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Like any great neighborhood, Echo Park is an excellent place to get an education! Today we’re exploring the various schools in and around Echo Park. Echo Park offers non-traditional high schools, youth academies, and plenty of traditional elementary schools.

Photo Credit: 2006 IC CE200 (Former Pine Bush #561) First Student #060561

A great example of the variety of educational opportunities available in Echo park is the School for the Visual Arts and Humanities. The School for the Visual Arts and Humanities is a four-year sequence of courses focusing on creative and academic potential. Despite divorcing itself from the traditional high school experience, the School for the Visual Arts and Humanities is dedicated to a rigorous college preparatory education anchored in the arts.

If you require something a little more focused for your high-school age student, consider the Dream Center Academy, a non-traditional private Christian school located at the Dream Center in Los Angeles. The Dream Center Academy focuses on pedagogy through technology, experiential learning, and student-teacher relationships. The school conforms to California state standards, and emphasizes practical life and leadership skills.

The Downtown Magnets High School is a non-traditional high school aimed at educating future business leaders. Downtown Magnets High School’s mission is to ensure that every student graduates prepared for college with critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and creativity skills. All students should graduate ready to have a successful 21st Century career and become a contributing member to the global community.

Opened in 1999, the New Covenant Academy started small – only eleven students – but not serves more than 175. Following the philosophy “it takes a village to raise a child” the New Covenant Academy aims to be a community in which each child can develop fully due to caring and nurturing adults who support student learning and achievement.

Photo Credit: Clifford Math and Technology Magnet

Consider the Clifford Math and Technology Magnet school for younger children. The school aims at providing a first class education through the strategic use of technology to advance mathematical reasoning, problem solving, and communication. Clifford Math and Technology Magnet is committed to opening, maintaining and strengthening ties amongst staff, parents, and the community.

Much like the neighborhood, a number of schools have their own quirks of history. Elysian Heights Elementary school is a traditional elementary school that provides a safe, child centered academic environment, but is most famous for a cat named Room 8 that came to school with the students in 1952. For the next sixteen years, Room 8 kept the school and the students company, eventually passing away at the ripe age of 22. Room 8 is still memorialized in drawings, painting, and other such homages to this day.

Whether planning for the future, or hoping for a new start, consider Echo Park’s wide variety of educational opportunities for your child!

Real Estate Unlimited is here to serve your real estate needs. Contact us for help finding the perfect home, or getting a feel for the right neighborhood to raise a family.

Part of Echo Park’s great eats, luxurious parks, and vintage finds is L.A.’s historic Filipinotown. This neighborhood boasts a diverse and fascinating legacy that lasts to this day. Whether you’re swinging by for great food, to tour one of the fascinating historic landmarks, or just explore the district, Filipinotown is a must see for anyone near Echo Park.

Photo Credit: LA Curbed

More than just another neighborhood in L.A., Historic Filipinotown was created in 2002 by a resolution intended to promote “economic, civic, commercial, cultural, industrial, and educational interests of local residents, business owners, and other stakeholders.” Filipinotown itself is made out of two L.A. districts, Silver Lake to the northwest and Echo park to the southeast.

Filipinotown is the first official geographic designation by any city outside the Philippines honoring Filipinos. In 1920, a wave of Filipino immigrants made up mostly of young unmarried men, arrived in Los Angeles due to American agricultural industries’ need for workers, especially in California. Many of the workers faced racial stigma, forcing them to band together in communities of like-minded individuals. For more than two decades, the Filipino community lived in Little Manilla. Opening restaurants, barbershops, and pool halls, the Filipinos lived and socialized together in Little Manilla.

Today, Historic Filipinotown has changed along with Los Angeles. Although still maintaining a large Filipino population, Filipinotown is now minority Filipino, the old population being overshadowed by ethnically Mexican and Central Americans. However, out of the 600,000 Filipinos living in Los Angeles, 10,000 continue to call Historic Filipinotown home.

