Olvera Street, commonly known by its Spanish names Placita Olvera and Calle Olvera, is a historic pedestrian street in El Pueblo de Los Ángeles, the historic center of Los Angeles, California, United States. The street is located off of the Plaza de Los Ángeles, the oldest plaza in California, which served as the center of the city life through the Spanish and Mexican eras into the early American era, following the Conquest of California.

Restaurants, vendors, and public establishments line the street. Calle Olvera attracted almost two million visitors per year.Marshall, Colin (November 5, 2013) "A Los Angeles Primer: Olvera Street" KCET Departures blog The street is home to numerous of the oldest buildings in Los Angeles, include the Ávila Adobe, the oldest standing residence in Los Angeles.

Geography

Olvera Street is in the northeast of modern-day Downtown Los Angeles, between Main and Alameda streets, running north from the Los Angeles Plaza to Cesar Chavez Avenue. It is part of El Pueblo de Los Ángeles Historical Monument, the area immediately around the Plaza. This is west of Union Station and southeast of Chinatown. Though Los Angeles was founded in 1781, this Plaza dates to the 1820s, and is approximately a block east and south of the original 18th-century Plaza.

History The street has variously been known as Placita Olvera, Calle de los Vignes, Vine Street, and Wine Street.

Early days Los Angeles was founded in 1781 by Spanish pobladores (settlers), on a site southeast of today's Olvera Street near the Los Angeles River. They consisted of 11 families—44 men, women, and children — and were accompanied by a few Spanish soldiers. They had come from nearby Mission San Gabriel Arcángel to establish a secular pueblo on the banks of the Porciúncula River at the Indian village of Yaanga. Of the 44 original pobladores [colonists] who founded Los Angeles, only two were white, […] Of the other 42, 26 had some degree of African ancestry and 16 were Indians or mestizos [people of mixed Spanish and Indian blood]. — William M. Mason, 1975 William Mason, Op-Ed, Los Angeles Times, September 4, 1975, cited in Mason, William M. Los Angeles Under the Spanish Flag: Spain's New World The new town was named El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora Reina de los Ángeles. Priests from San Gabriel established an asistencia (a sub-mission), the Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles Asistencia, to tend to their religious needs. The pueblo eventually built its own parish church, known today as the "Old Plaza Church." The original 18th-century plaza was approximately a block north and west of the present one. Unpredictable flooding forced the settlers to abandon the original site and move to higher ground in the early 1800s, with the current Plaza at the center of the newly moved pueblo.

Spanish colonial rule lasted until Mexican independence in 1821. This period saw Los Angeles's first streets and adobe buildings. During Mexican rule, which lasted twenty-six years, the Plaza was the heart of a vibrant ethnic Californio community life in Los Angeles and was the center of an economy based upon farming in the former flood plain, supplemented with cattle ranching.

The Pelanconi House was, in the second half of the 19th century, a winery producing wine from the grapes that grew there, and to this day still do. The DNA matches that of grapes at Mission San Gabriel, established in 1771.

After the Mexican War, the Plaza remained the center of town. A small alley branching off of the Plaza, Wine Street, had its name changed by City Council ordinance in 1877 to Olvera Street to honor Agustin Olvera, the first Superior Court Judge of Los Angeles County, who owned a no-longer-existing adobe house nearby. In the 1880s, the little town grew rapidly due to the influx of settlers from Southern States. These joined the Spaniards and earlier English-speaking settlers who had become voting citizens before 1846.

As the town expanded, the original area of settlement came to be neglected, and served as a neighborhood for new immigrants, especially Mexicans and Sicilians. It included a Chinese community, which eventually relocated to the present nearby Chinatown to make way for the construction of Union Station. During the 1920s, the pace of Mexican immigration increased rapidly. California was the primary destination, with Los Angeles being a common choice. As a part of a movement to preserve what was viewed as California's "authentic" heritage, Christine Sterling began a public campaign to renovate the Francisco Avila Adobe, which evolved into a campaign to remake Olvera street as a modern Mexican-style market place.

Preservation and restoration

Sterling's efforts to rescue the area began in 1926, when she learned of a plan to demolish the Avila Adobe, the oldest existing home in the city. After raising the issue with the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, Sterling approached Harry Chandler, the publisher of the Los Angeles Times, with a plan to create a Mexican marketplace and cultural center in the Plaza. Chandler was intrigued by the idea of packaging the Plaza area that acknowledged the Mexican heritage of the city while presenting a romanticized ersatz version, an ethnic theme park. He helped by providing extensive publicity and supporting the development plan in The Times.

