Redlined L.A. & the Chinese American Doctor - Bunker Hill, Chinatown & Beyond in the 20th Century

This post grew out of a curiosity about the important man who introduced me into the world:  my mother's obstetrician.  Dr. Samuel Yen Eng was one of two L.A. Chinatown doctors in the 1950s and 1960s who practiced western medicine (as I had heard growing up).

Dr. Samuel Yen Eng, M.D. (1905-1972)

Dr. Eng was born in San Francisco.  In 1928, he completed the four years of study at the College of Medical Evangelists, and he was on his way to being a physician in his early twenties!  The names of his graduating class were listed in the San Bernardino Sun newspaper, and he appeared to be the only Chinese student.  The college later became Loma Linda University's School of Medicine.

Los Angeles Redlining Practices of 1939

Unbeknownst to him, throughout his life he traversed around a secret color-coded housing and mortgage lending landscape established by the government-sponsored Home Owners' Loan Corporation.  By tracking his addresses through the federal censuses, it is easy to determine that he lived and worked in or near redlined areas shown on a 1939 residential security map of urban Los Angeles - that is, pockets of the county shaded Red - deemed "hazardous" and least desirable in livability.  The criteria was based on the race of residents, and areas populated by people of color.  In comparison, the Yellow-shaded areas were defined as area "in decline" and not as bad as the Red areas. For a concise explanation with a high-rez map available, visit here.

Published by the Home Owners' Loan Corporation

Boyle Heights

After graduating from medical school, he and his wife Helen resided in Boyle Heights likely because Dr. Eng was working nearby at White Memorial Hospital that was founded by his alma mater.  A 1930 occupational directory listed him at 2032 E. First Street.  Another address pinned them at Michigan Avenue and Echandia Street as renters with another couple who were both also in the medical field.  Their nearby, non-Asian neighbors were medical professionals, too. (Source:  1930 Federal Census).  By 1939, the redlining policy relegated all of Boyle Heights to Red, the worse grade on the residential security scale.

City Market and the East Adams Neighborhood

Chinese Americans settled near the 1909 City Market, and a Chinese American enclave extended south about 1920 along East Adams Boulevard near San Pedro Street.  The population shift stemmed, too, from the clearance of Old Chinatown beginning in 1933.

(My parents' rental at 812 E. 21st Street in East Adams was where I was brought home as a newborn.  It was from Jenny Cho's 2005 book Revisiting East Adams that led me to realization that I was a part of that community.)

All of the East Adams area was graded Red.

The 1938 city directory listed Dr. Eng's residence at 3725 Dalton Avenue, near Exposition Boulevard & Western.  The area was graded Red.  The listing also indicated his medical office was at 1057 South San Pedro Street -  the epicenter of Chinese businesses located near the City Market.  Various occupational directories and city directories between 1933 through 1942 placed his long-established practice here.

Compton/Willowbrook

He was a homeowner by 1940 at 1919 East 122nd Street in Compton (Source:  1940 Federal Census).  It must have fit his growing family of four children.  The property hadn't been redlined because it was defined as "industrial."

In 1948 a Supreme Court ruling made illegal the practice of placing restrictive racial housing covenants in property deeds, and this practice was a parallel discriminatory tactic against fair housing.  The ruling was a starting point though it would take many more decades to eliminate redlining and these covenants.

Meanwhile, the doctor, who was also a returning veteran, moved west to 2033 El Segundo Boulevard, Willowbrook (Source:  1950 Federal Census).  This site was considered "agricultural" in the 1939 redlining map.  Today the address no longer exists, and a tract development took its place.  Noteworthy was the proximity of his house to the 1926 Western Avenue Golf Course - stray golf balls could have landed in his yard.  Did the doctor play golf?

The "New Chinatown" Doctors

During the war period what doctors cared for the Chinese community?  Families & babies managed to grow despite the Chinese exclusion immigration policy. 

It is unclear of the exact year in which Dr. Eng moved his practice to New Chinatown.  The vicinity of North Broadway & Macy Street (Macy is now Cesar E. Chavez Avenue) became New Chinatown by 1950.  Prominent Chinatown doctor, Julius F. Sue, set up his practice here in the 1950s.

Dr. Eng was listed in the May, 1956 city directory at 431 Bernard Street.  (In the 1939 redlining map Bernard Street provides a boundary for a Red zone - no surprise here.)  He remained here until his death in 1972.

His office operated out of an 1892 Victorian house.  Today the house still stands and is a few doors down from the headquarters of the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California.  I vaguely remember being in the waiting room.  I also remember Dr. Eng making a house call when my two brothers and I were sick.

Dr. Eng attended to my birth as well as my two brothers at the German Hospital - in the Boyle Heights neighborhood he was long familiar with.

The World War II Draft and the American Legion

Dr. Sue was just graduating from high school in 1934 when Dr. Eng was a young doctor, and they both served in the military throughout World War II.  According to Duty & Honor:  a Tribute to Chinese American World War II Veterans of Southern California (edited by Marjorie Lee), about 13,499 Chinese living in the U.S. had served in the war, and over 500 were from southern California.  Four individuals were medical doctors, and Dr. Eng had by far more experience than the other three degreed soldiers.  Dr. Sue is remembered for many accomplishments, such as founding the Chinese American Medical Association of Southern California.  

