Olvera Street

After the search for the Norwalk Bee we headed out to LA to the Ronald Reagan Building for some Apostilling. By the time we were finished it was getting into peak traffic hours, so we opted to spend the rest of the afternoon at the historic Olvera Street in downtown LA. Kellee has always wanted to go and since we were so close it seemed like a great time to make our way over there. After we got there, we were a little disappointed that we didn’t opt for the two hour traffic jam.

I had been to Olvera street about a year before, walking through with some friends as we toured the city. I wasn’t impressed then, but thought that we had just gone on a bad day. It must have been their equivalent to a farmer’s market; letting all the vendors put out their products. However, to my chagrin this was not a one-time event or a weekly happening, this is Olvera Street. The place looked like a swap meet or as some of my Hispanic co-workers called it "little TJ". This is a little surprising to me since this is the place where they have so many marches and speaking engagements. Why wouldn’t LA make this street the pride of LA’s Hispanic community? Why wouldn’t you put in better eateries, art galleries, stores that sell current Hispanic fashion and crafts? Instead we get rows and rows of easy-ups with 98cent store trinkets. In my opinion, San Diego’s old town is a much better time with their many scrumptious Mexican restaurants and old style feel.

This is not to say that everything is bad about this historic area of the city. You can tour the first house in LA for free, it has an excellent court yard where musicians can often be heard, and some of the places to eat are probably pretty good (at least they smelled that way) just not the bland one we went to that day.

Overall though, I wish we would have by passed this street and moved on to Chinatown.