By 1928, due to a lack of financial support for implementing her ideas, the project appeared to be doomed. In late November, Sterling found a Los Angeles City Health Department Notice of Condemnation posted in front of the Avila Adobe. In response, she posted her own hand-painted sign condemning the shortsightedness of city bureaucrats in failing to preserve an important historic site. Her act helped attract additional public interest in preserving the old adobe. The Los Angeles City Council finally reversed its original order of condemnation. Support for restoring the adobe rushed in from throughout the city. Building materials came from several local companies, including Blue Diamond Cement and the Simmons Brick Company, one of the largest employers of Mexicans in the Los Angeles area. Los Angeles Police Chief James Davis provided a crew of prison inmates to do hard labor on the project. Sterling oversaw the construction project, and an excerpt from her diary vividly captures her spirit and sense of desperation for financial support during the construction: "One of the prisoners is a good carpenter, another an electrician. Each night I pray they will arrest a bricklayer and a plumber."

In spite of ample supplies and forced volunteers, the project lacked solid financial backing until Chandler came forward with capital for the project through funds collected at $1,000-a-plate luncheons with selected businessmen. Chandler established and headed the Plaza de Los Angeles Corporation, a for-profit venture which became the financial basis for the restoration of Plaza-Olvera. The street was closed to automotive traffic in 1929.

On Easter Sunday 1930, Sterling's romantic revival came to pass with the opening of Paseo de Los Angeles (which later became popularly known by its official street name Olvera Street). Touted as "A Mexican Street of Yesterday in a City of Today", Olvera Street was an instant success as a tourist site. La Opinión, a leading Spanish-language daily, praised the project as "una calleja que recuerda al México viejo" (a street which recalls old Mexico).

Events The Olvera Street Merchants Association Foundation (OSMAF) has organized a wide range of free year round programming of activities and traditional events for over 80 years including: Three Kings Celebrations, Blessing of the Animals, Muertos Artwalk, Dia de los Muertos, and Las Posadas.

Blessing of the Animals event The Blessing of the Animals at Olvera Street, an event dating to 1930, is held every Sábado de Gloria (Holy Saturday, the Saturday before Easter). The event was originally held in conjunction with the Feast Day of Saint Anthony of the Desert, but it was changed to take advantage of better weather. The original procession has grown into an all-day event with vendors, performers, and a procession where participants bring their animals to be blessedRondeau, Ginette Calendar Olvera Street Website Accessed 15 November 2014 by religious authorities and others.

The event is held near the Biscailuz Building and is represented by a mural on its exterior, The Blessing of the Animals, by Leo Politi. The event is also the subject of a book by the same name.

Dia de los Muertos In celebration of Dia de los Muertos, the Olvera Street Merchants Association Foundation organizes a 9-day festival with a nightly procession, community alters, and entertainment. The event incorporates pre-Columbian, Aztec, Maya, and Catholic rituals surrounding death.

Las Posadas Since 1930, Las Posadas has been celebrated in Olvera Street. The 9-day festival reenacts the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem. Each night, the event starts with the breaking of the children's piñata. he procession begins at Avila Adobe, where visitors follow Mary, Joseph, shepherds, and musicians while singing traditional songs in Spanish and English. The procession makes a stop at an Olvera Street shop where Mary and Joseph ask for shelter and ends at Avila Adobe.

Landmarks

Avila Adobe

The Avila Adobe at 10 Olvera Street was built in 1818 and is the oldest surviving residence in Los Angeles. It was built by Francisco Ávila, a wealthy cattle rancher. Its adobe walls are 2½ to thick. U. S. Navy Commodore Robert Stockton took it over as his temporary headquarters when the United States first occupied the city in 1846. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the adobe is also designated as California State Landmark No. 145. It was restored starting 1926 through efforts by Christine Sterling, and now stands as a museum.

Sepulveda House

The Sepulveda House at 12 Olvera Street is a historic residence built in 1887 by Señora Eloisa Martinez de Sepulveda in the Eastlake architectural style. The original structure included two commercial businesses and three residences. It has since then become a preserved museum, and is cited by its website as a representation of the "blending of Mexican and Anglo culture".

Eloisa Martínez de Sepúlveda was born in the state of Sonora in Mexico. She lived there until 1844 when her parents, Francisca Gallardo and Estaquio Martinez, moved to Alta California at the urging of Francisca’s brother, bringing the 11-year-old Eloisa and her older brother Luis, with them to Los Angeles. In 1847, Señora Francisca Gallardo received from the ayuntamiento (Common Council) a plot of land between Bath and Wine street (renamed Olvera Street in 1877) on which she constructed an adobe residence. Señora Gallardo’s adobe home at number 12 Bath Street was later enlarged to include by 1870 a second story and hipped roof. When Eloisa married Joaquin Sepulveda at the age of 23, she brought with her a dowry of land and cattle. Joaquin was an undistinguished member of an illustrious Southern California family. The marriage suffered from misfortune as the couple’s only child died in infancy and Joaquin himself died in 1880 leaving no property. Señora Gallardo gave her property to her widowed daughter, Eloisa Martinez de Sepulveda, in 1881. On lands owned by her mother, Eloisa was able to finance the construction of a commercial building which provided her with a steady income. This was the Sepulveda Block, built in 1887.