Dr. Eng turned 35 years old shortly before the draft, and he held the rank of Major in the Army Air Corps.

Courtesy of Duty & Honor, p. 112
(Chinese Historical Society of Southern California, 1998)

In 1946 upon his return from war the doctor organized and was the first commander of the American Legion's newly established Chinese American post.  Interestingly, he established their headquarters along the same block where his medical practice was before the war.

Courtesy Duty & Honor, p. 29

Investing in Bunker Hill and the Alta Vista Apartments

About the time the restrictive racial covenants were outlawed in the U.S. in 1948, locally the city of Los Angeles announced the wholesale clearance and redevelopment of blighted Bunker Hill in downtown.  Though redlined as a Red zone in 1939, at some point in time Dr. Eng and other investors purchased the Alta Vista Apartments at 255 South Bunker Hill Avenue.

Courtesy of the California State Library

The 1903 Alta Vista was worn out by the late 1950s, and it was a place that inspired novelist John Fante from his transient, brief stays there between 1933 and 1934.  The building was a film location for the 1951 film noir by Columbia, called "M."

The income property became an ill-fated investment.  A lawsuit by Dr. Eng, et al, against the city's Board of Building & Safety Commissioners was decided in 1960, after the building was earmarked for demolition in 1959.  A case summary can be read here.

Only the fictionalized Alta Vista endures.  It is doubtful that the doctor was aware of the building's significant role in Fante's story, Ask the Dust.  The novel, little-known when published in 1939, garnered widespread fandom in the years after the doctor was no longer living.

Noteworthy: the legal counsel for his case was another war veteran Hiram W. Kwan from the Chinatown law firm of Kwan, Quon, Cohen and Lum.  Kwan died in December, 2021 after a long life of community and patriotic service.  He was born in Cuba, and upon residing in his new city of Los Angeles, he lived in the East Adams district at 757 E. 20th Street (Source:  1940 Federal Census).

Final Resting Place

As today I live next to the largest cemetery in the world, it is not really surprising to know that Dr. Eng is nearby at Rose Hills Memorial Park.  It is prime real estate.

Photo courtesy of Chris Sandoval, Find A Grave

Chinoiserie, Velvet Paintings and the Olympic Girl: the Art of Wylog Fong

When the 1984 Olympics came to Los Angeles, the Natural History Museum planned a retrospective on the Los Angeles 1932 Summer Olympics. 

Recently I came across their 1984 poster and the name "Wylog Fong" below a vintage image reproduced from the museum's collection and used on the poster.  Stopped in my tracks and a bit shocked that a Chinese person had a bold contribution in the 1932 games - I mined the internet for an explanation:

Fong was commissioned for the July, 1932 cover of the magazine Game & Gossip published out of Los Angeles.  It is unknown whether the expensive, specialized magazine (35 cents in the middle of the Great Depression with an emphasis on golfing and high fashion) survived into the following year.  (A magazine of the same name returned in 1946 based in Monterey, Calif.)

Courtesy of the Seaver Center for Western History Research, 
Natural History Museum of LA County

His concept of a physically fit female athlete is idealized with her well-coifed, auburn waves; rouged, high cheekbones; elegant, tapered fingers; and long, shapely limbs.  She is clearly the first at the finish line, and in the momentum she bursts beyond the allotted page boundaries.  In the background, the male pole vaulter gets secondary attention before the crowds of spectators inside the Memorial Coliseum at Exposition Park.

Asian American Olympians

It was 1932 that China sent its first teams.  There was fervor among the Japanese American community rooting for the Japan athletes.  In 1948 home-grown Asian American contenders representing the United States made their historical marks: competitive divers Vicki Manalo Draves and Sammy Lee.

Vicki Taylor, Double Olympic Gold Medalist, 1948 London Games

San Francisco-born, Filipino-English Victoria Manalo registered in the Games as Vicki Taylor, using her mother's maiden name, to deemphasize her Asian heritage.  She was the first Asian American representing the U.S. to win Olympic gold - twice at the same games.

Image courtesy of Crescenta Valley Historical Society

Sammy Lee, Olympic Gold Medalist, 1948 and 1952

Vicki's friend, Sammy Lee, was the first Asian American man to win Olympic medals.  He was born in Fresno, and as a child he moved with his family to L.A.  His inspiration to compete in a future Olympiad was spawned by the 1932 arrival of the games to his city.  As a Korean American, his path to success required overcoming the municipal practices of racially segregated public swimming pools.

Image courtesy of thesammyleestory.com

Wy Lock or Wylog Fong (1894-1974)

A studious blogger, Alex Jay, had already pulled together a great deal of what is little known on the life of Fong.  Alex' 2013 blogpost in the blog Chinese American Eyes consolidates census data and art references:

The 1900 census listed 6-year old Lock Fong, along with his father, mother and many siblings.  Lock was born in San Francisco.  In the next census he was listed as Way Lock Fong and no longer had a mother.  By the 1920 census he was recorded in Portland, Oregon, as Wy Lok Fong, and his profession was landscape artist.

