Boyle Heights

Boyle Heights is just a place to pas through on the way to somewhere more desirable. It is the midpoint to many of the highways and freeways in the area and is known to be one of the older neighborhood in LA. Safety in the area has been an issue for quite sometime now, and it has yet to be resolved. There really is not much opportunity for anyone in this area as it has generally been a 'rest stop' for those traveling through. Poor school systems, lack of entertainment, minimal dining and any sort of tourism really does not exist. This area left me very unimpressed.

Boyle Heights is on the east side of Downtown Los Angeles, specifically, on the east side of the Los Angeles River. It's right at the interchange of all of the major inter-city freeways. It's one of the older neighborhoods in Los Angeles and it was long known to be a hub for newcomers into Western America. It was a melting pot, if you will. There is a synagogue in Boyle Heights that is now a historic monument -- it was one of the first synagogues erected on the west coast.
There used to be an area called "The Flats" that was, apparently, the worst slum in the US. It was filthier, more crowded, and more impoverished than any slum in NY -- even the Five Points. It was, eventually, turned into two tenement projects that were then turned into much smaller low income housing developments. The most recent change in the Flats displaced a lot of Boyle Heights residents. But, I guess this was the idea because the neighborhood has become overwhelmingly Latin (94% now) and there was way too much gang violence.
There are a bunch of MTA stops that opened up in Boyle Heights in the last year; but, I doubt it will change the neighborhood much. It's pretty far from any kind of social activities and it's still really dangerous.