Quote:
Originally Posted by ethereal_reality
usc digital archive |
I really like this image, I mean, not only was that section across Alameda between Macy and Aliso taken out, but pretty much damn near everything else.
I added two dots on either side of the Alley:
That's the Calle de los Negros, AKA Nigger Alley, about which (from Wikipedia) Los Angeles merchant and memoirist Harris Newmark recalled that Calle de los Negros was “as tough a neighborhood, in fact, as could be found anywhere.” Los Angeles historian Morrow Mayo described it as “a dreadful thoroughfare, forty feet wide, running one whole block, filled entirely with saloons, gambling-houses, dance-halls, and cribs. It was crowded night and day with people of many races, male and female, all rushing and crowding along from one joint to another, from bar to bar, from table to table. There was a band in every joint, with harps, guitars, and other stringed instruments predominating.”
It's most famous for being the site of the
Chinese Massacre of 1871. Another link with vintage photos of the alley
here -- more on the massacre
here.
The site of "N-Alley" now? You wouldn't even know:
At least the 1890 Garnier Building facing Los Angeles St. -- what's left of it, half of it got lost to the Santa Ana Fwy ca. 1954 -- is now the Chinese-American Museum, so at least there's that.