza.
Take the funicular to reach the Grand Central Market, located at 317 South Broadway, where John Fante used to buy groceries. Experience the atmosphere of a crowded but friendly place, where you can still find those oranges the writer would sometimes get for free from the local farmers.
Only for the most adventurous, the tour has another stop. At the King Edward Saloon, the last Skid Row bar, frequented by failed writer Arturo Bandini in fiction and by John Fante and Charles Bukowski in reality, you can finally toast to Fante’s stories of L.A.
If you are ready to rediscover the lost city of Fante and of many other Italian immigrants, Esotouric and On Bunker Hill have created a digital map to a selection of locations that played a significant role in the writer’s life and work, and can be easily visited on foot. You can find it at http://johnfantesdowntown.notlong.com.
Wear comfortable shoes, be careful while walking around the old Bunker Hill, and enjoy.
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