Jump to content

Boyle Heights, Los Angeles

Coordinates: 34°02′02″N 118°12′16″W / 34.03389°N 118.20444°W / 34.03389; -118.20444
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by BeenAroundAWhile (talk | contribs) at 20:55, 28 May 2012 (No source. Challenging and removing.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Boyle Heights
Neighborhood of Los Angeles
The old Sears Roebuck Mail Order Building on Olympic Boulevard
The old Sears Roebuck Mail Order Building on Olympic Boulevard
CountryUnited States
StateCalifornia
CountyCounty of Los Angeles
CityCity of Los Angeles
Government
 • City CouncilJosé Huizar
 • State AssemblyJohn Pérez (D)
 • State SenateGil Cedillo (D)
 • U.S. HouseLucille Roybal-Allard (D
Area
[1]
 • Total6.5 sq mi (17 km2)
Population
 (2000)[1]
 • Total92,785
 • Density14,262/sq mi (5,507/km2)
ZIP Code
90033, 90023
Area code(s)213, 323

Boyle Heights is a neighborhood east of Downtown Los Angeles on the East Side of Los Angeles. For much of the twentieth century, Boyle Heights was a gateway for new immigrants. This resulted in diverse demographics, including Jewish American, Japanese American and Mexican American populations, as well as Russian American and Yugoslav populations. Today, the neighborhood is populated mostly by working class Latinos.[1]

History

Paredon Blanco, The Boyle/Workman families, and the origins of Boyle Heights

The Boyle Heights area was known in the Spanish and Mexican era as "Paredon Blanco" or "White Bluffs." While within the four-league limits established for Los Angeles under Spanish dominion in 1781, this area east of the river was sparsely populated. Among those who resided in the Paredon Blanco area were the Lopez and Rubio families, each of which had adobe houses and vineyards and continued to live there for many decades.

File:BoyleHeights-1877.jpg
Plan of Boyle Heights in 1877, with Los Angeles in the background

One of the more notable early documented events in Paredon Blanco occurred during the American invasion of Mexican California in Fall 1846. After a group of Americans loyal to the invaders gathered for mutual defense at the Rancho Santa Ana del Chino home of Isaac Williams at today's Boys' Republic institution in modern Chino Hills, native Californios defending their land secured the surrender of the Americans. The prisoners were then marched to Paredon Blanco and kept there under strict watch for several months, though it is not known whether they were held at a residence of the Lopez or Rubio families. The intercession of ranchers William Workman, of La Puente, and Ignacio Palomares, of San Jose (modern Pomona), led to the peaceful release of the men who were nearly executed by the enraged Californio defenders.

In 1858, Irish-born Andrew A. Boyle (1818–1871) came to Los Angeles from San Francisco (having also previously lived in New Orleans and Texas after his 1832 migration to America.) Boyle, a widower who had a daughter named Maria (1847–1933) purchased land in Paredon Blanco from the Lopez family. He built the first brick house east of the river and cultivated the Lopez vineyards, manufacturing and selling wine under the Paredon Blanco name. He also operated a shoe store in Los Angeles and was a member of the city council.

After Andrew Boyle's death in early 1871, his property passed to his daughter and her husband, William Henry Workman (1839–1918), a saddler and rising politician in town. As the first growth boom was underway in the Los Angeles area, Workman decided to subdivide part of Paredon Blanco. In Spring 1875, he partnered with banker and real estate speculator Isaias W. Hellman and John Lazzarovich, who was married to a member of the Lopez family, and announced the creation of the new neighborhood of Boyle Heights. Before long, however, the boom ended, largely because of the failure of the bank co-owned by Workman's uncle, William Workman (1799–1876), owner of the Rancho La Puente in the eastern San Gabriel Valley. It was not until the next development boom, which took place during Workman's tenure as mayor in the 1887-88 period, that Boyle Heights grew rapidly and became a desirable residential area for middle and upper middle class Angelenos. Some large Victorian-era homes still survive in Boyle Heights as testament to the late nineteenth-century status the neighborhood possessed.

