THE BOYLE HEIGHTS NEIGHBORHOOD OF LOS ANGELES - Part 3 of a Series: THE LARGEST POPULATION OF JEWISH RESIDENTS WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI IN THE 1930s©

Celebrating Jewish Heritage Month in May, we focus our Blog article for May, 2022 on Los Angeles' Boyle Heights neighborhood.

By the 1920s, there were approximately 10,000 Jewish households in the area, which was about one-third of Los Angeles’ Jewish population -- the largest urban Jewish community in the United States located west of the Mississippi River.   Boyle Heights was also one of the most diverse neighborhoods — home to many Mexican, Japanese, Armenian/Turkish, Italian, Russian and African American families.

Map of Boyle Heights Neighborhood in1921

For its "Jewish Histories in Multiethnic Boyle Heights" Special Exhibit, UCLA gathered archival materials, artifacts and personal stories to explore the rich history of the Jewish community in this neighborhood, while also observing how those experiences coincided with the other diasporic communities that lived there.

The first automobile ever to drive through Los Angeles did so through the streets of Boyle Heights on May 30, 1897.  A New York civil engineer, J. Philip Erie, spent $30,000 to design, invent and build the first gasoline-propelled automobile carriage west of the Mississippi River. The drive started in downtown Los Angeles and ended at Erie’s home near Hollenbeck Park.

In 1908, a group of Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe founded Los Angeles’ first Yiddish organization, with the primary goal of establishing a Yiddish school so that Jewish parents could supplement their children’s public school education. In 1920, the Yiddish school's Board launched a fundraising drive to purchase a house at 420 N. Soto St., where the school would become a Yiddish cultural center. 

The new school, known as the folkshul (“people’s school”), opened the following year with 120 students. In addition to being a Yiddish school, the folkshul quickly became a popular destination for organizations and events, hosting meetings of local Jewish clubs, for fundraisers and bazaars, and for an annual dress ball.

The "folkshul" in 1922

As the movie and aviation industries blossomed and grew in Los Angeles in the 1920s, Jewish residents of Boyle Heights became prominent as business entrepreneurs skilled in various professions and crafts.  One such resident during the l920s was internationally-renowned businessman Max Factor, who settled in Boyle Heights with his family in close proximity to his store on South Central Avenue and to the local Jewish community on the eastside.  He first formulated, tested and developed his cosmetics out of the garage of his residence, eventually establishing himself as the source for the makeup and cosmetic treatments which became a favourite among the Hollywood studios and celebrities.

The Max Factor House on Boyle Avenue was built in 1909 in the Craftsman style of architecture with wide eaves and exposed rafters beneath.  During the time Max Factor and his family lived in Boyle Heights, his company car was often seen parked in the driveway because he never learned to drive, preferring instead the nearby public transportation.  The Max Factor House, pictured below, still stands today, and is under the watchful eye of the Los Angeles Conservancy, a local historical preservation group.

Max Factor House as it looks today
Photo Credit:  Adrian Scott Fine/L.A. Conservancy

In the early 1920s, Jewish residents created a place where Boyle Heights’ multiethnic residents could socialize, learn and organize. They called it the Cooperative Center, a large, three-story building near the corner of Brooklyn Avenue and Mott Street. There were several meeting rooms on the top floor, a large ballroom for lectures and social events on the second floor, and a bakery and café on the ground floor.

The Cooperative Center became a hub for neighborhood-based organizations and an important site of political organizing and social activities that blended consciousness raising, mult-cultural mingling,  and fundraising.

About a half mile from the folkshul was the Soto-Michigan Jewish Community Center,  referred to as "the JCC",  in Boyle Heights. The Center’s director, Rabbi J. M. Cohen, wanted to “integrate the Jewish community with the general community and the individual with the Jewish community and society as a whole.”  Cohen believed that by celebrating cultural pluralism, the Center would strengthen the Jewish identities of American-born children, foster integration and serve all of the neighborhood’s residents, including children of other ethnicities, such as of Mexican, Asian, Russian and African American descent.

