Boyle Heights history torn down

The former Soto-Michigan Jewish Community Center, designed by Raphael Soriano and called by the Jewish Journal "the focal point of Jewish social and political community life in Boyle Heights from the early 1930s to the late 1950s," has been razed. The paper posted a web story reporting that the city Department of Building and Safety could not find a demolition permit. "After the vast migration of Boyle Heights Jews in the 1950s -- to the Fairfax area, Beverly Hills, Westside and San Fernando Valley, the Soto-Michigan JCC became, for years, a general community center under the name All Nations’ Center," the Journal says.