Sightseeing In Los Angeles – Olvera Street

It’s true of many of us (ourselves included) that we’ll visit another city and see all of the “tourist” sites in a week or a weekend, but we’ll live in a big city for thirty or forty years and still not see half of them. There’s always time — we’ll get around to it.

Then friends or relatives come to town and they want to see these tourist spots and landmarks, so then we go see them with them.

So it was, with the Long-Suffering Sister-In-Law in town that we ended up on the subway to downtown Los Angeles to visit Olvera Street. (Yes, Los Angeles actually has a subway and mass transit, but that’s a rant for another day.)

It was a gorgeous 81F and a sky that went on forever. We had the convertible to drive to North Hollywood, then got on the subway. That was a first for the Long-Suffering Wife as well as her sister. We took the Red Line from end to end, a most pleasant and interesting ride to Union Station.

Union Station is a landmark and a movie star in its own right. It’s been used as a location in dozens of films, including “Blade Runner”, “Silver Streak”, “Pearl Harbor”, “Gable & Lombard”, “The Hustler”, “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid”, “The Dark Knight Rises”, “Under The Rainbow”, “The Way We Were”, and of course, 1950’s “Union Station”. Not to mention countless commercials and television shows. If you want noir and/or 1930’s Art Deco, you film at Union Station.

When you first come up from the subways toward the main station, you see this wonderful glass dome over your head.

You can see why it gets used for all of that filming!

Take the train into LA just to see this place!

Directly across the street from Union Station is Olvera Street and the El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historic Monument. This is the site where Los Angeles was founded in 1781. A pueblo was started with forty-four people in eleven families. This exact location was where the church, the center of activity in the pueblo, was built.

Olvera Street itself is a bustling, touristy street (an alley, actually, only about two blocks long) with restaurants and open air shops galore. This is where the annual “Blessing Of The Animals” takes place — the Los Angeles Cathedral is only three blocks away. Most of the buildings on Olvera Street actually date from the 1850’s, but they include the oldest standing building in the city. The shops are a great place to get souvenirs representing Los Angeles’ Spanish and Mexican heritage. In particular we saw a lot of items related to Dia de Muertos, Day of the Dead.

All in all, a most enjoyable day, sightseeing in our own city. Subway, Union Station, Olvera Street! See them on your next visit to Los Angeles!