The Soto-Michigan JCC’s three-story facility featured a lounge, game room and clubroom on the first floor and locker rooms in the basement.  The facility’s most popular feature was the Stebbins playground, where there was a jungle gym, volleyball and basketball courts, swing sets and ping pong tables.  As many as 1,000 people regularly visited the Soto-Michigan JCC just to use the playground, in addition to the 2,300 children and adults who used the meeting rooms and auditoriums every week.

SIDE NOTE:  The two photographs below of the JCC and some of the neighorhood children were both taken in 1938 by Julius Shulman (1910-2009), an American architectural photographer who, over his lengthy career, became widely known for documenting and preserving the aesthetic of Southern California's Mid-Century Modern architecture.

Jewish Community Center
in Boyle Heights, 1938
Photos credit:  Julius Shulman

During the early 20th Century, the Jewish community of Boyle Heights established several entities to take care of its residents -- especially the orphaned, the aged, and new immigrants who had fled the anti-Semitic oppression of generations of Jews being forced to live and starve in isolated, segregated impoverished ghettos (walled-off communities within European cities), and being repeatedly subjected to pogroms (violent massacres and forced relocations/removals through the expelling, uprooting and marching of residents of entire Jewish communities out of various European countries).  Included among the caregiving entities were the Jewish Home for the Aged, the Mount Sinai Home for Chronic Invalids, the Jewish Orphans Home, and the Jewish Wayfarers Home.

Pictured below is Mount Sinai Hospital in 1928, during the time it was originally located in Boyle Heights.  The origins of Mount Sinai Hospital can be traced to the 1918 worldwide flu pandemic, when a group of Jewish Los Angelenos provided kindness and comfort to the sick of all races, ethnic origins and religions.

The enduring legacy of Mount Sinai Hospital continues to the present day.  In 1950, a new Mount Sinai Hospital was built on Beverly Boulevard a few short blocks east of Doheny Drive on 3.5 acres of land donated by a locally-based Jewish charitable foundation.  In 1961, Mount Sinai Hospital merged with Cedars of Lebanon Hospital to form what has since become the world-renowned Cedars-Sinai Medical Center which currently occupies several square blocks between Beverly Boulevard and Third Street in the same -- albeit greatly expanded -- Los Angeles location adjacent to Beverly Hills.

=======================================

(Primary sources:  Mapping Jewish L.A.Project/UCLA Newsroom article by Cheryl Cheng, May 25, 2021;  Los Angeles Conservancy;  Los Angeles Eastside History Museum and Cultural Center/Boyle Heights Studios)

©2022 Snobby Tours, Inc,^®,  All Rights Reserved.

UPDATE: CRYSTAL BRIDGES MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART ENTERS ITS SECOND DECADE©

In browsing through this Travelblog, it becomes quickly apparent that I am a huge fan of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas -- so much so that I have published three (3) articles on its various components and unique attributes since it opened in 2011.

As it begins its second decade in 2022, Crystal Bridges has achieved worldwide recognition, and it has put the small rural town of Bentonville, Arkansas "on the map".  What was once a quintessential rural town in northwest Arkansas located in the southern Ozark Mountains has been transformed into an artistic and cultural public art  work-in-progress, filled with around 130  murals on buildings and sculptures in public spaces.

Recently, Crystal Bridges was featured prominently on "CBS Sunday Morning", showcasing its considerable expansion over the past 10 years.   Its already-extensive private collection of approximately 1,700 works of art more than doubled during its first decade, with plans currently underway for an additional 100,000 square feet of exhibit space on the adjacent picturesque grounds  

Rather than write about how much Crystal Bridges has evolved and expanded over the past decade, and revitalized Downtown Bentonville, the video herein below will literally speak volumes.  

SIDE NOTE:  Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art 

is included as a featured stop in the Itinerary of 

our custom-created escorted group heritage and cultural Tour, 

"Presidential Libraries and Fall Foliage of the Midwest©.  

For more information about booking this fun and interesting 

heritage and cultural Tour during spectacular Fall Foliage

between the Ozarks and Southern Illinois  

in October of 2022 or October of 2023, link to our Website at:  

http://snobbytours.com/PrezLibMidwestFFChicago.html

===================================

(Primary Source:  Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art)

©2022 Snobby Tours®, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.

PRE-WORLD WAR II LOS ANGELES THROUGH THE PHOTOGRAPHIC LENS OF ANSEL ADAMS©

When people think of the Los Angeles of the first half of the 20th Century, they generally don't associate it with world-renown photographer Ansel Adams (1902-1984).

