Angels Flight

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Angels Flight in May 2004 after the accident; the cars have been placed in storage

1903 view, with the Third Street Tunnel

Angels Flight was a landmark funicular railway in the Bunker Hill district of downtown Los Angeles, California, which claimed to be the "shortest railway in the world."

Built in 1901 as the Los Angeles Incline Railway, running northwest from the west corner of Third and Hill Streets, Angel's Flight consisted of two carriages pulled up a steep incline by metal cables powered by engines at the top of the hill. As one car ascended, the other descended, carried down by gravity. The two cars were named Sinai and Olivet.

The railway was closed in 1969 when the Bunker Hill area underwent a total redevelopment which transformed it from a declining community of mostly transients and working-class families renting rooms in run-down buildings to a modern mixed-use district of high-rise commercial buildings and modern apartment complexes. All the components of Angels Flight were placed in storage in anticipation of the railway's restoration and reopening, which took place in 1996 a half block south of the original site.

Angels Flight was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 13, 2000.

Angels Flight was again closed after a 2001 accident that killed passenger Leon Praport, 83, and injured seven others, including Praport's wife, Lola. The City of Los Angeles commissioned conductor David Woodard to compose and perform a memorial suite honoring Praport and the funicular's quaintly named cars. It was performed on March 15, 2001, by the Los Angeles Chamber Group as An Elegy For Two Angels.

[edit] In popular culture

It appeared in the opening scenes of the film The Glenn Miller Story in full operation.
Angels Flight is shown in Robert Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly (1955) and The Indestructible Man (1956). It is also seen briefly in They Came to Rob Las Vegas (1968).
Angel's Flight was also the name and locale of a Harry Bosch crime novel by Michael Connelly.
There are references to Angel's Flight in the song "Strange Season" on Michael Penn's 1992 album "Free-for-All," and the cover features images of the line and a ticket stating, "Good for one ride."
A scene in "The Scar" (1948) features Paul Henreid escaping from pursuers on one of the cars.