Boyle Heights remained one of the most heterogeneous neighborhoods in the city for decades and it was a center of Jewish, Mexican and Japanese immigrant life in the early 20th century, and also hosted large Yugoslav, Armenian and Russian populations. Canter's Deli, one of Los Angeles' culinary landmarks and a beloved fixture in the city's Jewish community, was originally located in Boyle Heights before it followed its customer base to the Fairfax District in the 1940s. For a time both Cantor's Delis were open and operating simultaneously. However, during and after World War II, most of its non-Latino population left for Mid-Wilshire, the San Gabriel and San Fernando valleys, and the West Side; and even for Orange County. Boyle Heights' Japanese population was interned in relocation camps such as Manzanar during World War II and did not return after the war. This evolution is evidenced, among many other ways, by the name of the district's main thoroughfare: once Brooklyn Avenue, it was rechristened Cesar E. Chavez Avenue in 1994.

Breed Street Shul

Breed Street Shul, 2008

Opened in 1923, the Breed Street Shul, located at 247 North Breed Street, was one of the oldest synagogues on West Coast of the United States. Boyle Heights was a predominantly Jewish community for many years, but slowly the demographic changed to a large Latino community, and the synagogue steadily lost congregation members.

Breed Street Shul was finally abandoned in 1996, with the building becoming ramshackle. Shortly afterward, an effort was made to renovate the synagogue, and to preserve the site for posterity. In 1999, the nonprofit Breed Street Shul Project, Inc., a subsidiary of the Jewish Historical Society of Southern California (JHS), officially undertook the restoration project. The project has been completed, and Breed Street Shul is now considered a national historic landmark.[citation needed]

The Flats

Unlike the middle- and lower-middle-class neighborhoods on the bluffs, "The Flats" was one of the most impoverished areas of the city, and by the 1930s was considered one of the last remaining slums in the United States. Those living in the "Heights" did not consider the flats part of Boyle Heights. The City of Los Angeles had separate neighborhood signs to mark the areas in the flats.[citation needed]

Reformer Jacob Riis had visited The Flats in the early 1910s and declared them worse than anything in New York; a survey[2] conducted by the city in the 1937 deemed 20% of the city's dwellings "unfit for human habitation," including most of The Flats. During World War II, the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA) razed The Flats and built housing projects in their place, resulting in Aliso Village and Pico Gardens. Like most of HACLA's 1940s projects, Aliso Village and Pico Gardens were hailed at the time of their construction as some of the finest examples of the principles espoused by the garden city movement, and were racially integrated to boot.

Soon after the end the war, Aliso Village and Pico Gardens lost most of their non-Latino populations, and were increasingly populated by Mexican immigrants. With the river on one side and a massive rail yard on another, the construction of the East Los Angeles Interchange further isolated them from the rest of the city, and the closure of the Pacific Electric Railway dramatically reduced the mobility of many of the projects' residents. By the 1970s, overcrowding had eliminated much of Aliso Village's once-vaunted green spaces, physical deteriortion had become rampant, and gangs were an increasing problem. In the 1980s the residents of Aliso Village and Pico Gardens began to organize with the support of Dolores Mission Church and its community Organization UNO and began to address these problems. By the late eighties the residents of the two housing projects had developed a network of community groups that pushed for better services and began negotiating truces between the different gangs, thus reducing the level of violence. In 1996, HACLA wrote off both projects, against the residents desires; Pico Gardens was razed and rebuilt eliminating half of the units in the development. Aliso Village was demolished and replaced with the New Urbanist, Pueblo del Sol "workforce housing" project. In the process two-thirds of the residents of the two housing projects were displaced.

Geography and transportation

Boyle Heights lies on the east bank of the Los Angeles River. It comprises the bluffs for which the district is named and the muddy flats ("The Flats") below them. The district's boundaries are roughly Mission Road on the north, the Los Angeles city limits on the east and south, and the river on the west. Downtown Los Angeles lies to the west, Lincoln Heights lies to the north, City Terrace and East Los Angeles are to the east, Commerce is to the southeast, and Vernon is to the south. Major thoroughfares include Whittier Boulevard; Cesar E. Chavez Avenue (known as Brooklyn Avenue prior to 1994); and State, Soto, Lorena, 1st, and 4th Streets.

"All roads lead to Boyle Heights"

Boyle Heights was once called Paredon Blanco (White Bluffs) when California was part of Mexico.[3] Boyle Heights has long been a destination for newcomers to Los Angeles. Andrew A. Boyle, for whom the area is named, was an Irish immigrant who established his home in the area in 1858. His son-in-law, William H. Workman, served as mayor and city councilman and helped build the water lines, bridges, and public transportation that connected Boyle Heights across the river to the city center and made it a viable place to live. By the end of the 19th century, many well-to-do residents and civic leaders resided in Boyle Heights.