Conversely, when people think of Ansel Adams, they generally associate him with his well-known black-and-white photographs of the Western USA, in particular of Northern California's Yosemite National Park, and also of his iconic "Moonrise" photo taken in New Mexico. 

Few people, however, know that Ansel Adams spent time in the early 1940s in Los Angeles teaching photography and training military photographers at what is known today as the Art Center College of Design.  During this time period, he photographed Los Angeles' "urban landscape", capturing for posterity the look and feel of the pre-World War II city which inspired so many dark, brooding movies in the 1940s which collectively came to be referred to as the genre of "film noir".

In 1940 Los Angeles had a population of 1.5-million people. 

In 1940 the cost of gasoline was 10-cents per gallon.

In 1940 the average new car cost $700. 

Also in 1940 the United States of America began re-arming for World War II -- and the prestigious Ansel Adams was commissioned by Fortune Magazine to photograph a series of images for an article covering the rapidly growing aviation industry in the Los Angeles area.

For the Fortune Magazine project, Adams took more than 200 black-and-white photographs showing everyday life in Los Angeles, including businesses, street scenes, aircraft factory workers at lunch, trailer parks, oil derricks in the middle of busy city streets, and a variety of other subjects. 

When the article, "City of the Angels", appeared in the March 1941 issue devoted entirely to the aircraft industry, only a few of Adams' images were included. 

Decades later, in the early 1960s, Adams himself rediscovered the photographs among papers at his home in Carmel, California and donated them to the Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL).    At that time, he wrote in a letter: "The weather was bad over a rather long period and none of the pictures were very good... I would imagine that they represent about $100.00 minimum value... At any event, I do not want them back." (Excerpt from: "Ansel Adams Los Angeles" Exhibit at drkrm gallery during "Pacific Standard Time", an unprecedented collaboration in 2011-2012 of more than sixty cultural institutions across Southern California (SoCal) which had come together to tell the story of the birth of the L.A. art scene.)

The video herein below was made in conjunction with the "Ansel Adams Los Angeles" Exhibit at drkrm gallery which was a component of the "Pacific Standard Time" city-wide exhibition in 2011-2012 at multiple SoCal cultural and arts venues.

In 2019, the Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL) featured a number of photos from the Ansel Adams Collection in an Exhibit at the Library entitled "On Assignment:  Ansel Adams in Los Angeles".

The Ansel Adams Collection at the LAPL provides a time capsule of life in Los Angeles as the Great Depression was coming to an end, and as ominous clouds were on the horizon foreshadowing the impending world catastrophe that would catapult the United States into World War II.

=============================

(Photo and primary sources:  Los Angeles Public Library's Ansel Adams Collection;  Video credit: MPH Productions for the 2011-2012 "Pacific Standard Time" Exhibit at the drkrm gallery)

©2022 Snobby Tours, Inc,^®,  All Rights Reserved.

THE HARRY S. TRUMAN PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM HAS RE-OPENED FOLLOWING COMPLETION OF ITS MAJOR RENOVATION AND EXPANSION PROJECT©

 

In June of 2015, we published a Travelblog article herein which focused on the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum which opened in 1957 in Independence, Missouri.

2015 marked the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, and in commemoration of this auspicious event, the Truman Presidential Library and Museum featured a Special Exhibition: "Till We Meet Again" thru the entire year.  

To read our 2015 Travelblog article about the Truman Library, link to:  https://snobbytours.blogspot.com/2015/06/truman-presidential-library-special.html

The $30-million project is the Library’s largest renovation and expansion since the Museum opened in 1957.    

The Library closed on July 23, 2019 to prepare for the renovation, although the Research Room remained open.  In September of 2019, the Truman Library and Museum commenced what was supposed to have been a one-year period of major renovation -- the first in over 20 years, and the most extensive ever done on the facility.

Groundbreaking Ceremony
Celebrating the Commencement
of the Library's Major Renovation Project
September 5, 2019

The anticipated date for the re-opening of the Truman Library was to have been in the Fall of 2020, marking the 75th anniversary of Truman's succession to the Presidency of the United States after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the end of World War II. 

