Once upon a time in Boyle Heights, crooked councilman "Pop" Blanchard was king... wanna see his castle?

Gentle reader,

For our latest post that’s hidden from the rest of the internet, we’d like to introduce you to a wonderful illustrated pamphlet titled Beautiful Highlands of Los Angeles, comprising Boyle Heights Brooklyn Heights Euclid Heights (1899)… and to something incredible featured in this early real estate promotion item that still survives, nearly unaltered, due perhaps to a little bit of architectural sorcery.

Beautiful Highlands… was published in a small run by the civic minded Ninth Ward Improvement Association, a short-lived eastside entity that raised funds to stock an aviary in Hollenbeck Park and lobbied City Hall to extend the Zanja Madre irrigation ditch into the thirsty, developing neighborhood.

The ephemeral publication might have been entirely lost had not some prescient member of the Chamber of Commerce mailed a copy to the Library of Congress, a scan of which the good folks at the Internet Archive host on their servers.

It’s a fascinating read for modern day Angelenos, with its booster’s take on greater Boyle Heights as the clear choice for sophisticated modern living, removed from the commercial chaos of the central city and the potentially deadly Los Angeles River, but streetcar close to shopping, business and cultural offerings.

Sadly, in decades since, the neighborhood’s peace and air quality have suffered badly from the tangle of freeways cutting across the residential section and even through the lake at Hollenbeck Park, and the environmental injustice of lead contamination and the stench of the sausage and rendering plants.

But there are still pockets of calm and beauty, where time seems to stand still. One of them is Evergreen Cemetery, where we’ll be leading a walking tour on Saturday.

Another pocket is very close by, but we had no idea it was there, until we slipped into one of those old Los Angeles research rabbit holes where we love to get lost.