The men who congregated here lived and drank at single room occupancy hotels like the Lowe’s on Los Angeles Street and at bars like the notorious Original Mug Saloon on Main Street, which one visitor described as little more than a “great, bare room, with a bar along one side.”īy the turn of the century, First and Los Angeles was legendary. On the edge of “ Hell’s Half Acre,” the corner was a stone’s throw away from the Plaza, and only a little over a mile from the Southern Pacific Yard. These men found ample work in the agricultural fields and vineyards that surrounded Los Angeles.īy the 1880s, the place many of these men often congregated was dubbed the “Hobo Corner,” and the neighborhood surrounding it. Then there was the “dynamiter,” who made his meager living as a journeyman laborer. The “fly bum” was a city dweller, who lived in cheap hotels and was kept alive by handouts from religious and charitable organizations. The “hobo,” according to one rail rider, was the “creation of the railroads,” a seeker who lived to travel and see new faces. All across the country a new slang emerged to describe this emerging facet of American life. There is something very tempting to those gentry in a climate where the sun furnishes about as much fuel as is needed for comfortable warmth, and where great orange orchards are convenient to ease their hunger.īut it was not just Southern California that was faced with this new influx of visitors.
Southern California is getting to be something of a Mecca for the genus tramp of colder localities. Angelenos also blamed their own glorious weather and abundance, always eager to boost the city even when they were complaining. “Those who have looked into the question, claim that the railroads are largely responsible for the annual hobo curse of Los Angeles,” the LA Times intoned. Los Angeles Public Library photo collection LA leaders knew what to blame: the increased mobility offered by the railroads. In 1889, it was reported that 18 people had been arrested at the Southern Pacific Yard in one morning and would be forced to work on the chain gang, ironically building roads for the city. They tended to congregate around or nearby the rail yards in cheap hotels, saloons, and brothels that sprung up to serve them. Thousands of men, many displaced veterans of the Civil War, began to “ride the rails,” stowing away in empty boxcars and jumping trains. In 1888, it was joined by the Arcade Station at Fourth and Alameda. That year, the main Southern Pacific Rail Yard and passenger terminus, known as River Station (now the site of the Los Angeles State Historic Park), opened. According to historian Glen Creason, the railroads were constructed east of LA’s historic core. In 1876, Los Angeles became the end of the line of the transcontinental railroad. Such was the patronizing and cruel language that was used to describe the population that arrived in Los Angeles with the coming of the railroads. They were filthy dirty some of them fairly squirmed with tenants-their steady company as it were.” Most of them were beastly drunk and the rest were sorry they weren’t.
“The tenderloin was literally swarming with tramps. “It was the toughest night of the year on the ‘Hobo Corner,’” the reporter wrote. The Los Angeles Times sent a reporter out to the saloon-lined intersection of First Street and Los Angeles Street, epicenter of Victorian LA’s Skid Row. We listen to the struggles of our homeless guests, offering the food, clothing, hygiene items, and support that it takes to help our guests get back on their feet and start life again.It was Christmastime in Los Angeles in 1902. We strive to go beyond simply providing a handout, working to connect with our unhoused guests and develop a strong rapport as we all share in community. We’re proud to provide a safe, supportive environment where our guests can get the basic necessities they need to survive without difficulty or judgment, and our meal service is just one part of that.
We feel honored to get to serve unhoused individuals with nutritious food, but we don’t only feed people who are homeless: many working adults’s paychecks aren’t enough to sustain them fully, so we also see working people take part in our meal service. We offer three meals a day to everyone who visits our Skid Row kitchen, and we also offer sack lunches for kids to take to school in the morning.
Our daily meal service is a vital first step towards living a fully self-sufficient life, as it gives our guests the energy and the nourishment to thrive, each and every day. Our Soup Kitchen & Skid Row Meal Services
0 kommentar(er)
