Editing East Los Angeles, California (section)

==History==
===Original East Los Angeles===
Historically, when it was founded in 1873, the neighborhood northeast of downtown known today as [[Lincoln Heights, Los Angeles|Lincoln Heights]] was originally named East Los Angeles, but in 1917, residents voted to change the name to its present name. Today, it is considered part of [[Eastside Los Angeles]], the geographic region east of the [[Los Angeles River]] that includes three neighborhoods within the city of Los Angeles ([[Boyle Heights]], [[El Sereno, Los Angeles|El Sereno]], and Lincoln Heights) and the unincorporated community in Los Angeles County known today as "East Los Angeles". Lincoln Heights is {{convert|4|mi|0}} northwest of present-day East Los Angeles. When Lincoln Heights, the first Eastside subdivision created in 1873, changed its name in 1917, Belvedere (Belvedere Gardens and Belvedere Heights) and surrounding unincorporated county areas were given the moniker of East Los Angeles. By the 1930s, most maps had started to label the Belvedere area as "East Los Angeles".

===Belvedere===
[[Image:Janss Investment Company ad for Belvedere Heights, 19100717.png|thumb|left|1910 [[Janss Investment Company]] ad for Belvedere Heights property sales]]
The cornerstone of the first building of [[Occidental College]] was laid in September 1887 on Rowan Street.<ref name = latimes87>{{cite web | url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-04-20-vw-1118-story.html | title=Occidental College: A Lively Center of Learning Turns 100 | work = [[Los Angeles Times]] | date=20 April 1987 | access-date=March 29, 2015 | last=Murphy |first=William S. }}</ref> In 1896, the building was destroyed by fire.<ref name = latimes87/>

On April 2, 1905, it was reported that the [[Janss Investment Company]]  would be developing an area "on Boyle Heights" (later, [[Boyle Heights]] would refer only to a smaller area to the west, i.e. the neighborhood now called Boyle Heights within the Los Angeles city limits). The {{convert|170|acre|sqkm|adj=on|abbr=on}} tract was located at the eastern terminus of the [[Los Angeles Railway]]'s [[R (Los Angeles Railway)|"R" streetcar line]]. 
Originally known as "Hazard's Eastside Extension", was to be named '''Highland Villa''',<ref name=herald1905>{{cite news |title=Broad Acres To Be Platted; Janss Investment Company Makes Big Purchase |url=https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=LAH19050402.2.48 |access-date=4 July 2024 |publisher=Los Angeles Herald |date=April 2, 1905 |page=3}}</ref> but would later be rechristened '''Belvedere Heights'''.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://homesteadmuseum.wordpress.com/2018/09/25/getting-school-at-belvedere-school-east-los-angeles-25-september-1911/ | title=Getting Schooled at Belvedere School, East Los Angeles, 25 September 1911|work = homestead museum | date=25 September 1911 | access-date=August 18, 2019 | last=Spitzzeri |first=Paul R.}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hernandez |first1=Kim |title=The Bungalow Boom |journal=Southern California Quarterly |page=376 }}</ref>  Belvedere Heights, at its launch in 1905, extended from the L.A. city limits (Indiana Av.) on the west to Rowan Av. on the east, from Aliso St. on the south to Wabash Av. on the north, the northwestern portion of today's East Los Angeles,<ref name=herald1905/> thus including the lower portions of what today is called [[City Terrace, California|City Terrace]].

By the early 1920s, workers in the sprouting industrial district to the south were seeking nearby housing. At the time, the unincorporated region was undeveloped and or preserved for [[agriculture]] and [[oil extraction]].<ref>{{cite news |title=Who Moved East L.A.? |url=https://www.kcet.org/shows/lost-la/who-moved-east-la |access-date=2019-08-08}}</ref> Belvedere township included the territory that in 1902 became the city of [[Montebello, California|Montebello]].<ref>{{cite news |title=About Belvedere |url=https://belvedere-lausd-ca.schoolloop.com/aboutbelvedere |access-date=2019-08-08}}</ref>

