Pueblo Del Rio

Pueblo Del Rio is a public housing project located in south-central Los Angeles, California. The address of Pueblo Del Rio is 1801 East 53rd Street, which is near the intersection of 55th and Alameda streets.

Constructed in 1941 under the auspices of the National Housing Administration, Pueblo Del Rio was originally designed to house low-income laborers at the factories south of downtown Los Angeles. Like other housing projects of the era, Pueble Del Rio's design was based on the "garden city" template. According to this design motif, clusters of two-story buildings would be situated around open grassy spaces where the children of the residents could play. Prominent architects such as Richard Neutra and Paul Revere Williams helped design the layout of Pueblo Del Rio.

Demographics

Throughout most of its history, Pueblo Del Rio housed primarily African-American residents. In the 1990s, however, large numbers of Latinos began moving into the housing complex. Today, African-Americans, Latinos, and Cambodian immigrants call Pueblo Del Rio home. Some families have been living in Pueblo Del Rio for more than three generations.

Almost fifty percent of the residents of Pueblo Del Rio are children or teenagers.

Education

Pueblo Del Rio is zoned into the Los Angeles Unified School District. Schools serving Pueblo Del Rio include Holmes Elementary School, Edison Middle School, Huntington Park High School, and Maywood Academy Senior High School.

Crime

During the 1970s, many of the factories which employed Pueblo Del Rio's residents were closed. This created a vacuum of opportunity in the area, and as a result, the crime rate skyrocketed.

Today, Pueblo Del Rio is known as a hotbed of illegal activity in south-central Los Angeles. Shootings, stabbings, assaults, gang activity, narcotics trafficking, and vandalism are all frequent occurrences at Pueblo Del Rio. Much of the crime at Pueblo Del Rio is gang related. The Newtown Division of the Los Angeles Police Department reports that there are three major gangs operating at Pueblo Del Rio: Florencia 13, the Bishops, and the Asian Boyz. According to a story in the ''Los Angeles Times'' which was published on July 14, 2009, gang activity is so pervasive at Pueblo Del Rio that families are often forced to pay a $5 "cover charge" to gang members before they can take their children to the playground at the complex.

Sources:

http://www.floornature.com/articoli/articolo.php?id=163&sez=3&tit=Restoration-of-Pueblo-del-Rio,-Los-Angeles

http://www.hacla.org/

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-southla-pueblos14-2009jul14,0,2422714.story

http://www.lapdonline.org/newton_community_police_station

http://search.lausd.k12.ca.us/cgi-bin/fccgi.exe