The founding block survived all of it. El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historical Monument still holds the Old Plaza, the Plaza Church that Angelenos call La Placita, and the Avila Adobe of 1818 — the oldest standing house in the city. Olvera Street, the lane beside it, was a service alley headed for demolition until a preservation campaign reopened it in 1930 as a Mexican marketplace; it has been one ever since. A short walk away, Little Tokyo, Chinatown, and Olvera Street sit within a few blocks of one another, which is about as honest a summary of the city as any map can give.
The pobladores did not arrive on empty land. The Tongva people had lived in the basin for centuries, and the village of Yaanga stood near the chosen site; the pueblo was laid out on ground that was already home. Under the Spanish governor Felipe de Neve, the eleven founding families built their town beside the Porciúncula — the Los Angeles River — raising crops to supply the nearby presidios and missions, and drawing water through an open ditch, the Zanja Madre, that served the town for a century. A flood washed the first riverside settlement away around 1815, and the town was rebuilt a little higher, at the Old Plaza that anchors El Pueblo to this day.
Why People Visit Los Angeles
Travelers come for the climate, the coast, and the culture, but the quietest surprise is the history: a two-hundred-and-forty-year-old pueblo tucked into the middle of a modern metropolis. History and everyday life sit side by side here in a way few American cities can match, and the founding block asks nothing but a walk.
