Pomona East, Pomona, CA

Pomona East runs along the eastern side of Pomona toward the Claremont line, and its identity comes from Holt Avenue and Indian Hill Boulevard, its two busy corridors. Between them are blocks of single-family homes and small apartment buildings, plus some of the most varied eating in the city. Holt Avenue is the food street. Mariscos Isla del Pacifico serves Mexican seafood platters and cocteles, Saigon Village and Pho SJ handle Vietnamese soups, and Got Pupusas makes Salvadoran pupusas on the same stretch. On Indian Hill Boulevard, Pho Ha is the neighborhood pho stop, and Tierra Mia Coffee runs a drive-thru for Latin American style coffee drinks. Housing is mostly older single-family homes, many single-story, with some duplexes and small apartment buildings along the main roads. Lots are modest, and the blocks near Mission Boulevard and Holt Avenue are denser than those to the north and south. Garfield Park and Montvue Park on Cordova Street are the neighborhood's green spaces, the kind of small parks where a pickup soccer game forms most evenings in summer. Neither is large, so for longer runs or hikes people drive north to the foothills. Errands are easy. Aldi on Indian Hill Boulevard, Brothers Market on East Mission and Hoa Binh cover groceries, and In-N-Out and a string of taquerias fill the Indian Hill strip. Claremont Village is a short drive east for a different pace, and downtown, with Metrolink and A Line trains, is a few minutes west. Holt Avenue is the tradeoff. It is a busy commercial road with heavy traffic, and the homes nearest it hear it. But on any evening, the lines at the taquerias and pho shops along Holt say more about Pomona East than any map.