That date, however, never came to fruition in 2020.  Commencing in late 2019, COVID19 rapidly began turning into a worldwide pandemic and created chaos and upheaval of the best laid plans.  What should have been closure for only one-year during the renovation process, turned into almost two full years due to multiple lockdowns resulting in concomitant work stoppages and additional mandated closures of facilities under Federal jurisdiction, such as all of the Presidential Libraries which are under the purview of the National Archives.

Upon completion, there would be a 3,000-square-foot addition with a new front entrance and lobby,  a new Truman permanent exhibition, new amenities for visitors, enhanced educational and community programming, and completely new and reimagined Museum exhibits that are interactive -- bringing Truman’s legacy to the 21st Century visitors.

===================================

(Primary Research and Photo Sources:  National Archives; National Archives News; KSHB News 41)

©2022 Snobby Tours^®, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

THE WHIMSICAL 20th CENTURY PROGRAMMATIC ARCHITECTURE OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA©

"Programmatic architecture" -- or "mimetic" architecture, as it is also called --  is the descriptive name that applies when a building evokes, and/or is designed in the shape of, the product or identity of the business occupying the building -- at least MOST of the time. 

Initially, coinciding with the rise of automobile use, programmatic architecture first appeared in the 1920s along roadsides throughout the United States as eye-catching rest and meal stops along the rapidly-growing US Highway system. 

The significant proliferation of programmatic architecture in Southern California, and in particular in Los Angeles, also arose in the 1920s and flourished for several decades thereafter, due to a great extent to the increasing love affair with automobiles that had by then become affordable to the masses, SoCal's wide open spaces even in urban areas and its proximity to a variety of natural resources providing affordable leisure activities, the ongoing development of an increasingly-viable connecting highway system, and the moderate climate of the region that provided the perfect year round weather for excursions by car.  

To that enticing "mix" was added the influence of the film industry which fostered creativity and opened up opportunities for design specialists and construction workers during the Great Depression that was unrivaled elsewhere in the US, and for the most part, made Southern California immune from the crippling poverty and unemployment that the rest of the country was experiencing throughout the 1930s. 

For all these reasons, the Los Angeles area became home to one of the highest concentrations of the programmatic architectural  style -- a status it continues to enjoy today because many of the earliest buildings are still extant -- preserved as designated local historical landmarks or repurposed for other uses. 

Herein below in this pictorial Blog article, I have chosen a few of these unique, highly-creative, often whimsical 20th Century structures -- some of which have become very famous in their own right not only for their immediately identifiable buildings but also for the businesses associated with them. 

Sphinx Realty Office
on Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles.

Shutter Shak Film Developing
in Westminister, CA

Fleetwood Square Cadillac Dealership
in Tarzana, CA

The Binoculars Building
designed by Claus Oldenberg
in Venice, CA

The Coffee Cup Cafe
on Pico Blvd. in West Los Angeles

The Donut Hole Drive-thru Donut and Coffee Shop
in La Puente, CA

 

Tail 'o the Pup Hot Dog Stand
on La Cienega Blvd., in West Hollywood, CA

The Freezer Ice Cream Shop
in Los Angeles

The Wigwam Motel
in Rialto, CA

Mother Goose Pantry Restaurant
in Pasadena, CA

The Flower Pot Flower Shop
in Hollywood, CA

The original Brown Derby Restaurant
on Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angeles

AUTHOR'S NOTE:   Several still-extant structures in Los Angeles which are examples of  "programmatic architecture" are included in our "Los Angeles Architecture -- An Eclectic Landscape"©  custom-designed Tour.   For more information about this unique and comprehensive heritage and cultural Tour covering L.A.'s architectural history from "early settlement to the present",  visit us at http://www.snobbytours.com/EclecticLAarchitecture.html

Reservations close on February 15th of the specified calendar year that we  offer this Tour. 

==============================

(Primary Sources: Weird California;  Los Angeles Conservancy;  Los Angeles Public Library Archives)

© 2022 Snobby Tours^®, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

UPDATE TO OUR AUGUST 2020 BLOG POST: RESTORATION OF NOTRE DAME CATHEDRAL IN PARIS, FRANCE©

On April 15, 2019, the world watched in disbelief and horror the live global news reports of a massive fire engulfing Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris built in the 12th Century.  The fire caused much of the roof to collapse and the church's 160-year-old Gothic spire to topple.