Throughout the 1920s he was active in Portland while living in Chinatown - he had studied at the Portland Art Association's school; he exhibited at the Museum of Art in 1922.  He was using the name Wylog Fong.

Chinoiserie

By the 1920s he settled into the signature Wylog Fong.  He produced Oriental, kitschy illustrations that were reproduced as prints by the West Coast Engraving Company of Portland.  Today these prints circulate for sale on the internet.  In example, below are Nuie Jai (Little Girl) and Num Jai (Little Boy).  The phonetic titles provide a clue to Chinese dialect he spoke, Toishan Cantonese, which was the prevalent dialect of the American Chinese speaker in those years.

Circa 1924 prints image courtesy of Worthpoint.com

Velvet Paintings

Wy Log Fong received an entry in Asian American Art:  a History, 1850-1970, compiled by Gordon Chang, Mark Johnson and Paul Karlstrom (Stanford General Books, 2008).  The scholarly entry suggested that Fong may have been the first artist in the U.S. to use velvet as a medium.  Below is a 1928 velvet piece found on the internet.

1928 Velvet Painting image courtesy of Worthpoint.com

Wylog Fong in Los Angeles

Fong lived in several American Chinatowns (San Francisco to Portland to L.A.) but his creative pursuits allowed him to achieve semblances of recognition and acceptance on the outside.

After departing Portland, Fong may have divided time between San Francisco and L.A. and eventually settled in L.A. in the 1950s until his death in 1974.  Two pieces of information shed a bit more light on Fong's many decades of living in Los Angeles:  he studied at the Art Students League, and he worked as a sidewalk pastel portrait painter in Chinatown.

Importantly, his contribution in the issue of Game & Gossip included a credit mentioned in the interior of the magazine:

WYLOG FONG, who drew this charming July cover, is  a young Chinese artist, born in romantic San Francisco Chinatown.  He takes his artistic cue from the color stylist [Stanton] Macdonald Wright, grand llama of the Art Students league.

It is conceivable that Fong worked on the sidewalks of Christine Sterling's tourist destination, China City, sometime between the years 1938 and 1949 - the dates of the year China City opened until an arson fire destroyed it.

Herman Schultheis Collection, L.A. Photographers Collection
Los Angeles Public Library

College Street, Early Schools, Saint Vibiana’s Cathedral and the Clergy of 19th Century L.A.

Calle del Colegio was recorded into Los Angeles’ street naming history by Edward O.C. Ord in his well-known 1849 first survey of Los Angeles.  In English it is written as College Street, but the translation does not explain the existence of a college in the neighborhood.

Today College Street is an ordinary street comprising of modest buildings in the heart of Los Angeles’ Chinatown. As the street stretches west past the Pacific Alliance Medical Center (formerly the French Hospital), an incline leads to a residential mix of apartments and houses. The street name is actually a historical reminder of the Catholic Church’s efforts to strengthen its influence and to impart religious education in the years following the transition from Mexican Los Angeles to an American city.

An explanation is found in James Miller Guinn’s A History of California and an Extended History of Los Angeles and Environs (Los Angeles: Historic Record Company, 1915), a book that has been digitized by Google and is available online. On page 414, Guinn stated that at the June 9, 1849 session of the ayuntamiento (city council), clergymen petitioned on behalf of the Catholic Church for a tract of land.

Their petition was accepted with the conditions “That the Holy See of California be granted amongst the municipal lands of this city…First, this land cannot be sold, transferred or hypothecated directly or indirectly; second, the building erected thereon shall at all times serve the sole and exclusive purpose of public instruction.”

The following month during that summer of 1849 when Los Angeles and all of California was under American military rule, the ayuntamiento hired surveyor Ord and his assistant, William Rich Hutton; they would soon be traipsing about. They likely deduced what the large lot was reserved for and recorded accordingly. However, the lot soon reverted back to the status of public land.

Fray Antonio Jimenez Del Recio (ca. 1815-1853)

The next year Fray Antonio Jimenez filed a request for a college on May 18, 1850 -- for land adjacent to the Plaza Church, but again, no action was taken. Jimenez arrived in California from Mexico in 1841, accompanying the bishop of the newly created Diocese of Both Californias, Francisco Garcia Diego y Moreno. The constantly sickly Jimenez was present at a pivotal time in the nascent Mexican California. In 1843, as a recently ordained priest, he was appointed to Mission San Gabriel. According to Diocesan Archivist Monsignor Francis Weber, the priest cared for the Asistencia in Los Angeles and was well-liked by the residents. Father Sugranes wrote that Jimenez was curate of Los Angeles from 1848 to about the time of his death in 1853.  He died in San Gabriel.

