Comments on: Eastside 101: Hollenbeck Park

By: ubrayj02

ubrayj02 — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 03:37:39 +0000

East L.A. has some many wonderful wonderful freeways! It is so unique and special! What a gift they are!

The 5!

The 10!

The 101!

The 710!

I love it! Thank you city fathers, for turning our town into a polluted, car-stuffed, mess!

By: TacoSam

TacoSam — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 15:04:24 +0000

Great post CHAVO! I suggest you also do a post on the Hole, the park behind Salesian High School, and another one on how East Los Angeles College ended up in Monterey Park.

By the way, my personal opinion (yes this is a blog) is that freeways were not used to destory neighborhoods tht had ethnic heterogeneity (whatever that is), leaving minorities in small enclosed neighborhoods. If so, how do you explain the 405 Fwy cutting through the Westide, or the 101 through the Valley?

The probable truth is that Freeways fueled growth in the suburbs, and growth in the suburbs fueled more freeways. LA’s growth as a metropolis is uniquely tied to the automobile and the Freeway. Freeways are Quintessential LA!! It is our unique gift to the world–suburban sprawl via the automobile.

By: maxwell

maxwell — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 18:46:02 +0000

It’s much too simple to say that freeways were built over Mexican neighborhoods. Freeways were often paired with “slum-clearance,” based on FHA determinations about what constituted slums. This was most arguably based on race, but the freeways were not built just to make life harder for Mexicans. The real purpose was to surgically remove the integrated aspect from neighborhoods that were extremely integrated, and NOT exclusively Mexican. There wouldn’t really be a purpose to just building through an ethnic neighborhood if you were trying to restrict them. It would make more sense to build around them instead, closing them in.

The freeways were used to destroy neighborhoods that had ethnic heterogeneity, so the people who could move out (whites, jews, italians, germans…) would do so, leaving the poorer minorities, often blacks and central americans in an increasingly small, enclosed neighborhood that could be more easily ignored by the powers that be.

Making claims about how the city just has it out for Mexicans is just as short-sighted and shallow (as far as history is concerned) as making arbitrary claims to a new eastside. It’s sort of a shame that blogs are all editorial. The research yields some interesting histories, if you’re willing to put in the time to find them.

By: Gustavo Arellano

Gustavo Arellano — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 18:39:44 +0000

Gracias, CHAVO!, for this post. Even an idiot OC’er like me has always known that East Los Angeles was where Whittier Boulevard and Cesar Chavez (or, as my aunts and uncles remember it, la brook-leen) reigned. Other geographic boundaries: the LA River, school boundaries for Roosevelt, Garfield and Schurr, and some others I can’t remember–but definitely NOT Echo Park or Silver Lake.

By: Kenarch

Kenarch — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 04:18:18 +0000

Cool post dude… and thanks for giving my old ‘hood some respeto necesidado.

I have a special affinity for the “real Eastside”. 15 years ago I was living in Boyle Heights near St. Louis & Michigan and I believe I was the only, or one of a very few, “gueros”, “gringos”, “anglos”, “white boys”, etc, etc… in the ‘hood. Never was a problem. I had a greattime… walking to El Serenata or Ciro’s, occasionally fattening up at El Tepayac (still losing that…LOL), and enjoying being in one of the few places in LA that didn’t, and still doesn’t, feel “commodified”.

What is it about the areas east of the river? Well, there’s quite a marked lack of “the industry”, and that’s a very good thing. They already lay claim to 80% of the rest of the city, let ‘em have it. The Eastside has the best food in LA, and not just Mex. It’s the easiest part of the city to get in and out of, as long as one isn’t driving at rush hour. Mostly, for me, it is a place with a strongly developed sense of itself. Yeah, there are too few parks (and WTF – I hate that gate as well) – those few parks are filled to bursting with families and bbqs on weekends, it’s not all prettied up like Hancock Park and such, and there’s no Grove or Hollywood & Highland pseudo-city experience to be had. The well (and over) documented gang and crime issues are no bueno, but most of LA partakes in that insanity, whether they believe it or not.

Viva la taquerias, el comidors, la cultura familia y la musica Latina de East LA y Boyle Heights!!!

By: jk

jk — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 13:47:31 +0000

Give him some credit for even mentioning the Jewish past of Boyle Heights in past posts. Jews left. Japanese left. Italians left. Russians left. Even Mexicans left, but were replaced by new ones. They went west and east in the 1960s. (The ones who went east became my suburban neighbors.) Some were forced to leave because freeways cut up the area.

What’s interesting is how there has been a local cottage business in Boyle Heights remembrance, via the JANM’s exhibits, and efforts by the Jewish community to invest in fixing up old historic buildings, as well as a number of websites. It seems to coincide or precede large-scale gentrification efforts (the Sears tower, some hopistal-to-loft conversion near the park, tearing up the Aliso Village projects to make condos, and lofts in eastern Little Tokyo).

By: EL CHAVO!

EL CHAVO! — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 04:12:44 +0000

Michael,
Yeah, I agree with you. But whether they were Jewish, Italian, Japanese, or Mexican they were all part of the Eastside. Erasure of history effects everyone equally.

3 cheers for affordable onions! Onion Price Watch 2007 is officially over.

By: cindylu

cindylu — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 00:09:33 +0000

I remember hearing about that publication. It just seemed lame. Hopefully it’ll fold soon.

At least the cool kids know what “the Eastside” really means.

Thanks for the history lesson on Hollenbeck Park. I’ve never really been to East LA parks, despite spending most Sundays there visiting family.

By: Will Campbell

Will Campbell — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 19:09:01 +0000

Someone who knows far more of Echo Park’s history than me pointed out in my first comment that Echo Park’s lake wasn’t touched when the 101 was built, rather the freeway eliminated a playground and baseball field.

By: Michael

Michael — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 16:24:30 +0000

When you write about the “re-imagining of our city in a historical vacuum” please make sure to remember the entire history of the city. Boyle Heights spent more time as a predominantly Jewish enclave than a Latino community. The current makeup of the area is a post WW2 event.

Los Angeles is the remix capitol of the world … and I’m not referring to music. And that’s part of the city’s greatness.

On another note (hideous pun intended) I’m looking forward to reading (and seeing) more about the eastern side of the city. Perhaps the series will help people to realize that one of the things that makes Los Angeles so great is that the entire world is available for the sampling in our front yard. And the two things that cause the greatest divides between Angelenos are our insistence that we are all not really the same (and must be looked at differently) and the food that we eat. Hopefully we will be smart enough to realize that the former is divisive and counterproductive and the latter is a missed opportunity to stimulate our taste buds. BTW, isn’t it great that onions are cheap again?