Soto Street is a major north-south thoroughfare in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the wor ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the ...

, connecting the southernmost neighborhoods of the Eastside, as well as the southeastern suburbs of Vernon and Huntington Park. It was first designated and paved as an

arterial road An arterial road or arterial thoroughfare is a high-capacity urban road that sits below freeways/motorways on the road hierarchy in terms of traffic flow and speed. The primary function of an arterial road is to deliver traffic from collector ...

in 1927. The street has been the focus of several significant ethnic communities over the years.

Geography

Soto Street begins as Miles Avenue in Huntington Park at

Florence Avenue Florence Avenue is a major east–west street in central Los Angeles County and South Los Angeles, in Southern California. 150px, The oldest operating McDonald's is on Florence Ave at Lakewood, in Downey, California. Route It is bounded in th ...

. It becomes Soto after crossing

Slauson Avenue Slauson Avenue is a major east–west thoroughfare traversing the central part of Los Angeles County, California. It was named for the land developer and Los Angeles Board of Education member J. S. Slauson. It passes through Culver City, L ...

, shortly before entering Vernon, where it crosses the

Los Angeles River , name_etymology = , image = File:Los Angeles River from Fletcher Drive Bridge 2019.jpg , image_caption = L.A. River from Fletcher Drive Bridge , image_size = 300 , map = LARmap.jpg , map_size ...

. Soto Street then runs north through the neighborhoods of

Boyle Heights Boyle is an English, Irish and Scottish surname of Gaelic, Anglo-Saxon or Norman origin. In the northwest of Ireland it is one of the most common family names. Notable people with the surname include: Disambiguation *Adam Boyle (disambiguation), ...

Brooklyn Heights Brooklyn Heights is a residential neighborhood within the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Old Fulton Street near the Brooklyn Bridge on the north, Cadman Plaza West on the east, Atlantic Avenue on the south, an ...

. In El Sereno, near Lincoln Heights, Soto Street merges with

Mission Road Mission Road is a major north-east south-west arterial street in the city of Los Angeles. It serves primarily as an alternative route to get to and from the Downtown Los Angeles area and the San Gabriel Valley. Part of the road is considered a ...

to form Huntington Drive.

History

In 1890 Soto Street was "a dirt road lined with pepper trees."

Japanese American National Museum The is located in Los Angeles, California, and dedicated to preserving the history and culture of Japanese Americans. Founded in 1992, it is located in the Little Tokyo area near downtown. The museum is an affiliate within the Smithsonian Affi ...

, ''Los Angeles's Boyle Heights'', (

Arcadia Publishing Arcadia Publishing is an American Publishing, publisher of neighborhood, local history, local, and regional history of the United States in pictorial form.(analysis of the successful ''Images of America'' series). Arcadia Publishing also runs the ...

, 2005), .
Excerpts available
at

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical ...

. By 1927 the city had decided to pave it as an arterial."Soto Street Paving Plans Being Pushed"
''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...

'', September 25, 1927 (pay site). The intersection of Soto Street and Brooklyn Avenue (now called

Cesar Chavez Avenue Cesar Chavez Avenue (Spanish: Avenida César Chávez) is a major east–west thoroughfare in Downtown Los Angeles, the Eastside and East Los Angeles, measuring 6.19 miles (9.96 km) in length. Named in honor of union leader César Chávez, th ...

) came to be considered the most important intersection in East Los Angeles, both when it was the center of the Los Angeles Jewish community (the largest Jewish community in the western United States) and later when it became the heart of the largest Mexican-American community in the country.George Ramos
"Heart of the Eastside: Corner of Cesar Chavez and Soto--a Landmark in History of 2 Cultures"
''

'', July 31, 2000. It is the site of the landmark mural by

East Los Streetscapers East Los Streetscapers Public Art Studios is a muralist art collective and fine art studio based in East Los Angeles, California. Its members have executed over twenty murals and large-scale public artworks, primarily in the Los Angeles area. Histo ...

entitled ''El Corrido de Boyle Heights'', and is the major transportation hub for the region. In 2004, a portion of the street in El Sereno known as the Soto Street Bridge, where Soto Street becomes Huntington Drive North, was declared functionally obsolete and scheduled for replacement. The bridge was constructed in 1936 as joint venture between the state, city and

Pacific Electric Railway The Pacific Electric Railway Company, nicknamed the Red Cars, was a privately owned mass transit system in Southern California consisting of electrically powered streetcars, interurban cars, and buses and was the largest electric railway system ...

as an overpass of its Red Car system.

Transportation

Metro Local Los Angeles Metro Bus is the transit bus service in Los Angeles County, California operated by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro). In , the system had a ridership of , or about per weekday as of . , there are ...

lines 251 runs along Soto Street. The Metro L Line operates at a light rail underground station at the street's intersection with 1st Street in

Notable Landmarks

Lincoln Park Lincoln Park is a park along Lake Michigan on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois. Named after US President Abraham Lincoln, it is the city's largest public park and stretches for seven miles (11 km) from Grand Avenue (500 N), on the south, ...

* LAC+USC Medical Center *

Salesian High School A Salesian school is an educational institution run by the Roman Catholic Salesian Congregation of Saint John Bosco (or Don Bosco), and one that uses his methods. Salesian schools are dedicated to young people in an educational and formative envir ...

* Sears Building, Soto Street and Olympic Boulevard

References

{{coord missing, Los Angeles County, California Streets in Los Angeles County, California Eastside Los Angeles Boyle Heights, Los Angeles El Sereno, Los Angeles Huntington Park, California Vernon, California 1927 establishments in California