Eagle Rock, Los Angeles

34°08′20″N 118°12′47″W﻿ / ﻿34.13889°N 118.21306°W﻿ / 34.13889; -118.21306
Eagle Rock is a neighborhood of Northeast Los Angeles, abutting the San Rafael Hills in Los Angeles County, California. The community is named after Eagle Rock, a large boulder whose shadow resembles an eagle. Eagle Rock was once part of the Rancho San Rafael under Spanish and Mexican governorship. In 1911, Eagle Rock was incorporated as a city, and in 1923 it was annexed by Los Angeles.
The neighborhood is the home of Occidental College. As with other neighborhoods in Northeast Los Angeles, Eagle Rock experienced significant gentrification in the 21st century.
Before the arrival of European settlers, the secluded valley below the San Rafael Hills that is roughly congruent to Eagle Rock's present boundaries was inhabited by the Tongva people, whose staple food was the acorns from the valley's many oak trees. These aboriginal inhabitants were displaced by Spanish settlers in the late 18th century, with the area incorporated into the Rancho San Rafael. Following court battles, the area known as Rancho San Rafael was divided into 31 parcels in 1870. Benjamin Dreyfus was awarded what is now called Eagle Rock. In the 1880s Eagle Rock existed as a farming community.
The arrival of American settlers and the growth of Los Angeles resulted in steadily increasing semi-rural development in the region throughout the late 19th century. The construction of Henry Huntington's Los Angeles Railway trolley line up Eagle Rock Boulevard to Colorado Boulevard and on Colorado to Townsend Avenue commenced the rapid suburbanization of the Eagle Rock Valley.
Although Eagle Rock, which is geographically located between the cities of Pasadena and Glendale, was once incorporated as a city in 1911, its need for an adequate water supply and a high school resulted in its annexation by Los Angeles in 1923.
Several major crime sprees occurred in the neighborhood during the late 20th century. An early victim of the Hillside Strangler was discovered in an Eagle Rock neighborhood on October 31, 1977. The discovery, along with the successive murders of at least 10 other women in the area over the course of five months, frightened local residents. According to an opinion piece by a resident under the pseudonym Deirdre Blackstone that was published in the Los Angeles Times on December 6, 1977:
Two men, Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono, were subsequently convicted of the murders.
On the night of March 20, 1985, an 8-year-old girl was abducted from her home in Eagle Rock and sexually assaulted by a man dubbed the "Valley Intruder", "Walk-in Killer", and "The Night Stalker," later identified as Richard Ramirez. This was the seventh in a long string of murders and sexual assaults committed by Ramirez in Los Angeles and San Francisco before he was apprehended.
In 2002, an effort to designate an area of the community as "Philippine Village" for the large Filipino American population was stopped.
Like the surrounding areas of Northeast Los Angeles, Eagle Rock has undergone gentrification. Beginning in the 2000s, the area attracted young professionals and fostered a hipster culture. As a result, housing prices have dramatically risen and a new wave of restaurants, coffee shops, bars, and art galleries have appeared over the last decade.
The neighborhood is inhabited by a wide variety of ethnic and socioeconomic groups and the creative class. Over the past decade the Eagle Rock and neighboring Highland Park have been experiencing gentrification as young professionals have moved from nearby neighborhoods such as Los Feliz and Silver Lake. A core of counter-culture writers, artists and filmmakers has existed in Eagle Rock since the 1920s.
According to the "Mapping L.A." project of the Los Angeles Times, the 2000 U.S. census counted 32,493 residents in 4.25 sq mi (11.0 km) Eagle Rock neighborhood, 7,644 people per square mile; a population density considered average for the city and Los Angeles County. In 2008, the city estimated that the population had increased to 34,466. In 2000, the median age for residents was 35, about average for city and county neighborhoods.
The neighborhood was considered "highly diverse" ethnically within Los Angeles, with a relatively high percentage of Asian people. The breakdown was Latinos, 40.3%; whites, 29.8%; Asians, 23.9%; blacks, 1.8%; and others, 4.1%. The Philippines (35.1%) and Mexico (25.1%) were the most common places of birth for the 38.5% of the residents who were born abroad—an average figure for Los Angeles.
The median yearly household income in 2008 dollars was $67,253, considered high for the city. The neighborhood's income levels, like its ethnic composition, can still be marked by notable diversity, but typically ranges from lower-middle to upper-middle class. Renters occupied 43.9% of the housing stock, and house- or apartment-owners held 56.1%. The average household size of 2.8 people was considered normal for Los Angeles.
Thirty percent of Eagle Rock residents aged 25 and older had earned a four-year degree by 2000, an average percentage for the city.
Eagle Rock is bordered by Glendale on the north and west, Highland Park on the southeast, Glassell Park on the southwest, and Pasadena on the east. Major thoroughfares include Eagle Rock Boulevard and Colorado Boulevard, with Figueroa Street along the eastern boundary. The Glendale and Ventura freeways run along the district's western and northern edges, respectively.
The neighborhood is home to many historic and architecturally significant homes, many done in the Craftsman, Georgian, Streamline Moderne, Art Deco and Mission Revival styles. There are nine Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments in Eagle Rock:
The Bucket is a historic example of programmatic or novelty architecture meant to look live a 1930s ice chest and usually used as hamburger stand.
Eagle Rock is the site of Occidental College, which was first established in Boyle Heights in 1887. After a fire destroyed the original campus in 1896, it moved to Downtown Los Angeles, then Highland Park, until reopening permanently in Eagle Rock in 1914. The campus was designed by architect Myron Hunt.
Eagle Rock children attend schools in District 4 of the Los Angeles Unified School District.
In March 2022, then Councilmember for Eagle Rock, Kevin De Leon and then Mayor Of Los Angeles Eric Garcetti opened Eagle Rock's Tiny Homes Village, the tenth such community in Los Angeles. These communities are sometimes included as part of the Tiny-house_movement. The community was placed near the junction of North Figueroa Street and Colorado Blvd, near the 134 Freeway exit, and just a few hundred yards from the Eagle Rock geological landmark.
Like other Tiny Homes Villages in Los Angeles, the community serves as transitional housing for homeless people formerly living in tents or their cars.