Bishop Joseph Alemany (1814-1888)

Guinn’s book mentions that Los Angeles’ city council granted lots for a college site on March 8, 1851 to Bishop Alemany. Joseph Alemany was the Bishop of Monterey (the title prior was Bishop of Both Californias). He served from 1850-1853. The diocese territory amounted to 75,984 square miles, and included southern California.

One of the pressing issues the new Bishop addressed was the state of titles to Church properties in California. The peace treaty, Treaty of Guadalupe, resulted from the U.S. War with Mexico and provided legal protection to natives’ land rights. But the Church had the burden to prove ownership, as did Mexican rancheros. It would be many years before the Church’s land claims to properties (that consisted of "church, edifices, stores, cemeteries, orchards and vineyards with their aqueducts") (from page 131 of Source 1) such as on former mission lands throughout California could be cleared. Alemany must have been anxious to acquire new land grants in places such as Los Angeles.

In 1851, a year into his episcopate Bishop Alemany assessed that none of the California Fathers were native-born nor were any native speakers of English; of the population (swollen from the Gold Rush), Catholics numbered about 40,000 compared to the number of Protestants of 30,000, leaving 130,000 unbaptized Indians and whites. In the interest to secure funding, he often wrote to the Society for the Propagation of the Faith in Paris, citing “our diocese was in the most miserable condition in regard to education. The poor boys and girls must be left a prey to Protestantism and immorality, if we do not exert ourselves to open some good institutions. We have commenced this work: and we are already in debt. Some of the old Churches have to be repaired and some new ones have to be built, and although there is money, yet all is exceedingly dear. Your aid will greatly relieve us.” (From page 125 of Source 1)

Early Schools in L.A.

The first schools in Los Angeles were “run on the go-as-you-please principle” (according to Guinn).  In the early years of the American period, a good number of school-age children did not attend.  While the Catholic Church was attempting to start up schools, local Protestants had similar ambitions.  About 1850, two individuals, Rev. Dr. Wicks and J.G. Nichols, helped to establish a pioneer English school. 

Meanwhile, Santa Clara College was established in northern California on the site of Mission Santa Clara de Asís by the Society of Jesus in 1851. 

In Alemany’s plea to the French Society, he mentioned that the College of Los Angeles "just commenced by the Fathers of Picpus with little funds”.  (From page 125 of Source 1)  It is not certain where this college was situated – whether it was the “College” tract, but it was likely the site (cater-cornered from the French Hospital that was probably also supported by the Picpus Foundation).

Father Edmond Venisse (1823-  )

French-born Venisse, a member of the Picpus Fathers, was assigned to Los Angeles in the latter part of March, 1851, to teach in the newly opened school, known as the Boarding and Day School at Los Angeles (the school name is conflicting with the other reference to the College of Los Angeles).  Recollecting his time teaching, he wrote he became “a real schoolmaster, teaching a little of everything to some poor children.”  (From page 82 of Source 2)  While in Los Angeles, he also assisted at the Plaza Church, where he organized a choir for the Indians’ great feasts.  Venisse recalled while serving in Los Angeles that he felt he was “among the angels”.  However, Venisse soon advanced to priesthood, and the other Fathers were recalled to the Sandwich Islands.  These developments halted the school by mid-1853.

Bishop Thaddeus Amat (1811-1878)

Alemany’s successor was Thaddeus Amat (whose title in 1859 was changed to Bishop of Monterey-Los Angeles); he was a Vincentian, appointed in 1853, and served until his death in 1878.  It would be two years before he finally visited Los Angeles in 1855, greeted by a welcoming city.  A newspaper reported that there were two matters Bishop Amat wanted to confer with the people:  1) the establishment of a college; and 2) the settlement of the Sisters of Charity (which in the start of 1856, six Sisters arrived and opened an orphanage).  When the Bishop arrived, the city was a small Mexican town without renown except for its lawlessness and had a population count numbering less than his year of visit (about 1,600 persons in the 1850s).  The only transportation to town was a wild 10-hour stage coach ride from the shore of San Pedro.  But, Los Angeles was formerly an outpost of Spain and originated as a Spanish civic pueblo.

Reverend Blasius Raho, C.M. (1806-1862)

Reverend Raho, Naples-born, like Bishop Amat, was a Vincentian, and he was named pastor of the Plaza Church in Los Angeles during the summer of 1856; he immediately set out to renovate the church interior and the exterior structures.  Monsignor Weber considered Raho to have been one of the most beloved priests of the diocese.


Father Blas Raho
From the Del Valle Collection,
Seaver Center for Western History Research

Father Raho also in August, 1856, re-opened the school previously run by the Picpus Fathers.  This was done during a political climate raining criticism against the Church schools to be “propaganda mills of ‘popish plots’” (From page 130 of Source 3) and which led to legislative exclusion of public funds for sectarian schools.  The school was known as Saint Vincent’s College and operated from a rented adobe.  Monsignor Weber assessed that the lacking of fund probably caused the revived school to eventually fail again.

Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul

The Sisters of Charity (as they are commonly referred) arrived in the southland in 1856 and enabled an orphanage and a school for girls.  Later the Sisters were asked to also include male students, but the Daughters institution set a limit to boys only under the age of six.  The Sisters also started to charge tuition by accepting boarding students.