It has been determined that the likely cause of the fire was an electrical short.

Immediately after the fire, France's President Emmanuel Macron pledged that the Cathedral would be restored and rebuilt within 5 years.  Numerous challenges have hampered the process, however, including lead contamination and physical access to areas of the interior necessary to the repair work.

Now, almost 2-1/2 years later, almost halfway through the overall process, here is an update from the December 26, 2021 news segment on CBS Sunday Morning:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuMa_Aiz1gk

Scaffolding covers much of the interior and the exterior.The "stabilization" part of the process has been completed, and the "restoration" process now will begin.  The goal is to restore the structure by using the exact same materials as were originally used in the Middle Ages, including stone of the same density obtained from local quarries.

  

Wood beams which will provide the "lattice-work" of support for the roof of the church and for a new spire are currently being obtained by cutting down 1,000 oak trees, each at least 100 years old, from nearby forests.  Although many of the original stones can be re-used, burned wood obviously must be replaced.

Interestingly, there have been some surprising discoveries during the process.  By looking at isotopes within the charred wood, much information is being revealed about the climate during the Middle Ages.

While adhering to the past in the materials being used, modern technology is assisting in all aspects of the overall process.  Digital imaging taken before the fire help with understanding how the Cathedral was originally constructed and where stones were placed for support.

To read our August 2020 Snobby Tours® Travelblog article on the Notre Dame Cathedral, and in particular the restoration of its Grand Organ following the 2019 fire, link to: https://snobbytours.blogspot.com/2020/08/notre-dame-cathedral-grand-organ.html

©2021 Snobby Tours^®, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

UPDATE TO OUR SEPTEMBER 2021 BLOG POST: CEREMONY COMMEMORATING JOSEPHINE BAKER BEING HONOURED AT THE PANTHÉON IN PARIS©

 

On September 28, 2021, I published a Snobby Tours® Travelblog article herein about the Panthéon in Paris, France, its history, architecture, and famous French icons buried within its crypts.

I noted in my September Travelblog article that on November 30, 2021, the remains of the multi-talented American-born Jazz-Era performer, Civil Rights activist, French Air Force nurse and courageous member of the French Resistance during World War II, Josephine Baker, who became a French citizen in 1937, would be interred at the Panthéon -- the first Black woman and woman of colour to be honoured in this way by the country of France. 

After Baker's death in 1975 in Paris, she had been buried with full military honours in Monaco where, during her last years, she and her children had lived in a home provided by Princess Grace.  Consequently, rather than move her remains from Monaco to Paris for re-interment at the Panthéon, her family ultimately requested that her presence in the Panthéon be represented by a symbolic coffin containing handfuls of earth from four places where she had lived:  St. Louis, Missouri where she was born and spent her childhood, Paris, Monaco, and Milandes in the Dordogne region of France where she had once owned a castle and lived with her 12 racially and ethnically diverse adopted children.  

The induction ceremony held on November 30, 2021, at which French President Emmanuel Macron spoke with eloquence and relevance, received worldwide coverage by the media. The extraordinarily beautiful induction ceremony and national event was held at night with special lighting on the front of the Panthéon, Paris city lights flickering in the background and illuminating the Eiffel Tower, and people of all ages lining the street leading up to the entrance of the Panthéon, was deeply moving.  

The symbolic coffin was carried into the Panthéon by six pallbearers to be placed in a crypt alongside other national icons of France, including authors, politicians, philosophers and scientists.  

A live-streamed video produced by France24 which also includes historical and in-depth commentary about Josephine Baker and her life in France, can be viewed by linking to:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdLQsVqHiaE.

To read my September 2021 Snobby Tours® Travelblog article about the Panthéon. a National Monument of France open daily to the public for visiting, subject to the currently applicable COVID19 health and safety protocols, link to the following:  https://snobbytours.blogspot.com/2021/09/

=========================================

(Photo sources: REUTERS/Sarah Meyssonnier/Pool; Richmond Free Press;  The Gazette: Gazettextra)  

©2021 Snobby Tours^®, Inc. All Rights Reserved.