Bassett--Fractured Yet Unified, It’s Clearly a...

Somewhere near the middle of the San Gabriel Valley, along the southern edge, there’s a place called Bassett--or is there?

Bassett made news in recent months for blocking the construction of the East Valley Medical Center there. But, other than that, the name seldom is heard. Few other places could better fit Gertrude Stein’s celebrated slight, “There’s no there there.”

An unincorporated county area, it has few of the usual communal amenities. There’s no chamber of commerce, no town hall, no library, no postal address. Based on 1990 census figures, the area is believed to have about 14,000 inhabitants, 68% of them Latino. But the figures are tenuous because, geographically, it’s a now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t kind of place.

Its boundaries are unclear--even its name is in dispute.

For purposes of identification, George Malone, a supervisor with the County Regional Planning Department, defines Bassett as bounded by the City of Industry on the east, El Monte and South El Monte on the west, Valley Boulevard on the north and San Jose Creek on the south. To most residents, the area is loosely considered Avocado Heights-Bassett to the north and North Whittier to the south. Because one of the area’s two ZIP codes includes Whittier, some residents think that’s where they live. Those who know better call it Bassett not Whittier.

Bassett homeowners get their tax bills as residents of either La Puente or Whittier.

Bassett’s most distinct institution, the Bassett Unified School District, isn’t all that clear either. Much of the community’s elementary school pupils go to Whittier schools. How many? Nobody can say for sure. There’s a Bassett High that Bassett students attend. It’s in La Puente.

In physical appearance and social character, Bassett is as fractured as it is geographically. It’s a bedroom community, lacking a shopping center, or even a significant mini-mall. But its 2.25 square miles offer a scrambled Rubik’s cube of residential living, from rental shanties to baronial estates.

The main business street, Valley Boulevard, cuts east and west through town like a piece of the Bronx, N.Y. Even on sunny days, it’s a gray street with a seemingly endless stream of auto parts stores and repair shops. There’s a sprinkling of modest motels and lower-echelon restaurants on Valley Boulevard.

At Nena’s Restaurant, where hominy and tripe soup is a daily special, proprietor Tony Cobas, 59, says he relies a lot on the street’s heavy trucking. Business is bad, he said.

“The people have no money,” he said.

As in the rest of Bassett, where there’s a brick or sandstone fence on the boulevard, there’s graffiti.

Turn south on Workman Mill Road, Bassett’s major north-south thoroughfare, and walls that sequester residents from traffic have historically been graffiti targets. Ten years ago, it was so bad that the community organized to paint the walls with pictures of trees. Now the graffiti is back, and another tree-painting is planned.

For the most part, only rooftops are visible above the walls on Workman Mill. Where residences are exposed, they’re a hodgepodge. Sagging trailers adjoin well-kept suburban houses next to fixer-uppers with peeling paint.

But turn south from Valley Boulevard on a street in Avocado Heights, and the scene changes to quiet middle-income suburban.

Ice cream trucks jingle “Pop Goes the Weasel” as they meander past well-kept older ranch or two-story stucco homes on average-size lots. Roosters crow in back yards, and it isn’t unusual to see horses being hosed down alongside a front mailbox.

But even here, jarring the rural middle-class atmosphere are occasional eyesores--smaller places known as rentals, where more often than not front lawns are littered, roofs sag and curtains need sewing. Rose Ybanez, senior field deputy for Supervisor Gloria Molina, explained that the rentals usually accommodate low-wage temporary laborers from nearby industries.

Another change is visible only a couple of streets south of Don Julian Road and up the hill a bit, where the homes are likely to be larger.

Raymond and Frances McKee live in a Spanish-style mansion on a five-acre estate on a private street off 3rd Avenue. A wood signpost identifies the property as “Gort na Gloca Mora,” Gaelic for “Field of the Big Rock.” The McKees raised their six sons there.

Raymond McKee, 92, is a retired CPA who still manages a water company from his office at home. He once drove a horse and wagon team for Wells Fargo.

“We bought the house in 1947,” Frances McKee, 69, said. “We had been biking in the mountains and we lost our way and came across this large home with a water tower and we bought it complete with five acres that were planted in avocados.”

Even amid these gracious surroundings, the McKees have never been entirely self-sufficient in Bassett. Except for some stores in a small shopping center on 3rd Avenue and Don Julian Road--particularly Casio and Sons hardware store--she and her husband have always gone to Whittier for shops and services. “There’s nothing on Valley Boulevard,” she said.

In spite of Bassett’s contradictions, county officials say it is surprisingly unified as a community. When developers threaten to disturb it, residents get together to beat the drum for the status quo, said Carrie Sutkin, a planning deputy in Molina’s office.

They do so within four civic groups--the Bassett Community Council, the North Whittier Neighborhood Watch, the Workman Mill Homeowners Assn. and the Avocado Heights Equestrian Council.

The Community Council meets monthly as a public forum whose members are elected by the community at an annual public meeting. The council was vociferous about the issue of the East Valley Medical Center. Arthur Garcia, 41, then council president, said the hospital would have displaced many low-income families who can’t afford to relocate.