Saint Vincent’s College and Loyola-Marymount University

Not until 1865 that another school by the same name “Saint Vincent’s College” began operating from the Lugo Adobe.  [4.2.2021 update:  According to historian Paul Spitzzeri, Bishop Amat received a building from Vicente Lugo, and this brought about a college into fruition.  At that time, a college meant that it could serve as a seminary for young men headed to priesthood; also the college would serve children and teens as well. Source: Getting Schooled....  However, the original "college ground" lot remained as Archdiocese property.]

In 1867, the school moved to Sixth and Hill Streets, constructed a new building on land from benefactor Ozro Childs (later associated with founding USC).  St. Vincent’s prospered in subsequent years, especially after receiving a state charter allowing the school to grant degrees, and Bishop Amat was proud of this accomplishment.  Today’s Loyola-Marymount University is what grew out from St. Vincent’s.


From Del Valle Family Papers,
Seaver Center

From Del Valle Family Papers,
Seaver Center

In 1870, a little over twenty years after Ord’s map, a survey by William Moore, shown below, still distinctly outlined a large lot labeled “College Ground”.

Map of the Reservoir Lands,
courtesy of the Seaver Center

An 1873 map shows the college tract as “Bishop Amat”.  This writer is not aware of when the tract was sold.   (Wait!  This writer does know.  See the end of this posting before the citations)


Map of East Los Angeles and Vicinity
Courtesy of the Seaver Center

 Saint Vibiana’s Cathedral

The following year, after Los Angeles church was redone, Bishop Amat decided to move the Holy seat from Monterey to Los Angeles, which sparked a drive to erect a new cathedral and hopefully a seminary to follow.  It was not until 1871 that he gave final approval to begin.  Prior to that time, an occurrence helped solidify his plans:  the Church of Our Lady of Sorrows in Santa Barbara burned in 1865, ten years after the body of Vibiana was placed there by Amat.  St. Vincent’s College benefactor Childs donated land at Sixth and Main for a cathedral, although St. Vibiana’s was finally completed in 1876 several blocks north.  Below shows an 1857 authorization from Father Raho allowing for a parishioner to collect alms for the aid of the parish.

Pious Society for the Souls in Purgatory certificate
From Sepulveda/Mott Collection,
Courtesy of the Seaver Center

Bishop Francisco Mora (1827-1905)

Francisco (or Francis) Mora succeeded Bishop Amat, and Mora became the last of the Spaniard bishops in the California diocese, serving from 1878 to 1896.

Mora had accompanied Amat to America in 1854.  He was bounced around as pastor briefly at Santa Barbara, San Carlos Borromeo and San Juan Bautista before his arrival to the Plaza Church in Los Angeles in 1863, serving until 1878, the year when Bishop Amat died.  In that period, Mora also began serving as Coadjutor beginning in 1872 to assist Bishop Amat whose health was in decline.
 
Bishop Mora oversaw the construction of St. Vibiana’s Cathedral.  Later, a school building was added, and it opened on January 4, 1886, with 250 students.

He was a strong proponent for a Catholic newspaper.  He endorsed the establishment of the California Catholic which began publication in 1888 but ceased two years later.  Seven years later, a localized, diocesan paper went to press starting with the June 29, 1895 issue of the Catholic Tidings.

In his capacity as Bishop, Mora closed the old cemetery and then opened the New Calvary Cemetery in East Los Angeles in 1896.

He endured and tolerated a lot of heat and scathing criticism from a Protestant group, the American Protective Association (APA).  He was a favorite target of the APA, which referred to him as “that damn old foreigner at Second and Main.” (From page 18 of Source 4)

In the summer of 1882, during one of the many trips throughout the southland to administer the Sacrament of Confirmation, he fell off his carriage backwards and wrecked his back.  It was on his return trip after confirming a bedridden Indian woman.  His injury stayed with him for the rest of his life.

More on Bishop Mora on this blogpost with archivist Monsignor Francis J. Weber.


Ambrotype of Right Reverend Francisco Mora
from the Antonio Franco Coronel Collection,
Courtesy of the Seaver Center

College Ranch

Another place name that serves reminder to 19th century Church aspirations to develop California’s educational institutions is College Ranch, located in today’s Santa Ynez.  The original Mexican land grant provided the Church with six square leagues plus another 35,499 acres in 1845.  The property name became Rancho Canada de los Pinos and was planned for the first permanent diocesan seminary in California.  Challenges stemming from lack of Church funding, absence of educational tradition in the region, and political unrest stunted the small seminary to failure.  During the last few years of Bishop Mora’s administration most of the College Ranch land was sold off.

Land Developer Prudent Beaudry Got the "College" Tract

Prudent Beaudry, remembered for developing Bunker Hill and having served as L.A. mayor, ended up with the College tract for which the College Street name came about.  This writer surmises that there was a deal made - swapping his Beaudry Park property (sold to the Sisters of Charity for their new hospital in 1883) for the College tract (he already amassed the land surrounding it).