By 1922 Janss advertised that it had sold 6000 lots there and that 35,000 people lived in Belvedere Heights. Buildings that were described as being in Belvedere Heights included the junior high school on Record between Brooklyn and Michigan, now called Belvedere Middle School.<ref name=e1922>{{cite news |title=Janss Company Celebrates Twenty-First Birthday |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/61197739/belvedere-heights-and-belvedere-gardens/ |publisher=Los Angeles Evening Express |date=April 15, 1922}}</ref>

In February 1921 Janss announced that it had purchased {{convert|150|acre}} adjacent to the end of the streetcar line on Stephenson Avenue, now [[Whittier Boulevard]], south of Belvedere Heights, and divided the empty land into housing lots of square-mile [[Grid plan|grid cells]].<ref>{{cite news |url= https://www.newspapers.com/clip/61197871/open-little-farm-home-tract-on-city-car/ |title=Open Little Farm Home Tract on City Car Line |publisher=Los Angeles Evening Express |date=February 23, 1921}}</ref> Janss called the new tract '''Belvedere Gardens''',<ref name=e1922/> an area still found today on maps for the area east of the [[Long Beach Freeway]].<ref>[https://www.google.com/maps/place/Belvedere+Gardens,+East+Los+Angeles,+CA+90022/@34.027335,-118.1670331,16z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x80c2cf74c2972a5f:0x9d4d6511c7245434!8m2!3d34.0277902!4d-118.1628487 "Belvedere Gardens", Google Maps, accessed October 16, 2020]</ref>

The area was able to avoid being annexed into the City of Los Angeles because of a private groundwater utility formed in 1926 now known as the [[California Water Service]], which would later become a customer of the [[Metropolitan Water District of Southern California|Metropolitan Water District]]. Prior to the passage of [[1978 California Proposition 13|Proposition 13]] in 1978, governing bodies would set property taxes independently, which led to a cumulative overlapping rate including bond taxes for large infrastructure projects such as the building of the Port of Los Angeles. However, unincorporated areas were often forced to incorporate or be annexed into these taxing entities in order to obtain critical municipal services such as water from the Los Angeles Aqueduct. For decades, the lack of a city property tax and bond taxes made East Los Angeles a tax haven for the working class.

===New name: East Los Angeles===
In 1932 local business leaders gave the name East Los Angeles to Belvedere and adjacent areas (that had been known as Belvedere Gardens, Belvedere Heights, Laguna, etc.) However, in 1937 the Automobile Club of Southern California put up three large signs, "Belvedere Gardens". This led to the business leaders uprooting the signs, with a "burial ceremony" for the signs with 150 state, county, and city officials attending, and they rechristened the area East Los Angeles. Several county buildings were renamed in line with the new appellation. At that time the area had 75,000 residents and was "declared to be the largest unincorporated locality in the world."<ref>{{cite news |title=Belvedere drops name: East Los Angeles Conducts Burial for District's Old Title |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/56713246/belvedere-becomes-east-los-angeles/ |work=Los Angeles Times |date=September 11, 1937 |page=6}}</ref>

East Los Angeles was a significant site during the [[Chicano Movement]], which included the [[East L.A. walkouts|East L.A. Walkouts]] in 1968 and the National [[Chicano Moratorium]], in which [[Ruben Salazar]] was killed.<ref name=":33">{{Cite book |last=Suderburg |first=Erika |title=Space, Site, Intervention: Situating Installation Art |publisher=University of Minnesota Press |year=2000 |isbn=9780816631599 |pages=191}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Sahagun |first=Louis |title=Know your East L.A. history. A day of rage and racist neglect |url=https://www.latimes.com/projects/chicano-moratorium/east-la-protest-gave-voice-chicano-movement/ |access-date=2023-01-27 |website=Los Angeles Times |language=en}}</ref>

Multiple campaigns by residents have been made for [[municipality|cityhood]] for East Los Angeles, such as in 2010.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cityhoodforeastla.org|title=Cityhood for East Los Angeles|website=cityhoodforeastla.org|access-date=2010-11-22|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101110072047/http://www.cityhoodforeastla.org/|archive-date=2010-11-10|url-status=dead}}</ref>