The Myth of the Classic Slum: Contradictory Perceptions of Boyle Heights Flats, 1900–1991

Boyle Heights Flats, an area just east of downtown Los Angeles, traditionally served as a port-of-entry for newly arrived, working-poor immigrants. The original settlement of The Flats was to all intents and purposes “removed” to make way for a large public housing complex during the 1940s and 1950s. The displacement of the people of Boyle Heights Flats represented the victory of a particular perception—The Flats as a hopeless and dangerous slum. However, during the same era, a contrasting view—The Flats as a poor yet functional community—was also put forward by a Chicago School sociologist who spent several years studying the area. While residents of The Flats surely recognized the many social problems from which their neighborhood suffered, I use both oral history and the written history of one group of Flats dwellers to suggest that the Chicago School study better represents the complex texture of the community in its first half century. “Documentary” photography helped make the case for slum clearance in The Flats through a highly discriminate editing of the area's social conditions.