Deed Restrictions and the Renaming of Frenchtown

Last weekend, I gave a presentation on the French in Southern California at San Diego Mensa's Regional Gathering in Palm Springs (video coming soon - IF I can get the darn thing uploaded).

The first, and most revealing, question in the Q&A concerned why LA's historically French neighborhoods are now associated with other ethnic groups.

The original Frenchtown - bordered by Main Street, 1st Street, Aliso Street, and the LA River - is now largely split between Little Tokyo and the industrial core, with the Civic Center bleeding into the northern end of the neighborhood.

As Frenchtown expanded to the north, it grew to include modern-day Chinatown. Why is Joan of Arc standing outside Chinatown's only hospital? Because it was the French Hospital until 1989, and until the 1930s, it was a French neighborhood. Naud Junction, the Fritz houses, and Philippe the Original (creators of the French Dip sandwich; in that location since 1951) are all in Chinatown for the very simple reason that it wasn't always Chinatown. (LA's original Chinatown was demolished in 1931 to build Union Station - long after the Sainsevain brothers lost their uncle's vineyard).

Pellissier Square is now called Koreatown. Why? Because much of central LA declined after the 1930s, making it an affordable place for Korean immigrants to live and start businesses by the time the Korean War ended.

They weren't the first Koreans in Los Angeles. Historically, Korean Angelenos tended to live in Bunker Hill.

(Incidentally, "Koreatown" is something of a misnomer. HALF of Koreatown residents are Latino, and only about one-third are Asian. Korean Angelenos do, however, account for most of the area's businesses.)

There are still clues to Koreatown's French origins. Normandie Avenue, one of the longest streets in Los Angeles County (stretching 22.5 miles between Hollywood and Harbor City), runs smack down the middle of Koreatown. The Pellissier Building, including the legendary Wiltern Theatre, proudly towers over Wilshire and Western. And if you look at the neighborhood's architecture - sure, it's largely Art Deco, but some of it is also French-influenced.

In the early days, Los Angeles was a fairly tolerant place. It wasn't a utopia by any means (case in point: the Chinese Massacre of 1871), but Los Angeles was more tolerant of non-WASPs than most North American cities.

By the 1920s, a plague began to infest Los Angeles on a grand scale.

Deed restrictions.

Sometimes called restrictive covenants, deed restrictions barred ethnic and/or religious groups from buying homes in particular areas.

Why? Who would do something so hateful?

Let's start by rewinding the clock to the 1850s.

In 1850, California became a state. Legally, Los Angeles should have started opening public schools at this point (due to separation of church and state), but LAUSD wasn't founded until 1853. By this time, there was a growing number of Protestant families - most of them Yankees - in town. The few schools that did exist in the area were all Catholic, and Protestant parents objected - loudly - to the idea of sending their kids to Catholic schools. (Many Catholic schools do accept non-Catholic students, and many non-Catholic parents may prefer them if the local public schools aren't good enough. But things were a little different 164 years ago.)

Fast-forward to the 1880s.

When railroads first connected Southern California to the rest of the United States, newcomers flooded the area. Most were WASPs, and the majority were from the Midwest.

Guess where else deed restrictions were common? That's right - the WASPy Midwest. (No offense to any WASPs or Midwesterners who may read this, but I don't believe in hiding the truth. I sure as hell have never pretended French Californians were perfect.)

Before too long, deed restrictions barred people of color from much of the city. Some even excluded Jews, Russians, and Italians. Homeowners' associations and realtors often worked together to keep restricted neighborhoods homogeneous. (My skin is crawling as I write this.)

Excluded ethnic and religious groups, therefore, tended to live in areas that weren't restricted against them.

French Angelenos, however, were a pretty tolerant bunch.

The first baker in the city to make matzo was Louis Mesmer, who was Catholic. His daughter Tina married a Protestant.

Harris Newmark - German and Jewish - was one of Remi Nadeau's best friends.

