In the 1899 publication Beautiful Highlands of Los Angeles, promoting Boyle Heights, Brooklyn Heights and Euclid Heights and issued by the Ninth Ward Improvement Association, almost all of the people and buildings discussed and visually presented were middle and upper middle class Americans and Europeans, like the target audience of the pamphlet who were solicited to come to…
All posts by Paul Spitzzeri
William Mulholland, Longtime Boyle Heights Resident
Tomorrow is the centennial anniversary of the opening ceremony for the massive Los Angeles Aqueduct, which delivered water from the Owens River in eastern California to the Los Angeles region over a 220-plus mile system of finely engineered tunnels, channels, pipes, pumps, reservoirs and other elements in a scheme that was filled with controversy, but…
An Early Chinese Resident: An 1899 Booster Pamphlet for Boyle Heights, Part Two
The 1899 pamphlet put out by the Ninth Ward Improvement Association and introduced in the last post was intended to lure new residents and business owners by promoting (perhaps with some excess) the manifold benefits of living and working in the community. Consequently, photos of dozens of homes and biographical sketches of many of the…
An 1899 Booster Pamphlet for Boyle Heights, Part One
Recently, Boyle Heights Historical Society stalwart Rudy Martinez came across a pamphlet on an Internet search called Beautiful Highlands of Los Angeles, Comprising Boyle Heights, Brooklyn Heights, Euclid Heights. Apparently published in 1899 by the Ninth Ward Improvement Association (the city was then divided into “wards,” a common designation in American cities then), this remarkable document was…
Lorraine Schneider: Artist from Boyle Heights
With the Memorial Day holiday upon us and it being a holiday of remembrance for the soldiers who have died in wars fought by the United States, it seems timely and appropriate for this post about Lorraine Schneider, an artist raised in Boyle Heights whose 1966 print, “Primer,” decrying war has been an iconic image…
Autry National Center Jewish LA Exhibit and Boyle Heights
The Autry National Center’s newest exhibit, Jews in the Los Angeles Mosaic, which just opened and runs through early January 2014, provides a broad overview of the multidimensional history of Jews in Los Angeles from the 1850s to the modern day. Elements relating to families, religion, business and economics, Hollywood and the entertainment industry, sports,…
The Bernstein Film Studio of Boyle Heights
From the time that motion pictures were first filmed in the Los Angeles area around the turn of the 20th century, the industry has, obviously, been identified with Hollywood. The first studios, however, were in Edendale (the Silver lake/Echo Park/Los Feliz area) and others eventually were established in Culver City, Universal City, Burbank, Lincoln Heights…
John Edward Hollenbeck and Boyle Heights
His tenure in the emerging neighborhood of Boyle Heights was short, just under a decade, but the mark John E. Hollenbeck made in the community and in the Los Angeles area generally was notable and is still maintained in some key ways. Hollenbeck was born in Summit County, Ohio, south of Cleveland and near Akron,…
An Interesting Boyle Heights Letter from 1891
One of the other early notable players in the early development of Boyle Heights was John Edward Hollenbeck, of whom and his wife Elizabeth, there will be a separate post here soon. The Hollenbecks were successful business people in Nicaragua for some twenty years before moving to Los Angeles in 1876, just as Boyle Heights…
Early Spanish-Language Theater Programs from Boyle Heights, 1929
Though there is a great deal of printed and digital information about downtown Los Angeles theaters, the vast majority cover those centered in the theater district on Broadway and nearby streets and concern those that featured English-language films and live entertainment. Material on theaters that catered to Spanish-speaking audiences is much harder to come by.…