Interesting historic preservation issues in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles

We were in SoCal a couple weeks ago, and one day were in and around Downtown Los Angeles.  I saw the Gateway to Lincoln Park and its fabulous architecture of both art deco fencing and benches with a fountain and Spanish-inspired tile and I had to take a photo.   

It turns out it was a process to restore it.  Sadly, I didn't have time to explore the park.  Suzanne mentioned that the music group Linkin Park is from Boyle Heights and their band name is a riff off the park.

2.  Written on chalk near the Gateway was a URL for Save El Pino.  

I had no idea what that was about. I looked it up and it's about a large, distinctive neighborhood tree, that people fear is threatened by development ("Why East L.A. community members still worry about the future of a beloved tree," Los Angeles Times).  From the article:

The tree — El Pino, as it’s affectionately known by the community — is well known for its role in the 1993 crime drama “Blood In, Blood Out,” but to the people of East L.A. it has more communal significance than international recognition. This is where people come together. 

Miguel Paredes, an organizer who was born in East L.A. and grew up in Elysian Valley, says El Pino is “the symbol of this community.” East L.A. native Michael Lopez, a roofer and videographer, says the tree is “more of a sign of love” than merely a movie star.

Flickr photo by JonDoeForty1

... El Pino sits on a lot that has, for the past five years, been owned by a developer, Art Gastelum, who, despite stating that he won’t cut down the beloved tree, plans to build a duplex around it. Community organizers fear that the development will harm the tree’s delicate root structure, and say that Gastelum should donate the plot back to the community (noting that it could qualify as a tax deduction) or sell it back to the county for its fair market value.

It's an interesting story in that it's about tree preservation, but really sites of community meaning and historicity, not a building. 

3.  I've written about the closing of the Sears department store in Boyle Heights.  It is one of the catalog distribution centers and/or stores that the firm built in cities across the nation in the late 1920s (including in the H Street NE neighborhood of DC).  

They closed the catalog operation in the early 1990s, but the store, focused on serving the Hispanic community, thrived for decades, only declining as Sears declined, finally closing in 2021.

Various reuse plans are being floated, including making it a massive homeless shelter.

In other cities including Memphis ("It Took a Village to Transform a Former Sears Into a Vertical Urban Village," CoStar) and Minneapolis (Midtown Exchange), these massive old buildings have been repurposed in thriving mixed use complexes, although in each case the process took many years.

It's unfortunate that there aren't planning resource organizations able to work with community groups on opening up the ideation process for the Boyle Heights location.

Another example, not a Sears, but the same kind of facility, is Montgomery Park in Baltimore, which is an adaptive reuse of a Montgomery Ward catalog distribution center-store.

Such projects are never easy, but very worthwhile.