This is the fourth and final installment of this post on the introduction of electric power to Los Angeles and Boyle Heights by Rudy Martinez, Advisory Board member of the Boyle Heights Historical Society. Research included scouring online newspapers, poring through many articles and books, and diligently searching through public archival records. Thanks, Rudy, for…
All posts in 2014
The Introduction of Electric Light to Los Angeles and Boyle Heights, Pt. 3
This is the third of four posts on the coming of electric lighting to Los Angeles and the Boyle Heights neighborhood by Boyle Heights Historical Society Advisory Board member Rudy Martinez. The fourth and final installment will be posted tomorrow. – Paul R. Spitzzeri In October 1882, Charles Howland incorporated the Los Angeles Electric Company…
The Introduction of Electric Light to Los Angeles and Boyle Heights, Pt. 2
This is the second of four posts by Boyle Heights Historical Society Advisory Board member Rudy Martinez on the early 1880s introduction of electric street lighting to Los Angeles, including an arc lamp built at First and Boyle in Boyle Heights. The third and fourth installments will be posted next week. – Paul R. Spitzzeri…
The Introduction of Electric Light to Los Angeles and Boyle Heights, Pt. 1
This is the first of four posts by Boyle Heights Historical Society Advisory Board member Rudy Martinez about the origins of electric lighting in Los Angeles, consisting of tall mast lights including one in Boyle Heights. – Paul R. Sptizzeri Since this time of year is a time of holiday celebrations, often involving bright and…
Ilya Tolstoy Speech: The International Institute of Los Angeles Centennial, Part Three
On 15 November, the International Institute of Los Angeles is celebrating its centennial and this is the third post commemorating that event by featuring some history related to the early days of the Institute when it was located in the former William H. Perry home, now at Heritage Square Museum. This entry concerns a notable…
Historic Photos of Boyle Heights: The Cummings Block, circa 1889
This Friday, the Boyle Heights Historical Society will be hosting a talk and book-signing by Catherine López Kurland regarding her book, Hotel Mariachi: Urban Space and Cultural Heritage in Los Angeles, which was co-written by Enrique R. Lamadrid with photographs by Miguel A. Gandert and an introductory essay by Evangeline Ordaz-Molina and published by The…
“The Siren”: The Boyle Heights Junior High School Newspaper, 1922
With today being the first day of school for the Los Angeles Unified School District, this seemed like a good opportunity to share some great history from Boyle Heights Junior High School’s student newspaper, “The Siren,” which made its debut on 19 October 1922. The paper is a window into the community, the school, its…
The International Institute of Los Angeles Centennial, Part Two
As the International Institute of Los Angeles, which has an office in Boyle Heights, celebrates its centennial, this post looks back to the opening of the Institute’s office in the historic Perry Mansion, now located at the Heritage Square Museum, back in 1916. The previous post from 3 July noted that the mansion was purchased in…
Historic Photos of Boyle Heights: The Macy Street (Old Aliso Road) Bridge, 1870s
This is a fantastic, rare stereoscopic photograph (an image printed twice and slightly offset, so, when viewed through a stereopticon with special lenses, “tricks” the eye into seeing the two images as one in a 3-D effect) of the bridge that was built across the Los Angeles River on the old Aliso Road, later Macy…
The Hostetter Tract of Boyle Heights
In the southwestern section of Boyle Heights, below where the 5, 10, 60 and 101 freeways come together, is an area that was known as the Hostetter Tract. Subdivided in 1887, when Los Angeles was engulfed in a population and real estate boom often known as “The Boom of the Eighties,” the tract was created…