That would exclude, friends, Silver Lake, Echo Park, Hollywood, Koreatown, downtown, and every other neighborhood called the "Eastside" in certain lazy historical imaginations. Eastside is East of the L.A. River, a wonderful world where the powers that be have always felt it's okay to build freeways over lakes (see above).
I'm willing to let a "I'm going to the
Eastside" slide every so often, when referring to Echo Park and thereabouts, if it comes from an individual who rolls the eyes knowing that what they just said is sort of ridiculous. The fact of the matter is in many cases when people use
"Eastside" today, informed or not, they're referring to a cultural kind of mind-frame that belies
borders. But the outright erasure of the true Eastside, especially in
the print media, is just unacceptable. Read on at Metroblogging LA, where EL CHAVO! essentially dismembers the new monthly magazine that seeks to gentrify cater to the arty-boho-chic northern flanks of the city's metropolitan core:
For our first lesson, turn to the page marked Hollenbeck Park! Built in the past (how's that for relative historicism?) Hollenbeck Park came to be around the same time some of the other major city parks began to dot the LA landscape: Central Park (now known as Pershing Square), Eastlake Park (now known as Lincoln Park), and Westlake Park (now known as MacArthur Park). Central, East, West, seems quite simple to me.
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Unfortunately, Hollenbeck has been reduced from its original size, since a freeway was built right over it in the 60's. If you could see thru concrete, you might recognize this park: it's the one you drive over when you're switching from Interstate 5 to the Santa Ana Freeway, or vice versa. What a coincidence that freeways were often built over or through the neighborhoods of working class Mexicans, a truly remarkable case of hilarious bad luck!
More discussion at View from a Loft. * Photo by Lincoln Heights guru El CHAVO!