“The Community Council represents the older part of Bassett--namely those that live in the lower-income area,” Garcia said.

Ruth Wash, 46, president of the homeowners association, said her group didn’t even know of the existence of the council until construction of the hospital was proposed, but it joined forces with the Community Council and Neighborhood Watch to counter the threat.

“The informal networks in Bassett are extremely strong, stronger than formal organized groups,” Sutkin said.

The groups won the support of Molina, who has made the protection of low-income homeowners a priority.

The Neighborhood Watch group may be the community’s most broad based, representing neighborhoods across Bassett and even beyond.

Ruben Hernandez, 42, who heads the Neighborhood Watch program, lives on Hansford Avenue, in the southern part of “town” known as “Bassett not Whittier.” Hernandez was blinded by a gunshot wound six years ago. His organization works with deputy sheriffs to eliminate graffiti and reduce crime.

“Until about three years ago,” he said, “we never locked our cars. Then everything started to change. Now we lock our cars and close our garages. There are lots of robberies and the police are not enough.”

Like Hernandez, Wash believes the area is unsafe. She said she doesn’t go out at night.

But some residents such as John Cruz, 47, who repairs car radiators at his shop on Valley Boulevard, think the crime rate is tolerable.

“Everybody has their problems,” he said. “You forget about the bad.”

Alice Sweeney, president of the Avocado Heights Equestrian Council, finds her neighborhood quiet and peaceful. “You can go out at night,” she said.

A retired cosmetologist, Sweeney, 70, keeps three horses in the stables she and her husband, James, built 23 years ago in back of their four-bedroom ranch home on 5th Avenue. Alice Sweeney is fond of showing how Poco Negra del Sentari, a paso fino mare, gives kisses for carrots.

The Equestrian Council is primarily a preservationist group and Sweeney is well-known to county officials. Her first act as president of the council in 1979 was to persuade the county to build an equestrian arena in the Avocado Heights County Park, around the corner on Don Julian Road. Neighborhood horse owners go there to ride the track, which Sweeney waters down herself.

In 1990, together with neighbors, Sweeney succeeded in establishing a 300-acre portion of the Heights as an equestrian district with a minimum required lot size of 10,000 square feet. The district roughly extends south from Proctor Street to San Jose Creek and east from 3rd to 5th avenues.

Last year, Sweeney organized a fight to prevent an energy company from drilling for oil in the neighborhood. Her group won after Molina replaced Pete Schabarum in the 1st Supervisorial District in March, 1991. Then Sweeney organized a local rodeo in Molina’s honor.

“As long as I can fight, I will,” she said. “We’re real proud of our area and want to keep it from developers.”

According to historians, Avocado Heights-Bassett was once part of the 49,000-acre Rancho La Puente, known for its walnut groves. In 1895, Joseph Workman, who owned the area, lost it to O.T. Bassett in a mortgage default. Bassett, a developer, is said to have been in business with Lucky Baldwin. He subdivided most of his holdings, and after his death in 1898, his son, Charles, inherited the rest.

In 1917, Charles Bassett, a real estate agent, sold some of the land to the Temple family, after whom a La Puente street is named.

But other than those fragments, little history remains on record for the decades before World War II.

In 1947, when the McKees bought their estate, the neighborhood was primarily agricultural.

Frances McKee likes to talk about the way things were.

“Cattle would graze in the hills; and in the afternoons you could hear the cowboys shouting at the cattle to bring them down,” McKee said. “I remember when we’d drive out to Workman Mill Road going to Whittier and we’d pass only three or four cars and everybody waved. For a couple of years, on Workman Mill Road, the Pellesiers (a local family) grew zinnias--acres of them.

“The San Jose Creek was a natural stream where you could play with the toads. The Union Pacific tracks ran along the creek. Our kids used to wave to their grandma as she passed by on the train on her yearly visit back to Iowa. Now there are two freeways and the Army Corps of Engineers has channeled the creek.

“As this area developed, we called it the little United Nations because of all the different backgrounds in the area,” she said. “Everyone appreciated everyone else’s talents and backgrounds. I think we may be losing some of that.”

Today, wherever it is and whatever its problems, residents agree that Avocado Heights-Bassett is a pretty good place to live.

“It’s not fancy. It’s not Beverly Hills. But it’s comfortable,” Alice Sweeney said.

Bassett: Undefined Community Its borders are debated, but its people stick together

1991 estimated population Number Percent Hispanic 9,959 68.1 White (not Hispanic) 2,892 19.8 Black (not Hispanic) 104 0.7 Other (not Hispanic)* 1,660 11.4

* Asians, Pacific Islanders, American Indians, Eskimos, Aleutians Population: 14,615 Households: 3,765 Families: 3,127 Housing units: 3,921 Source: U.S. Census Bureau Household Income $100,000 and over: 12.8% $75,000-99,999: 18.6% $50,000-74,999: 22.3% $35,000-49,999: 16.5% under $35,000: 29.8% Per capita income (est): $15,728