Visiting Historic Filipinotown? Be sure to stop by the famous landmarks:

The Filipino Christian Church and St. Columbian Filipino Catholic Church stand as a testament to the religious history of Historic Filipinotown. Supposedly, the quarters from which the churches grew were the original starting point for the neighborhood! As one of the first Christian churches established to serve Filipino Americans, a number of key organizations in the American Filipino community use the churches as a locus point.

Photo Credit: Leyland S.

Don’t forget to check out Unidad Park, one of the most recognizable landmarks in Historic Filipinotown. The design for Unidad Park was conceptualized by leaders of the Filipino community and based on the artwork submitted by mural artist Eliseo Silva. Unidad Park features a traditional Dap-ay used by students, a sandbox for young children, and barbecue grills for use by families and parties.

Historic Filipinotown also hosts the Filipino American WWII Veterans Memorial, dedicated to the 250,000 Filipino and 7,000 Filipino American soldiers who fought for the United States in World War II. Five slabs of black granite commemorates the history of the veterans, from the battlefields in Europe and Asia, to the fight for equality in the United States.

If you’re interested in visiting Filipinotown for the first time, or want to experience the best the district can offer, stop by August 6th for the 14th Annual Filipinotown Festival running from 9am – 6pm!

Real Estate Unlimited has been serving the neighborhoods around the Historic Filipinotown for over thirty years. If you’re interested in learning more about the history of downtown L.A., or would like help with your real estate needs, please get in touch!

Victor Heights is a hidden-gem of L.A. tucked just southeast of Echo Park. The neighborhood is known for its mystery and isolation, despite being in the center of Los Angeles. This quirky neighborhood is a mixture of Chinese and Hispanic neighborhood and rapidly developing townhouses and upscale neighborhoods.

Victor Heights is set largely on a large slope, giving a great view of the L.A. skyline. Despite being known for being disconnected from the rest of downtown, the neighborhood is connected to Chinatown by the bridges on Alpine, Sunset, and College. Echo Park and the Dodger’s stadium are also only a short walk away!

Photo Credit: Eric Brightwell

Victor Park has a history much more contemporary than most neighborhoods. Most famously, in 1992 a resident named Betty Oyama lived and coined the neighborhood the “Forgotten Edge,” because, as she said, LAPD couldn’t find Victor Heights. Stepping up to fill the vacancy left by the authorities, Betty Oyama successfully fought to establish a neighborhood watch. Nowadays, the most likely people to be prowling the streets are numerous production assistants that aide a number of films and TV shows being filmed in Victor Heights. Unlike some of the other downtown neighborhoods, Victor Heights lacks any real homogeneity in the architecture. Instead, in Victor Heights the dominant aesthetic remains a mix of major housing developments, family built-bungalows, and Spanish Colonial Revival houses.

The neighborhood’s demographics are a picture of L.A. writ large. The population is mostly older Italians and Croatians that originally formed the neighborhood, supplanted by the newest wave of Asian and Latino immigrants. Most recently, lured in by new development and the appeal of the old-school reputation, younger professionals and hipsters have begun appearing in Victor Heights.

Although certainly a quirky mix of cultures and styles, Victor Heights also possesses a few odd natural quirks that draw in some bizarre wildlife. Feral parrots and wild peafowl wander the neighborhood, bringing an odd twist to inter-city life.

Photo Credit: Eric Brightwell

Victor Heights is almost entirely residential, but the no-nonsense Hispanic street-food styled Guisados provides homestyle braises on handmade corn tortillas. Featured in our Echo park dining guide, Guisados strives to make tacos “Just the way my mom used to make them.” Guisados takes its name from the classic Hispanic street vendor scene. Try the Steak Picado, pairing flank steak with green bell peppers and bacon, while the extremely spicy Chiles Toreados offers habanero, serrano, jalapeno, and thai chiles on black beans.

If you’re looking for a slice of sleepy residential L.A. that retains the mystery and history of a older era, be sure to check out Victor Heights.

Victor Heights and Echo Park have been served by Real Estate Unlimited since 1980. If you’re new to the neighborhood, are interested in real estate help, or just want to get to know us better, feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns.