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Overview

The 2006 demolition of this early International Style landmark, a center for liberal, political organizing during its 20 years as a community center, proved how easily some Modern buildings could be removed, even at a time when interest in them was high. It was an early and significant design by the Greek-born Sephardic architect, Raphael Soriano.

Building History

The Federation of Jewish Charities commissioned a young Los Angeles architect, Raphael S. Soriano (1907-1988), to design this Jewish Community Center at the intersection of Soto Street and Michigan Avenue in the Boyle Heights neighborhood, once a thriving center of Jewish culture. This Modern building was actually the second Jewish Community Center, named for the donors, Ida and George Latz. the first center was located in a half-timbered Queen Anne residence that previously stood on the site.

A passing car struck Soriano while he stood on the street supervising work on the Soto-Michigan Jewish Community Center. This accident required that Soriano spend six months recuperating. (See Wolfgang Wagener, Raphael Soriano, [London and New York: Phaidon, 2002], p. 201.)

The community center operated for about 20 years, between 1939 and 1958. A 1943 article in the Los Angeles Times indicated that wartime conditions had reduced the summer camp options open to neighborhood children, but that the center was being used for periodic, day-care events. It stated: "All this is made possible because Mrs. Ida Latz donated that lovely model building in 1939, and Arthur Stebbins gave the playground and equipment in memory of his own two children who died. It is a gorgeous big building which adults (mostly the parents of the children) may use because those who can are busy in real jobs to help out the man power shortage." (See Alma Whitaker, "Soto-Michigan Center Creates Child Happiness," Los Angeles Times, 08/08/1943, p. D3.) Another article in the online Jewish Journal, stated: "Famed architectural photographer Julius Shulman, a close friend of Soriano, raised considerable funds to get the project off the ground." (See Tom Tugend, Jewish Journal.com. "Boyle Heights JCC," published 03/09/2006, accessed 09/04/2019.)

Over the years, the building housed various community meetings and became an active nexus for left-of-center community organizing and education. In 1943, it hosted those interested in organizing a week-long visit of Soviet representatives during World War II. (See "Russian-Jewish Reception Planned," Los Angeles Times, 08/17/1943, p. A2.) The following year, it a rally was held here to promote acceptance of refugees from Hitler's Nazism, a campaign called the 'Dawn of Liberation' in 1944. (See "Refugee Fund Campaign Plans Near Completion," Los Angeles Times, 06/25/1944, p. 13.)

For its entire existence, the Los Angeles Community Chest program distributed charity money to assist in the operation of the Soto-Michigan Jewish Community Center. In 1950, for example, the center received $30,116. (See "Community Chest Reports on Funds: Allotment of $6,384,676.96 for Last Year Given Welfare Projects in Los Angeles Area," Los Angeles Times, 08/08/1950, p. A1.)

During the period 1939-1952, the Soto-Michigan Jewish Community Center developed a track record and reputation for promoting community multi-cultural cooperation and left-wing politics. This caused difficulties because the center received significant infusions of Community Chest money each year, and many far-right conservatives did not want this money to support liberal agendas. CA State Senator Jack Tenney (1898-1970), Chair of the California Senate Factfinding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities, attacked the activities of the Soto-Michigan Jewish Community Center, claiming it was a hotbed of un-American agitation. According to historian Deborah Dash Moore: "...In the middle of a Community Chest fund rally, Tenney 'advised those present not to contribute to the Chest' because it supported 'subversive' elements in the Jewish community centers." (See Deborah Dash Moore, To the Golden Cities: Pursuing the American Jewish Dream in Miami and L.A., [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994], p. 211.)

Historian George J. Sánchez wrote in an article on multiracialism in Boyle Heights that the Soto-Michigan Jewish Community Center played a part in creating "...a legacy of political interracialism, commitment to civil rights, and a radical multiculturalism in Boyle Heights, despite the growing conservative climate of the 1950s." He continued: "In the post-World War II period, the Soto-Michigan Jewish Community Center began to distinguish itself through innovative programming aimed at addressing the changing nature of the Boyle Heights community and the need for increased intercultural work in the neighborhood. Led by Mel Janapol, board member in charge of "intercultural activities," this effort began by in- viting non-Jewish youth from outside the community to a model seder at the Jewish Center. At the same time, youth director Mark Keats organized the first Friendship Festival in spring 1949 at the Fresno Playground, to 'bring together Mexican, Japanese, Negro, and Jewish youth in a cooperative venture.' By the following year, the "Festival of Friendship" had grown to in- clude a three-hour formal arts program, a parade, food sales, and an art ex- hibit. More than 12,000 people attended, with 1,500 participating in the parade alone. Later that year, a late autumn intercultural week included a Jewish-American cultural night next to evenings dedicated to the cultural con- tributions of Japanese Americans, Negro Americans, and Mexican Americans. The paid and volunteer staff members of the Soto-Michigan Jewish Community Center were critical to the expansion of this effort toward minority populations in Boyle Heights." (See George J. Sánchez, "'What's Good for Boyle Heights Is Good for the Jews,' Creating Multiracialism on the Eastside during the 1950s," American Quarterly, vol. 56, no. 3, 09/2004, p. 642.)

