Dateline>City of Angels

Perhaps no site is more historically and culturally significant to Los Angeles than the El Pueblo Monument. As such, you’d expect the city to treat it as the crown jewel of Angeleno landmarks. Instead, it seldom seems to win any more respect than the common chucherias being hocked up and down Olvera Street.

Want proof? Witness this week’s Downtown News piece by city editor Richard Guzman which reports that El Pueblo appears yet again to be falling prey to our civic leaders’ shortsightedness.

For decades the Plaza area — which attracts an estimated 2 million visitors annually — has remained mired in Christine Sterling’s 1930s romantic fantasy of a Mexican bazaar filled with the song and dance of happy campesinos and artisans. Even today, the place screams old-style tourist trap while portraying early L.A.’s flavor about as accurately as Disneyland presents Main Street USA…

Not that there haven’t been noteworthy attempts to correct the picture. As recently as the 1990s, monument officials made several major strides toward a more authentic depiction of life in the Old Pueblo, including its multi-cultural roots. These initiatives, which included the opening of a Chinese-American museum near the old firehouse, often faced strong opposition from Olvera Street merchants (who can’t seem to trade the old formula for the newer sort of “Historic Old Town” visitor experiences proving successful in cities like San Diego).

Now, it appears all that hard-fought progress is in danger. With the city tightening its financial belt, museum hours have been slashed and much of the staff given their pink slips. But this is more than a budgetary crisis. Read between the lines of Guzman’s story and you can’t help but see words like “politics,” “mismanagement” and maybe even “incompetence” flowing from City Hall on down the old Zanja Madre to the puestos.

Unfortunately, you also can’t escape the nagging feeling that, as the Mayor and Council address this crisis, Angeleno taxpayers and visitors will undoubtedly end up shafted once again even as a valuable historical landmark remains shortchanged.