Amid river renewal and downtown’s rally, the area is perfectly positioned.

When the expedition of Spanish explorerGaspardePortola came upon the confluenceofthe Arroyo Secoand LosAngeles River in 1769 —their first sight of waterafter many days of trekking west across the dustyfloor of the San Gabriel Valley —the scene that greetedthem movedFray Juan Crespi to record that the area wasa“very spacious valley, well grownwith cottonwoods and alders,amongwhichran abeautiful river.” It wasacolonialexpedition, and the same diaries that were full of evocativedescriptions of natural beautyalso contained the cold languageofconquest. The ability of the land to supportalarge settlementwas duly noted, as wasthe presence of the nativepeopleswho welcomed the Spaniards with gifts of shells.

The siteoftheir camp became a place of transit. The San Fernando Road would be built to connect the pueblo of Los Angelestothe mission in the fertile valley to the north. Then came astagelineand then arailroad, whichbrought with it the first real estateboom.

In the 1880sthe area would become the communityofCypress Park, and its streetcar connections and proximity to downtown brought suburbanization to the formerly agricultural land.

The Southern Pacific Railroad built the mightyTaylor Yard along the banksofthe Los AngelesRiver, andthe bulk of L.A.’sfreight train traffic flowed through Cypress Parkfor the betterpartof40years. Changing technology led to the disappearance of 5,000 railroad jobs based in the yards over a period of slowdecline, until it closed for good in the 1980s.

By that time the freewayhad become ascendant in L.A. The 5 and the 110freeways, whichfollow the course of the river and arroyo, respectively,werebuilt to intersect wherethe bodies of watermeet, near what wasPortola’scamp. They carried freight and residents out of the cityand intothe San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys.

Afterexperiencing decades of economic dislocation in the wake of the area’sdeindustrialization, Cypress Park is once againmoving to the center of things.

Efforts to restorethe LosAngeles River through expanded parkland aregathering steam, and a newbridgeconnectingCypress Parktothe Elysian Valley has finally been completed.

Most recently,newsthat Zillow named CypressParkthe hottest neighborhoodinL.A. gotproperty valuesmoving up and to the right, along with fears thatlongtime residents were facingthe potential loss of their homes to rising rents.

Neighborhood highlights Ariver renaissance: With the recentpurchase of akey riverfront section of the old Taylor Yard,L.A. is nowset to restoreamile-long stretchofthe rio to something approaching its former glory.

Arenovator’s dream: Cypress Parkhas awide rangeofhistoric housingstyles, including American Revival cottages and Craftsman and MediterraneanRevival homes.

Downtown-adjacent: Forthose whowant to enjoy the fruits of downtown’srevival while owning a home instead of acondo,Cypress Park’sclose-in location and Gold Line access areaplus.

Neighborhood challenges

Gentrification blues: In Cypress Park, most households make less than $40,000 a year, meaning that residents could be especially vulnerable to a rapidly changing real estate market.

Expert insight “It’s definitely going through a transformation, kind of like what happened with Highland Park years ago,” said Hall & Chambers agent Louis Salazar, who last month sold a Craftsman bungalow in Cypress Park.

Gentrification is having an impact on the area, said Salazar, but it’s also helping to improve it.

“The property values are going higher,” he said. “It’s truly a nice pocket — close to downtown L.A., close to freeways, close to Eagle Rock and Highland Park — it’s very centralized.”

Like other parts of Los Angeles County, a lack of homes for sale is the biggest hurdle for home buyers.

“Inventory, always inventory,” he said.

Market snapshot In the 90065 ZIP Code, based on 11 sales, the median sales price for single-family homes in February was $845,000, according to CoreLogic. That was a 24.8% increase in price over the same month the previous year.

Report card Within the boundaries of Cypress Park are Aragon Avenue Elementary, Loreto Street Elementary and Florence Nightingale Middle, which had scores of 757, 717 and 756, respectively, out of 1,000 in the 2013 Academic Performance Index.

Nearby schools include Hillside Elementary, which had a score of 721, and Glassell Park Elementary, which scored 742. Alliance College- Ready Middle Academy No.5 had ascore of 768.

hotproperty@latimes.com