As Los Angeles expanded into an industrializing city, the population of Boyle Heights both grew and diversified. Many people moved east of the Los Angeles River due to downtown development, rising real estate values, and racially discriminatory housing restrictions in other parts of the city.

Throughout the past century, people moved to Boyle Heights in search of new opportunities. Some came after being driven out of their countries of origin by wars, persecution, and adverse economic circumstances. All of these people, old and new residents alike, impacted the neighborhood they shared as they created homes and communities supporting their diverse talents, interests, and needs.Mexican families started to move in around the 1930s

The massive East Los Angeles Interchange is located in Boyle Heights on the eastern bank of the Los Angeles River, allowing access to the Golden State (I-5), Hollywood (U.S. Route 101), Pomona (SR 60), San Bernardino (I-10), Santa Ana (I-5), and Santa Monica (I-10) freeways.

The Edward R. Roybal Metro Gold Line Eastside Extension

The Mariachi Plaza station, one of two underground stations in Boyle Heights

In 2004, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) began work on the "Edward R. Roybal Metro Gold Line Eastside Extension" of its Gold Line through Boyle Heights. MTA had planned to run the line at grade level along 1st Street, but community opposition concerned for the potential loss of affordable housing led it to instead route the line through the district as a subway before it emerges as a standard grade-level light rail line in East Los Angeles. (Ironically, this route was planned as part of the Red Line subway before 1998, when county voters passed a proposition banning use of existing sales tax revenues for subway construction.) The Eastside Extension opened on November 15, 2009 with a total of four stations in Boyle Heights.

Demographics

As of the census of 2000, there are 92,785 people in the neighborhood. The racial identification of the neighborhood is 94.0% Latino, 2.3% Asian, 2.0% White (Nonhispanic), 0.9% African American, and 0.8% other races. The household median income is $33,235, low in comparison to the rest of the city. Its population is also one of the youngest in the city, with a median age of just 25.[1]

As of 2011, 95% of the community is Hispanic and Latino. The community has Mexican Americans, Mexican immigrants, and Central American ethnic residents. Hector Tobar of the Los Angeles Times said "The diversity that exists in Boyle Heights today is exclusively Latino".[4]

In the 1950s, Boyle Heights was racially and ethnically diverse, with Jews, Latinos and Japanese Americans living in the neighborhood. Bruce Phillips, a sociologist who tracked Jewish communities across the United States, said that Jewish families did not leave Boyle Heights because of racism, but instead because of redlining and the construction of several freeways through the community; which led to the loss of many houses.[4]

Government and infrastructure

Los Angeles Fire Department Station 2 (Boyle Heights) and Station 25 (South Boyle Heights) are in Boyle Heights.

The Los Angeles County Department of Health Services operates the Central Health Center in Downtown Los Angeles, serving Boyle Heights.[5]

The United States Postal Service Boyle Heights Post Office is located at 2016 East 1st Street.[6]

Education

Elementary

Los Angeles Unified School District operates Boyle Heights' public schools.

Middle schools

High schools

Private schools

Local private/catholic high school

College, universities and trade schools

Landmarks

Hollenbeck Home for the Aged, 573 S Boyle Ave. Built in 1918, photo taken 1956.

Demolished landmarks

Notable residents

Politics

Sports

Entertainment

Arts and literature

History

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d "Los Angeles Times Neighborhood Project". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2010-04-11.
  2. ^ http://www.hacla.org/news_links/HistoricalExhibit/HistoricalExhibit.htm
  3. ^ Sanchez, George J., "What's Good for Boyle Heights is Good for the Jews: Creating Multiculturalism on the Eastside during the 1950s", American Quarterly 56.3 (2004) 663-661.
  4. ^ a b Tobar, Hector. "A look back at the Boyle Heights melting pot." Los Angeles Times. December 9, 2011. Retrieved on December 10, 2011.
  5. ^ "Central Health Center." Los Angeles County Department of Health Services. Retrieved on March 18, 2010.
  6. ^ "Post Office Location - BOYLE HEIGHTS." United States Postal Service. Retrieved on December 7, 2008.
  7. ^ http://www.rooseveltlausd.org
  8. ^ http://www.bravoweb.lausd.k12.ca.us/.com
  9. ^ http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/preview.php?id=15558.com

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, California.

34°02′02″N 118°12′16″W / 34.03389°N 118.20444°W / 34.03389; -118.20444

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Boyle_Heights,_Los_Angeles&oldid=494838478"