Once upon a time… in Los Angeles

Play Ennio Morricone’s dramatic “Spaghetti Western” soundtrack

Michael, a friend of mine with whom I used to play in a short-lived but really fun band, would start one of his funny songs pretending to be serious, with this phrase:

--“this is a true story”…

Well, I will borrow that phrase to start this story, Michael, just this time I promise…

So, here is my (pseudo) serious face. I clear my throat and there it goes…

--This is a true story! Most of us who live in La-la-land take for granted Downtown Los Angeles, but picture this: once upon a time in Los Angeles, there was no skyscrapers, no high rise buildings, actually no buildings at all! No freeways, no cars, not even taco stands... There was just a little pueblo with lots of farmland around and a river that ran through it. And there was about a hundred wineries, small and big, constellating the banks of the nowadays cement-paved Los Angeles River.

It seems so strange, but it’s all true. This business district which is undergoing a “Renaissance”, or rather a total “Makeover”, with more and more nightlife-driven attractions, hotels and restaurants opening, was once very different than what we see nowadays. There were more wineries in Los Angeles than those of Napa and Sonoma combined (at that time). It was a thriving and prosperous business, employing many Italian and French immigrant families. They would ship grapes throughout the US and provide wine for countless families and parishes (you’ve gotta keep the local parish well stocked with sweet wine for the mass!) both locally and across the nation. This reality found its own demise with prohibition. A living “Fossil” survived the era of industrialization Los Angeles underwent (not to mention prohibition…). Although more of a negociant that an “Estate” per se, San Antonio Winery is the living proof things were very different in this part of Southern California about a century ago. It’s still there to remind us of how important and fertile the soil was around the Pueblo de Los Angeles, and how many families of immigrants both European and Mexican used to live off it. The vineyards disappeared, replaced by what is nowadays Chinatown, the railroad system and all the urban area around, encompassing Downtown and Boyle Heights. The remains of the Pueblo, along with the Italian Hall still stand as a mirage, an oasis in the middle of an ocean of urbanization that hosts millions of Angelenos. They show us how fast and how drastically life changes.

There is an impressive research compiled in a book called “Los Angeles’s Little Italy” done by talented and knowledgeable (not to mention “very beautiful”) Italian-American author Mariann Gatto, of which I pride myself in saying I have an autographed copy. She works for the City of Los Angeles as the Curator for several Museums, and I always teas-her by calling her “Big Shot”. A note she wrote to me on the book says: “don’t ever forget your roots”! Are you kidding me? How could I? When she heard I’m from Sardegna she was very excited to let me now that the first Italian immigrant to settle in Los Angeles was “fellow Sardinian” Giovanni Leandri in 1827. It goes without saying that I “corrected” her on the fact that Sardinia wasn’t part of Italy at that time, and Italy itself was not unified until 1861. So Mr. Leandri was really a citizen of the “Kingdom of Sardinia”, soon to become the “Kingdom of Italy”. I’m sure she thought I was an “extremist” at that time but who can blame her? Whoever knows me would agree with her anyways. Anyhow, if you are Italian-American, and you are a true “Angeleno”, you should get a copy of this book. Did you know what is today “Olvera Street” was once called “Calle de las Vignas” (Vineyards’ Street)?

Conclusion:

Next time you find yourself strolling in the streets of downtown Los Angeles on a nice warm afternoon, blessed by Southern California’s weather, imagine that a century ago, on that very spot you would have been walking through rows of vines, or orchards, or a field of tomatoes. You probably would have brought along a basket with cheese and bread, a nice flask of locally-made wine and enjoyed it under the shade of a giant fig tree. But there is one thing that remained virtually the same throughout the years: you still need to be fluent in Spanish if you live in L.A. ;)