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The Awakening of Paredon Blanco 79

of subdividing a large tract of land from the bluffs east-
ward for settlement, which he called Boyle Heights in honor
of his father-in-law.
My father followed suit, but the men whom he com-
missioned for the subdivision of his land took advantage of
his honest and trusting nature, and hurled him into bank-
ruptcy. The subdivision, a tract of seventy acres, is now
called Brooklyn Heights.
And now no longer do the spreading vineyards of those
colorful days lie at the foot of the white pebbled and ma-
jestic Paredon Blanco (White Bluff). Gone are the or-
chards, its waving fields of grain, the shops of the thrifty
shoemaker, goldsmith and the pliers of other trades, who
sang joyful melodies as they worked, with happy responses
from innumerable singing birds. Even the topography of
the lofty bluff is changed as it has been terraced for a street.
No sign is left of my childhood home. It is now in-
habited by colonies of people of all nationalities, the Rus-
sian predominating, so it is called the Russian Colony, from
Summit Avenue on the north to Third Street on the south.