LA’s last Japanese boardinghouse is safe, for now. Elderly tenants still worry

LOS ANGELES — For nearly a century, Japanese immigrants have lived in the boardinghouse in East Hollywood.

In the house’s heyday, about 30 men left each day for jobs as gardeners or laborers, returning for communal meals during which they could converse in their native language.

Now, only seven are left, renting spartan rooms furnished with a single bed and a small desk as they worry about their future under a new owner in a gentrifying neighborhood, with Sqirl and other hipster eateries a couple of blocks away.

In June, the Los Angeles City Council designated the house at 564 N. Virgil Ave. a historic-cultural monument, which would stave off, but not eliminate, the possibility of demolition.

The owner is renovating the house, which is permitted under the new designation. He says