Skid Row, Los Angeles

Skid Row, Los Angeles
San Julian Street south of 5th, part of the Skid Row area
Location within Downtown Los Angeles
Coordinates: 34°02′39″N 118°14′38″W / 34.044232°N 118.243886°W / 34.044232; -118.243886
Country	United States
State	California
County	County of Los Angeles
City	Los Angeles
Government
• City Council	Jose Huizar
• State Assembly	John Pérez (D)
• State Senate	Gilbert Cedillo (D)
• U.S. House	Vacant
Area
• Total	11.2 km2 (4.31 sq mi)
Population (2000)
• Total	17,740
• Density	1,587/km2 (4,111/sq mi)
ZIP Code	90013
Area code(s)	213

Coordinates: 34°02′39″N 118°14′38″W / 34.044232°N 118.243886°W / 34.044232; -118.243886

Skid Row is an area of Downtown Los Angeles. As of the 2000 census, the population of the district was 17,740. Skid Row was defined in a decision in Jones v. City of Los Angeles as the area east of Main Street, south of Third Street, west of Alameda Street, and north of Seventh Street. Skid Row contains one of the largest stable populations (between 3,000 and 6,000) of homeless people in the United States.

The term "skid row" or "skid road", referring to an area of a city where people live who are "on the skids", derives from a logging term. Loggers would transport their logs to a nearby river by sliding them down roads made from greased skids. Loggers who had accompanied the load to the bottom of the road would wait there for transportation back up the hill to the logging camp. By extension, the term began to be used for places where people with no money and nothing to do gathered, becoming the generic term for a depressed street in a city.

The population is probably more motley than that in a similar district of any other American city. Jews, Greeks, and Italians in the doorways of pawnshops and secondhand clothing stores vie with one another to lure the unwary passer-by inside. A fat German runs a beer parlor and just across the street a dapper Frenchman ladles up 5-cent bowls of split pea soup. A large, blond woman named Sunshine, born in Egypt, manages one of the cleaner rooming houses. A few Chinese practically monopolize the hand laundry business, and Japanese the cheapest cafes and flophouses. American Indians barter for forbidden whiskey. Chattering Mexicans loiter on the steps leading up to a second-floor hotel. Dapper Negroes, better dressed than any other vagabonds, wander by in riotous groups.

At the end of the 19th century, a number of residential hotels opened in the area as it became home to a transient population of seasonal laborers. By the 1930s Skid Row was home to as many as 10,000 homeless people, alcoholics, and others on the margins of society. It supported saloons, residential hotels, and social services which drew people from the populations they served to congregate in the area.