CHAPTER 4:  Living in the Center of Los Angeles
 by Mimi Lozano

With the emotionally packed but vague memories of a five-year-old, I was determined to identify exactly where we lived when we moved from our little rented house, behind the theater and restaurant, to another rented house.

I knew it was in Los Angeles, someplace and that my Chapa cousins lived close by.  I started trying to figure out where we lived by using the direction and path from Angels’ Flight in walking home weekly from the Grand Central Market. We walked everywhere.

Grand Central opened in 1917.  It is still a very popular market, for locals and tourists, as well.   It was and is crowded with people and rich scents.  I remember, especially the meat items, such as the crisply beef-heads with eyes, still in their sockets, and the brains, tripe, and tongues not often found at other markets.  Plus, the size of the market was huge, in every direction. Private vendors calling out to shoppers, trying to attract them to their products.      

MYou could take Angels Flight, walk through the tunnel, or walk the stairs.

Circa 1940s

Once on the other side of the mountain, we passed many tall buildings, with many floors,  government buildings, office buildings. We passed a park with old men sitting, talking, playing board games.  By what every route,  we knew we were almost home when we passed a great big, flat rectangular building on the left which sat on a hill all by itself.   

By talking to my Valdez cousin and Villarreal cousin about where they went to school, I was able to figure out where I went to school, and the area where we all lived.  They both attended our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic School.  The only other school in that area was the public Castelar Street Elementary school, located at 840 Yale. 

Finding Castelar Elementary on the map, answered my question about the mysterious big flat rectangular building on a hill over-looking all the smaller hills on which most of the surrounding houses were built. 

View of Fort Moore Hill, showing the home (upper center) of Mary Hollister Banning, formerly a beer hall built by Jacob Philippi, ca. 1887 | Security Pacific National Bank Collection, courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library

The hill and occupancy, buildings and uses, purpose and hands changed a few times.  At one point the structure and site on Hill Street served as a beer garden, and even a private home. 

The fact is we lived a very short distance from what had been Fort Hill when the American forces first took possession of Los Angeles on August 13, 1846.* The name of Fort Hill was changed to Fort Moore Hill, named after Capt. Benjamin D Moore, 1st Dragoons, one of 22 Americans killed in the Battle of San Pasqual in San Diego County December 6, 1846.
   

  
This is a view from Fort Moore Hill looking down on what was to be the 
down-town area of Los Angeles. 

The hills were flattened, and the down-town area was built in its place. The photo above is where the Los Angeles Public Library now sits.

We shopped at the Grand Central Market on Broadway, and then walked up to Hill Street.  We continued walking on the same busy street, did not veer off as we passed the Fort on Hill Street,  I concluded we lived on Hill Street, among hills. 

The empty lot next to the house was a great field for exploring.  Mom could see us from the kitchen window.  A pathway was worn through the middle of the field as a shortcut.  Mom said she soon observed that a rooster like to attack travelers on that shortcut, slyly walking behind and then attacking.  At first Mom told us not to walk in the field, but it was a shortcut to a candy store and when we had a penny or two we were in a hurry, and we frequently risked it, keeping an eye out for the fighting rooster. 

Rather than trusting our safety to obedience, Mom decided to teach the rooster a lesson.   With a big board in hand, one day, she quietly walked a short distance behind us.   As soon as the rooster made his move, she rushed forward, and with and one fling that rooster was in the air and . . . . Never came back.

Another adventure my sister and I played. We would climb into a car tire.  We were small enough to do that.  The other person would roll the tire along.  In the front of the house where it was flat it was not a safety issue as long as we kept our heads inside the, and anticipated falling to one side or the other.

However, that challenge met, we soon decided to roll down the hill, next to the empty lot.  The pusher in that case would stand at the bottom of the hill and catch the wheel before rolled into the very busy street. 

I don’t really know for how many times we did it.  I just remember the sudden realization of the danger in trying to stop my sister, rolling down the hill in the tire, when the swish of a car whiz by,  feeling the wind, behind my back.   I caught her with great difficulty, the force of her rolling into me almost knocking both of us into the Street.