The rising tide of McCarthyism and the Red Scare of the late 1940s and early 1950s led to a reappraisal of this multicultural perspective at the Soto-Michigan Jewish Community Center. Deborah Dash Moore wrote: "On September 9, 1952, the Soto-Michigan Jewish Community Center, a favorite object of vilification by Jack Tenney as a Jewish communist stronghold, dissolved itself and transferred its assets to the amalgamated Eastside Jewish Community Center. The Jewish Centers Association transferred Joseph Esquith, Soto-Michigan's controversial director, and moved Milton Malkin, the head of Beverly-Fairfax, to the new, untainted center. The amalgamation not only responded to changing Jewish demographic patterns but, through a reorganization of staff and center board members, also eliminated many radicals and progressives." (See Deborah Dash Moore, To the Golden Cities: Pursuing the American Jewish Dream in Miami and L.A., [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994], p. 211.)

It closed as a Jewish-run community facility in 09/1958. The Los Angeles Times reported on 05/05/1958: "The Eastside Jewish Community Center property has been sold to the All Nations Foundation, it was announced yesterday by Lawrence E. Irell, president of the Jewish Centers Association. The center began as the Soto. Michigan Jewish Community Center 20 years ago. Irell said the center is being given up because of the movement of the Jewish population to the west and the suburbs. The All Nations Foundation, which operates Hollenbeck Community Center and a center, boys club and clinic on E. 6th St., is expected to take over the property at 2317 Michigan Ave. about Sept. 1." (See Jewish Center Sold to All Nations Group," Los Angeles Times, 05/05/1958, p. 15.) During the 1950s, the Jewish community concentrated in Boyle Heights dispersed across Los Angeles, settling primarily in the "...Fairfax area, Beverly Hills, Westside and San Fernando Valley." (See Tom Tugend, Jewish Journal.com. "Boyle Heights JCC," published 03/09/2006, accessed 09/04/2019.)

The All Nations Foundation opened the community center to all members of the community regardless of ethnicity.

Building Notes

The building's upper floor was double-height, that accommodated classrooms and a large assembly space. The assembly hall faced Michigan Avenue toward the south. Several steps led up to a covered entrance porch that projected from the building's east side. As per International Style tenets, windows were arrayed in continuous bands, on both the southern facade's first and second floors. Windows of the second floor consisted of tall, fixed panes above and small movable casement windows below. Exterior surfaces were covered in stucco, and flat roofs covered the building and the lower entryway. A playground occupied the northern portion of the property accessible to the classrooms of the second floor. The first floro rooms, lit by a continuous band of casement windows, accommodated an activity space, photographic room, and meeting room.

At the Soto-Michigan Jewish Community Center, Soriano employed a little-used steel framing technique known as the "Lattisteel structural system," developed by the Lattisteel Corporation, for whom the architect worked in 1936. Historian Woflgang Wagener, in his 2002 book on Soriano, said of this system: "...[The] Lattisteel Corporation produced an early system for steel framing made of bars set at right angles and reinforced with a generous criss-corss lacing of plumber's steel straps, which were most often used to reinforce concrete for tilt-slabs. Soriano worked out a twelve-foot-wide steel structure of round columns and open web joists for the two-story-high upper floor, which was designed to house the classrooms and a large assembly hall facing the street. Exterior surfaces were either plastered or covered with large expanses of glass. A wide overhanging roof with a thin fascia line was to shade the panels of fixed glass and to ventilate the awning glass at the front." (See Wolfgang Wagener, Raphael Soriano, [London and New York: Phaidon, 2002], p. 47.) The Los Angeles Building Department hadn't seen this kind of framing before, and, after the architect produced his own structural calculations, took about one year to approve the buiding for use.

PCAD id: 23086