Boyle Heights

The city spreads below its feet, giving this neighborhood an air of control and command over the city. And in some ways, it has (or does). Like no other place, the streets of Boyle Heights contain traces of LA's fractured, contradictory and promising history. Some of the first settlers in Los Angeles, from Native-Americans, to Spaniards, Jews, and Mexicans settled in the area. The Harlem of the west coast, as some locals prefer to call it, is seeing another wave of transformation that is putting its nervous ecosystem into question. Will the residents of Boyle Heights be able to strike a balance between their needs and the call for modernity and urban development? Take a walk down 1st street and find for yourself.