No Bull: The Ring Was Here!
Next time you visit L.A.’s Chinatown, stroll to the northwest corner of College and Hill, close your eyes, open your mind, and listen ever so carefully. If you’re psychic enough, you just might hear shouts of “Ole!” echoing from the past.
That’s because within a few yards of here, on the grounds of the Pacific Alliance Medical Center, along what once was called Calle del Toro (Street of the Bull), brave matadors stared down angry, charging bovines.
Yes, this was the site of the town bullring, built circa 1849.
During the Spanish-Mexican Period, animal contests were a staple of Californio life, with bullfights and bear baiting making for popular events at mission and town fiestas. In fact, Los Angeles’ Ocampo Plaza, a small square in front of the Francisco Ocampo Adobe near Aliso St., was infamous for its cockfights. Historians believe that before the Calle del Toro arena was completed, bullfights were similarly held at a makeshift site closer to Olvera St. and the Plaza.
After the 1850s, the neighborhood surrounding Calle del Toro decayed into the unfortunately named “Sonoratown” barrio, which in turn morphed into New Chinatown in the 1930s.
Some writers have identified Calle del Toro with present-day N. Hill Street. However, La Nopalera author Howard Metcalfe, a local history expert familiar with early Pueblo maps, believes the street is now Yale, which flanks the Pacific Alliance’s western side. He is convinced that a large depression that can still be observed in the parking lot between Hill and Yale is the last vestige of the arena itself.
Whether any beasts were actually killed in the ring is also the subject of historical debate. It’s possible Los Angeles bullfighters practiced the less bloody, “Portuguese” form of the sport in which the animal is goaded, tagged, but spared. Whatever the case, after California joined the Union, contests that deliberately harmed animals were outlawed.
No doubt, bulls, bears and roosters throughout the state breathed a sigh of relief.
531 W. College St.,
Chinatown, Los Angeles,
Between N. Hill and Yale Streets.
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Just acquired an old stereograph of Ocampo Plaza.
[...] No Bull, The Ring Was Here — Uncovering a buried piece of L.A.’s Spanish-Mexican heritage in modern-day Chinatown — a post that will have you shouting Olé! [...]