The city and the county boosters wanted the new hospital to be an attractive asset and the location was key.  The College tract was not suitable because the French Hospital, built in 1869, was across the street.  The below April 12, 1885 Los Angeles Times article boasted the nearly-completed Sisters hospital to have attractive vistas:

 





Beaudry, prolific land developer, included the College tract (corner of College and Yale) subdivided in his Beaudry Tract No. 2, circa 1884-1886, just ahead of the great southern California land boom.

Image courtesy of the Seaver Center

Sources cited above:

1.  California’s First Archbishop by John Bernard McGloin S.J. (New York:  Herder and Herder, 1966)
2.  California:  the Catholic Experience by Francis J. Weber (Los Angeles:  Libra Press Limited, 1981)
3.  California’s Reluctant Prelate:  the Life and Times of Right Reverend Thaddeus Amat, C.M. by Francis J. Weber (Los Angeles:  Dawson Book Shop, 1964)
4.  Francis Mora:  the Last of the Catalans by Francis J. Weber (Los Angeles:  Westernlore Press, 1967)

Other sources used:

A Centennial History of the Tidings by Francis J. Weber (Mission Hills:  Saint Francis Historical Society, 1995)
Encyclopedia of California’s Catholic Heritage 1769-1999, by Francis J. Weber (Mission Hills:  Saint Francis Historical Society, 2001)
Frontier Faiths:  Church, Temple and Synagogue in Los Angeles, 1846-1888 by Michael E. Engh, S.J. (Albuquerque:  University of New Mexico Press, 1992)
A History of California and an Extended History of Los Angeles and Environs by James Miller Guinn (Los Angeles: Historic Record Company, 1915), from Google Books
The Old San Gabriel Mission by Father Eugene Joseph Sugranes (Los Angeles, 1909), from Archive.org


More Views of L.A. City Hall

The inaugural blog posting covered some views of City Hall.

Here are a couple more perspectives:

View from North Broadway in Chinatown (Summer 2012)

View from Weller Court in Little Tokyo (Summer 2012)

Is this iconic City Hall building as easily recognizable as the Eiffel Tower?

Eiffel Tower, Paris (November 2011)

Sonoratown, Little Italy, China City, Chinatown, Los Angeles, Cal.

Memories of visiting Chinatown during my youth conjure up not curio shops, nor restaurants with names like Forbidden Palace, nor of walking through Gin Ling Way, Chung King Road, or Bamboo Lane.  Rather, the places remembered from the 1960s were plain with storefronts nondescript compared to the central plaza.  Our family's weekly destination to shop and eat meant heading to the outskirt around New High, Ord and Spring Streets.

Image courtesy Seaver Center for Western History Research

Above shows the Mandarin Restaurant at 643 North Spring Street.  At the far right of the picture was Sing Lee Theatre (established about 1963) at 649 North Spring Street.  (Not that my family ever dined at the Mandarin - we only ate Cantonese cuisine - I didn't experience Mandarin-style food until the 1980s in Monterey Park.)

Image courtesy Seaver Center for Western History Research

Further up on the same street was a meat market, Sam Sing Company at 680 North Spring Street.

Despite the lack of exoticism along these parts, the area's colorful history more than makes up.

Losing "Old" Chinatown (1933)

The obliteration of Old Chinatown, near Alameda and Aliso Streets, began on a Friday morning, December 22nd of 1933.  Legal challenges against the destruction only postponed the inevitable.  The Union Passenger Terminal or Union Station was eventually built on the cleared land, and the first train arrived in May of 1939.  By 1942 the streets and alleyways erased included Apablasa, Cayetano, Juan, Marchessault and Napier Streets.

Early Chinese residents settled in Los Angeles after the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869. Men found new work and eked out their living in such occupations as vegetable peddler. The Chinese community was victim to the most violent event in the young city's history during the Chinese Massacre on October 24, 1871.

New High, Ord and Spring Streets

A study of Dakin's fire insurance atlas for the year 1888 discloses that Chinese businesses and rooming houses existed outside of Chinatown proper, namely by New High Street (Calle Alta was the earlier name).  See further below for a discussion on early Chinese areas outside of Old Chinatown.  Later in this blog post two other nearby streets will be covered:  Ord Street (formerly Alta, then Walters Street), and North Spring Street (originally called Street of the Maids, then changed to Upper Main in the 19th century, then was known as San Fernando by 1897.)  From the 19th century into the early 20th, these three streets were known as a part of Sonoratown for its Mexican residents.  Italians also settled in this neighborhood.

New Chinatown  (est. 1938)

The Chinese American community found a new core location when its leaders managed to strike a deal and acquired vacant land owned by the Santa Fe Railroad.  New Chinatown opened June 26, 1938, and it was anchored by a central pedestrian plaza on Broadway north of College Street.  The architectural layout and facades have basically not changed all these years.

Also in 1938 two Chinese businesses appeared in that year's city directory listed at 700 and 701 North Spring Street near Ord.  This location was several blocks away from the central plaza. These businesses did not cater to the tourist.  These stores were situated adjacent to China City (to be discussed below.)