Prudent Beaudry's sometime business partner Solomon Lazard - French and Jewish - was so popular among Angelenos of all ethnicities that Spanish speakers called him "Don Solomon".

French Basque Philippe Garnier built a commercial building specifically to lease it to Chinese merchants, who weren't considered human beings by the United States government at the time.

No one batted an eye at the fact that quite a few of LA's earlier Frenchmen (including Louis Bauchet, Joseph Mascarel, and Miguel Leonis) married Spanish, Mexican, or Native American women.

Frenchtown didn't have deed restrictions. (It's true that we don't always get along with everyone, but you won't find many French people willing to do something that asinine.)

The original core of Frenchtown was largely taken over by the civic center and industry when the area was redeveloped in the 1920s (and when the 101 sliced through downtown). But part of it became Little Tokyo. Why? No deed restrictions.

In fact, when Japanese American internment emptied Little Tokyo during World War II, African Americans (many working in the defense industry) poured into the neighborhood, and for a time it was known as "Bronzeville". Again, it was still one of the few areas with no deed restrictions. (On a personal note, the original paperwork for my childhood home in Sherman Oaks - built in 1948 - included a restriction against selling to African Americans. No other ethnicities were excluded. Which should give my dear readers a rough idea of what African American home buyers faced at the time - and renters had even fewer choices. Deed restrictions were legally struck down in California in 1947 and nationwide in 1948, but in Los Angeles, they persisted into the 1950s. Nationwide, it was probably worse.)

LA's original Chinatown was emptied and razed to build Union Station. Where did all the Chinese Angelenos go? The area now known as Chinatown was full of French Angelenos first. Wikipedia incorrectly states that it was originally Little Italy. It's true that Italians did live in the neighborhood, but the French arrived before the first Italians did, and made up a larger percentage of the population. Why did the demographics change? No deed restrictions to keep out Chinese residents - or, for that matter, Italian residents. (Catholics of all origins occasionally clashed with Chinese Angelenos over religious differences, but the French community welcomed newcomers from Italy. Case in point: two of the French Benevolent Society's founding members were Italian. And the French Hospital did accept Chinese patients at a time when most hospitals wouldn't.)

LA's Jewish community was largely based in Boyle Heights for many years. Guess who else lived in Boyle Heights back in the day? There were Anglos, sure, but there were also Basque farmers. In fact, Simon Gless' big Victorian house was used as office space for the Hebrew Shelter Home and Asylum for many years (the last time I checked, it was a boarding house for mariachi musicians). Once again - no deed restrictions. (Why does Los Angeles County have so many Jewish residents? Because Jews have, historically, been more welcome in Los Angeles than in many other places. Los Angeles was a tiny frontier town when the first Jewish residents arrived, and in the Old West - where people had to work together to stay alive - how you treated people mattered more than what house of worship you attended.)

I haven't found anything on whether Pellissier Square ever had deed restrictions or not, but there's a reason Korean Angelenos originally clustered in Bunker Hill. Prudent Beaudry - who developed for everyone - developed Bunker Hill. Like Angelino Heights, Bunker Hill was unrestricted.

How did Frenchtown cease to be called Frenchtown?

Simple. As the city expanded westward, and as many French Angelenos moved west or left the city entirely in search of land for grazing livestock/farming/growing grapes, people who weren't welcome in other areas moved to the historically French - and historically unrestricted - neighborhoods.

If you were in the same situation, wouldn't you?

Wake Up, Sheeple! Part 1: Germain Pellissier and the Wiltern

I love music more than life itself, and have been to many, MANY shows. Consequently, I know Southern California venues pretty well.

I was completely shocked - in the best possible way - to discover that two of them had French connections.

Germain Pellissier was born September 24, 1849 in Saint-Paul, France, and left at age 16 after his father died. Pellissier arrived in San Francisco in 1867 and soon moved to Los Angeles. Like so many other transplants, he was young - just 18 when he arrived.

