Exploring Alameda St. Los Angeles, California: Driving tour (2024)

Following the long history of Southern Pacific Railroad tracks and prostitution. The Video starts in north Chinatown. Alameda Street is a major north-south thoroughfare in Los Angeles County, California, running through Little Tokyo, the Arts District, and more.

Alameda Street has a long history of Southern Pacific Railroad tracks running on or parallel to it. Before the building of Union Station, Southern Pacific trains would travel along Alameda between Naud Junction and the Southern Pacific Arcade Station on 5th Street. Though Southern Pacific eventually rerouted its downtown tracks to the LA River, Alameda still carries SP tracks between 27th Street and the Port of Los Angeles. This area is known as the Alameda Corridor. With the 2002 completion of the Alameda Corridor in a trench adjacent to Alameda, the trackage is now shared by the BNSF Railway and Union Pacific Railroad (Southern Pacific's company).

The street became a center of prostitution activity in Los Angeles by the late 19th century, after the city council passed an ordinance prohibiting prostitution from the new central business district. Prostitution reportedly peaked in the 1890s, "with the support of local police and elected officials, many of whom were regular visitors" to the brothels. Those on North Alameda Street, adjacent to the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks, were the most active and became "the first view of Los Angeles for arriving train passengers.

In the late 19th century, the corner of Alameda Street and Macy Street (now Cesar Chavez Avenue) was home to residences shared by Mexican and Chinese families. Along Alameda and Los Angeles Streets to Second Street was primarily a Japanese community, shared with Mexicans, and the last remnants of the French community. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alameda...

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