Wai Sang Meat Company (700 Spring) and Kwong Dack Wo Company (702 Spring) were meat and grocery markets respectively.  (My parents regularly frequented these markets in the 1960s.  Both stores were listed as recent as in the 1973 city directory.)   Today, both units house the CBS Seafood Restaurant.

Notice on the picture's right side at the rear of CBS that the lit Philippe's sign is visible (Click to zoom in)

CBS Seafood Restaurant opened in 1999.  Their parking lot next to the restaurant has been watched by congenial Security Officer E. Reed since the restaurant opened.  Mr. Reed said he has only missed three work days when he tried a stint at the new Disney Concert Hall but decided he preferred the Chinatown beat.  He is amazingly warm and welcoming to CBS patrons.

E. Reed and restaurant manager D. Ho shootin' the breeze in the parking lot

The CBS site history includes a three-story handsome brick building constructed by the summer of 1888 and named the Tononi Block, for its owner, an Italian, Giacomo Tononi.  The businesses at these locations were a saloon/billiard parlor (700 Upper Main) and wine & liquor store (702 Upper Main.)  Later his widow, Isabel Pelanconi Tononi, lived in one of the upstairs lodging quarters briefly (704 1/2 San Fernando - this address was sometimes listed as the San Fernando Hotel, as recent as 1956.)  She was the great-granddaughter of a Spanish soldier Cornelio Avila who built one of the early adobes bounded near today's North Broadway, College, Spring and Alpine Streets.

Lower 'pink' areas show the brick buildings of the Sunset Hotel and the Tononi Block across the street (Courtesy Seaver Center) (Click on image to zoom in)

The very corner unit (700 San Fernando) also served for many years as grocer Casimiro Michelini's store, as listed in the 1897, 1901 and 1909 city directories.

The Tononi Block is partially blocked by the tree in right foreground.  Across the street was an even taller building, the Sunset Hotel at 703 Upper Main Street (Image courtesy Seaver Center)

It does not appear likely that today's CBS is on the original floor of the Tononi Block, however, the County Assessor's record still lists this site as built in 1887.  A big question -- when was the building razed?  One clue comes from directory listings that place the Tononi building still possibly standing in 1956.  [Update 1/11/2013:  On the contrary, the CBS restaurant does sit on the former Tononi Block - a descendant of the Tononi family explained that the second and third floors of the building were removed due to structural issues.]

Across the street from the Tononi was the Sunset Hotel at 703 Upper Main.  (This hotel would have been only a short distance from the "San Fernando Street" depot stop of the railroad.)

Another unknown is the year that the imposing Sunset Hotel went away.  The County Assessor lists the building where the hotel should have sat as 207 Ord (built 1880).  Today's single story building does not seem to be derived from the hotel. 207 Ord is a long single story building (maybe like the footprint of the old hotel), and Hoy King Restaurant operates here.

This space was the Chung Mee Cafe in the 1942 and 1956 directories.  I know it was still Chung Mee in the 1960s when my grandfather was a "waiter" there.  Actually he ran the gambling operation in the back of the restaurant.

The 207 Ord building continues lengthwise eastward:

The 207 Ord Street building (built 1880; renovated 1935) is showing its age

Across the street southward from the former Tononi Block was an adobe structure at the southeast pictured below with street signs of Ord and San Fernando.  Adobe homes were prevalent on these streets - settled by the early Spanish and Mexican soldiers and other persons of means in the early to mid-19th century.

Look closely at the left side for a downhill descent of Ord Street (today a walk downhill would lead to Philippe's) (Courtesy Seaver Center)

The address site of the adobe would have been about 686 North Spring.  If one walks southerly on Spring before reaching the cross street of Cesar Chavez, contemporary street life is very diversified, as shown below:

Directly across the street is the spot first introduced at the beginning image of this blog posting.  There is still a theater, though now called King Hing Theater:

The Dakin 1888 insurance atlas surprisingly reveals that in this 600 block there was a significant concentration of Chinese quarters, labeled in the atlas "Chinese" Chin. Rest." "Chinese Wash" "Chin. Board'g" "Chin. Tea" and "Chin Rooms."  These notations provide indication that Chinese resided outside of the "Old" Chinatown community.

(Click to Zoom) (Courtesy Seaver Center)

Philippe's Sandwiches

Today's best-known landmark in the area is Philippe's French-Dipped Sandwiches at 1001 Alameda Street, along Ord Street.  Back in 1888 this famous corner was a vacant lot.  Displaced from their location on Aliso Street by new freeway consruction, Philippe's moved here in 1951.

China City (est. 1938)

Across the street from Philippe's, Ord Street was the north boundary for "China City" the Chinese tourist compound created by the "mother of Olvera Street" Christine Sterling.  It opened in June of 1938, a few weeks earlier than New Chinatown's opening.  China City was partly Sterling's solution for the displaced Chinese community.  Less than a year later, a suspicious fire burned in the main section.  After being rebuilt, China City operated for about ten years before another fire brought its demise.  China City extended to Spring Street on the west, Main Street on its east side, and reaching south to Macy Street (today's Cesar E. Chavez Avenue.)

