Anyone out and about on this particular Saturday in downtown Los Angeles could feel every one of the 100 sweltering degrees outside, but that nonetheless stopped very few from enjoying their weekend. Blue shirts, jerseys and baseball caps of the Los Angeles Dodgers were on full display just hours before the first pitch of the National League Division Series against the New York Mets.
Dodger blue, though, was not the sole focus or even purpose for the crowded, narrow Olvera Street, an outdoors Mexican marketplace on Alameda Street in downtown Los Angeles, right near Dodger Stadium. Many fans had in fact stopped to kill time before the game, but Olvera Street is far from a pit stop.
Walk around Olvera Street and you'll find shops, vendors and restaurants that hone the indigenous culture of Los Angeles. It's home to the very first house ever built in Los Angeles, is branded as the birthplace of Los Angeles, and remains the oldest preservation of such. This area has overseen and survived Spanish colonization and missionaries, as well as the Mexican War, according to the street's website.
It's hard to realize how much history has taken place on Olvera Street amidst the busy crowds, narrow sidewalk and abundance of music. The marketplace is free to the public and open seven days a week. Olvera remains home to the oldest memories of the original Los Angeles and some of the vendors around today are descendants from indigenous Angelenos. Along with vendors who come from a family line of Olvera Street dwellers, there are additionally plenty of folks who have been coming here since they were just young children.
A perfect example of this is Luisa, a middle-aged woman who has been coming back ever since her earliest days of childhood. On this particular day, though, she's not alone. She brought family and friends, none of whom had ever been to Olvera Street. They walked around for a while, enjoying the vendors and sites, as well as grabbing a delicious bite to eat. Locals like Luisa, who have stayed in the area, continue to come back, but even tourists have been drawn back to the area - tourists like Bobby Reid from New Mexico.
Tourists may find a recommendation on Yelp or a recommendation from a friend to stumble upon Olvera Street, but Reid has come back to Olvera for the second time as a part of a cruise, the same trip he did in 2013.
"We came on a train last week. Then took public transit over to the LA Harbor and got on a cruise ship for seven days. Went from LA to San Francisco, then to Santa Barbara for a day," said Reid. "Then down to Ensenada and then back up to San Diego, where we did Sea World. Got back on the ship and it took them all night to get the ship from San Diego to LA."
Same cruise, same pit stop on Olvera Street before the voyage back to New Mexico. For Reid this may be more of a fun, touristy pit stop than say a symbol of childhood nostalgia and culture to someone like Luisa, but their stories juxtaposed illustrate not only why Olvera Street is such a successful tourist destination, but also speaks volumes to its diversity as well.
Even amidst different purposes for coming to Olvera Street, these two people from very different worlds found some common ground in admiration for the food, shops, and especially the original house of Los Angeles.
"We like the museum," said Reid. They like the museum, and in their own separate ways, Reid and his wife, just like Luisa, will be back again.
"We'll probably go to Seattle. Take a cruise out of Seattle to Alaska. We'd done that before because our son got married and we've got a new daughter-in-law who's going to take them with us," said Reid. From Seattle to Alaska and then back to LA - back to Olvera Street.
Luisa and Bobby tell stories that don't even touch the countless strangers who come to Olvera every week for the first, third, or even hundredth time. There's no right reason to come here, as long as it makes an impact, even if that's for a day, though clearly for others it's for a lifetime. It's the origin of Angeleno and Mexican culture on the West Coast and continues to flourish from local and foreign tourism.