The house itself was large.   There was even a time period when one of the rooms was rented out to a young couple.  The room they rented was what I think was called at that time, the sitting room.  The doors were different, large, they slid from side to side. 

The front of the house had cement steps leading up to the porch, it was level to the street.  The back of the house had wooden stairs going down to the yard.  A side door opened to a large cellar.  The cellar was the foundation of part of the house, with cemented walls, but the room was not totally closed in. You could see the earth under much of the house. 

The cellar was used.   Dad made and bottled beer in the cellar.  I remember the smell of the fumes coming up through the cracks in the floor.  I remember too dad putting the caps on the bottles, sealing the beer with a gadget that crimped the flat caps into a sealing cap. It looked like magic to me.   

* Prohibition was a period of nearly 14 years of U.S. history (1920 to 1933) the manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquor was illegal.

This was the time of the car rumble seat.  Dad drove a coupe, with a bumper seat, 
and Sunday we took Sunday drives. My sister Tania and I in the rumble seat.
So much fun, the wind, and waving to other cars.

Dad was a tailor and had a dry cleaning store. It was 1938 and the depression was just about over.  Even to a child things seemed very peaceful.  We seem to be five or 10 minutes away from everything:  We shopped at Grand Central market. Took Angels flight to get home.  Sometimes when we were downtown during lunch we would eat at the Clifton Cafeteria, on Broadway.  

Clifton's Cafeteria, once part of a chain eight Clifton's restaurants, is the oldest surviving cafeteria style eatery in Los Angeles. and the largest public cafeteria in the world. Founded in 1931 by Clifford Clinton, the name was created by combining "Clifford" and "Clinton" to produce "Clifton's".   Besides the wide selection of food, what I remembered most, was the outdoor, forest atmosphere and a bubbly little stream of water, circulating, running all around the walls.  It was magical. 

On many occasions we visited Olvera Street.  Two of my Tias, Estella and Dora were entertainers, dancers there.  

Of all our visits to Olvera Street, one incident stands out in my mind.  It was actually my father entertaining us.  We stopped to watch a marimba player.  Fascinated with his skill we stood watching until he stopped to take a break.  When the musician walked away, my dad stepped forward, picked up the marimba mallets, and started playing, and played it beautifully. 

He did not look like an amateur.  He played like a professional.   I was surprised, shocked, stunned, and awed.  I had never seen my Dad play the marimba, and there he was, as natural as could be. 

Dad plays the piano by ear. I could sing a song to him and he would play it.  I knew he also played the guitar and the ukulele.  Mom said all self-taught, but here he was playing the marimba without a marimba to practice on.  How did he do it?  One of his many talents
 
   [On the left, the street portion named Cesar Chavez, was a section of  Sunset Boulevard.]

MM

Interior of the Million Dollar Theatre

The Million Dollar Theatre was opened by Sid Gruaman in 1918. It was Los Angeles first
" grand movie palace".  My Aunt Alicia Reynoso Chapa in her mid 90s said we walked everywhere and the Million Dollar Theatre was the closest to the Bunker Hill neighborhood. 
It is located at 307 S. Broadway. The other popular theater was the Orpheum. The Orpheum was located at 842 S. Broadway. Most movie theaters included life entertainment with a their movie selections. The Orpheum was the leader in bringing in world famous vaudeville performers.

Interior of the Orpheum

The war in Europe was scary, but life in Los Angeles was good for a 5 year old child in 1938. 

*August 13, 1846, US naval forces under Commodore Robert F Stockton arrived at Los Angeles and raise the American flag without opposition.” Wikipedia   That is not to imply that the Californios did not attempt to retake Los Angeles, they regrouped on Fort Hill, but were greatly outnumbered

YOU WILL SOON AS IS HIS WILL OR SO YOU and shehttps://www.kcet.org/history-society/the-many-lives-of-fort-moore-hill-the-shifting-
and-shrinking-of-a-los-angeles-icon

The Lost Hills of Downtown Los Angeles
https://www.kcet.org/shows/lost-la/the-lost-hills-of-downtown-los-angeles