A look back at the Boyle Heights melting pot

For Bruce Phillips, it wasn't white flight that tore apart the neighborhood. It was economics.

December 09, 2011|Hector Tobar

The Phillips family eventually moved to the Crenshaw District. Brooklyn Avenue was rechristened Avenida Cesar Chavez. The diversity that exists in Boyle Heights today is exclusively Latino: Central American families living alongside Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans.

But for Bruce Phillips, "white flight" from Boyle Heights was fueled by economics, not racism.

He blames "redlining," the banking practice of not granting home loans in certain ZIP Codes, and the construction of several freeways through Boyle Heights; the home where Bill and Hannah met was demolished to make room for the 5 Freeway.

Those things made it less attractive for middle-class people to stay, he said. And so middle-class people — of all races — moved out. "Redlining pushed Jews out," Bruce said. "They just couldn't buy homes there anymore."

With his generosity and love of music, Bill Phillips made the Eastside a better place to live. But the cultural integration he helped nurture in L.A. needed more than tolerance to keep it going.

Boyle Heights is still home to dressmakers and runaways, entrepreneurs and lovers of music. But if they speak more Spanish and Spanglish these days than English or Yiddish, it's because of decades of government policies and banking practices that kept L.A. from being the city it might have been.

hector.tobar@latimes.com

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