There might be a historical remnant -- at Philippe's parking lot across the street from the restaurant hangs a neon sign which reads "Shanghai Street."  Shanghai Street existed in China City so this might have been an authentic, salvaged sign.

Sonoratown

In the 19th century, the city blocks considered today's New Chinatown was home to a different ethnic group: Hispanics.  The barrio developed and resulted from demographic changes following the American period of the city after 1850. Whereas Mexican and Hispanic residents once comprised more than half the population, new Anglo settlers changed the equation. A segregated area north of the Los Angeles Plaza became inhabited by Mexicans and referred disparagingly as Sonoratown by Anglos. A study (The Los Angeles Barrio, 1850-1890 by Richard Griswold Del Castillo) delineated that the most concentrated ethnic enclave between 1872 through 1888 was the large area bounded by Main, College, Yale and Short (formerly Corta Street, about where Sunset Boulevard is today.)  Two of the main thoroughfares in Sonoratown were Castelar (today's North Hill Street) and Buena Vista (originally Calle de la Eternidad and today's North Broadway.)

Early Real Estate Subdivision Nearby

Prudent Beaudry, who served as City Mayor and who was also the developer of Bunker Hill, subdivided the hill to the west of Sonoratown about 1884.

Courtesy of the Seaver Center for Western History Research

More on New High, Ord and Spring Streets

New High, Ord and Spring may have been the fringe of Sonoratown. There was also a concentration of homes and businesses to Italians as part of L.A.'s Little Italy in the 19th century.  In 1897 and 1901, Soon Wo laundry was listed at 688 San Fernando.  In 1901, Yik Wo had a tailor business at 674 San Fernando.  In the 1909 city directory, the businesses and residents appear ethnically integrated by whites and Hispanics, without Chinese names listed. At 751 San Fernando Street was the Church of St. Peter. By 1938, New High Street (600-700 block) was mostly Hispanic, but in light of the new Chinese settlements (New Chinatown and China City) subsequent city directories showed increasing Chinese business and residential listings.

The 1943 city directory indicates these city blocks a mix of Italian, Chinese and Hispanic residents and businesses.  By 1956, the following line of businesses on Ord Street reflected the diversity:  120 Ord - Flora's; 122 Ord - F. Suie One Co. Chinese Goods; 124 Ord - Jun Quon Hin; 207 Ord - Chung Mee Cafe; 301 Ord - Juarez Cafe; 302 Ord - Lake Sun; 304 Ord - El Capricho Cafe.

At 708 New High, the corner lot sits ABC Seafood Restaurant.  Prior to their venture, the Limehouse was here.  One of their predecessors was the J.G. Medina Grocery operating in an old adobe after vacated by the El Adobe Cafe.  Click here to see a photo from the LAPL archive.

Across the street the Phoenix Inn Restaurant opened at the corner of 301 Ord Street in the year 1967, and it is still in business.

This corner has had its share of restaurant operations, including Kong Woo in 1942; Juarez Cafe in 1956.  The facade of this 1906 building has hardly change in its century-long existence.  Click here for an LAPL archival photo when it was the site of the Peluffo grocery and liquor store.

Houses of Ill Fame

Behind the brick building was another building, labeled in Dakin's 1888 insurance atlas as ILL Fame (a house of ill fame, or a brothel).  Such establishments were notorious over by Alameda and Aliso, but along these several city blocks it was commonplace, too.

(Click to zoom in) (Courtesy Seaver Center)

On New High, below Walters (Ord Street) there are at least six buildings of ill fame.  They were probably "cribs" made of small rooms.  On this street there were also two buildings for "Negro Rooms" and "Negro."

(Click to zoom in) (Courtesy Seaver Center)

The Los Angeles Times printed a "community" notice on July 1, 1889.  Various property owners supported the idea of containing prostitution houses to a single street:  along New High between Bellevue (today's Cesar Chavez Avenue) on the south and Alpine on north.  The supporters reasoned that there weren't families with children or private houses along those two blocks.

The newspaper reported on October 26, 1889 that a city order was under way to pave New High between Walters and Bellevue.  By mid-November, the paper reported a protest against paving the street.

The following year in October, a single-track railroad right-of-way was awarded; the route would travel down Buena Vista, then east onto Walters, then south onto New High.

Upper Main also had a house of ill fame, a short walk northward from the Tononi Block.

(Click to zoom in) (Courtesy Seaver Center)

From today's perspective the site of the row of prostitution houses would have been just beyond the apropos American Apparel girls billboard:

View north on the 700 block of North Spring Street

Update 11.2.2025:

An image from the California Historical Society's Anton Wagner Photographs of Los Angeles, 1932-33. It is a view of North Spring Street, east side, along the 600 block. The building in the middle of the photo was Southern California Poultry Products, located at 686 No. Spring Street. The Tononi Block is seen in the background, in its former multi-story glory.