Land was still plentiful and inexpensive at the time, allowing young Pellissier to set himself up in the sheep business, importing French and Australian breeds to improve wool production - and, in time, make real estate investments. He became a naturalized citizen in 1879.

Sources disagree over whether Pellissier owned 140, 156, 200, or 400 acres west of the original pueblo, but we do know that his considerable land holdings included the modern-day intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue, purchased in 1882. Wilshire and Western didn't even exist in those days, but Pellissier knew that Los Angeles proper, then several miles away and comprising much of modern-day downtown, would eventually need to expand. In the meantime, he used this land as a grazing pasture for some of his sheep (he also grazed sheep in Kern County and Ventura County).

In 1887, when the Southern California land boom hit, Pellissier was proven right, and parceled out some of his land. Developers called it "Pellissier Square." By the 1920s, Wilshire and Western was considered the busiest intersection in Los Angeles (the city traffic commission deemed it the busiest in the world). Today, the intersection is part of Koreatown.

Pellissier's descendants continued to own the land long after his death, and grandson Henry de Roulet commissioned the Pellissier Building - one of the city's most beautiful Art Deco buildings - which opened its doors in 1931. The Wiltern Theater, which is part of the Pellissier Building, was a movie theater for many years, and is now one of Southern California's most beloved live music venues.

On a personal note, when I went to my first Wiltern show, I could barely focus on the band (and THAT is saying something!) because the venue is SO beautiful. I have been to Versailles, the Louvre, Buckingham Palace, and St. Peter's Basilica, and to me, the Wiltern has them all beat.

According to Pellissier's death notice, there was an earlier Pellissier building, commissioned by Germain himself, standing at the corner of Seventh and Olive. Originally, it was a house, and Pellissier rented out the ground floor to a saloon. In 1887, he built a hotel on the site. Like so much of LA's history, it is long gone. I have been unable to find a reference to which corner it occupied. The intersection currently boasts jewelry stores, a 7-11, and (shocker) more parking.

Like so many other French transplants, Pellissier did have a few relatives join him in Los Angeles. His nephews Francois - "Frank" to his Yankee friends - and Anton got into the dairy business, with Frank eventually relocating to Whittier, where land was still plentiful. Frank's house on Workman Mill Road stood roughly where Rio Hondo College's athletic fields are today, and the Pellissiers owned much of modern-day Whittier and the Puente Hills before urban expansion put an end to the Pellissier Dairy in 1971. Today, Pellissier Place in City of Industry and Pellissier Road in Whittier still bear their name, as does a Rio Hondo College scholarship awarded in the name of Frank's wife, Marie Valla Pellissier.

Between sheep ranching and real estate, Germain Pellissier became one of California's richest men. He and his wife Marie (née Darfeuille) were known to be active in the French Benevolent Society. They had four children - Marie Louise (born in 1877), Léon (born in 1888), Louise (born and died in 1890), and Adelaide (born in 1892).

Léon Pellissier died in 1901 at age 12. His headstone at Calvary Cemetery, shared with Germain, is entirely in French and states "Il s'est envolé vers le ciel ayant a peine touché la terre." (In English, this means "He flew to heaven barely having touched the ground.")

Pellissier lived at 191 Olive Street, near the northeast corner of Olive and 2nd. In his later years, he lived at 697 Cahuenga Street.

Germain Pellissier died January 15, 1908 at his home on Cahuenga Street at the age of 58. He was survived by his wife and daughters Marie-Louise and Adelaide, and is buried in Calvary Cemetery with Léon. Louise, interred at the original Calvary Cemetery in 1890, was reburied with her father and brother.

The house on Olive Street is long gone. A multi-level parking garage takes up the entire block. I somehow doubt any of the people parking there and walking to the Walt Disney Concert Hall just across Grand Avenue have ANY clue about the shrewd sheep rancher who lived there.

Next time: another LA music venue with ties to a notable French family.