Los Angeles Plaza
It is the central point of the Los Angeles Plaza Historic District.
[1] It is located just north of the original village site of Yaanga, which was used as a reference point in the construction of the plaza.
The old plaza of El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora, La Reina de Los Angeles (the town of our Lady, the Queen of the Angels) as decreed by Gov.
Around three sides of the old plaza clustered the mud-daubed huts of the pioneers of Los Angeles, and around the embryo town, a few years later, was built an adobe wall—not so much perhaps for protection from foreign invasion as from domestic intrusion.
From the said northeast corner of these streets draw a line land boundaries were of rare occurrence and title deeds when given were loosely drawn.
[3] In 1814, when the foundation of the La Iglesia de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles was laid, it, too, fronted on the old plaza; but the great flood of 1815 changed the Los Angeles River’s channel from the eastern side of the valley to the western and the waters came up to the foundations.
There were evidently some buildings on the designated area, for old records note that the pueblo authorities, in 1825, ordered a house torn down that stood on the plaza.
[1] Previous to 1818, the trend of the pueblo’s growth had been to the northward, but after the location of a site for the new church had been determined the movement to the southward began.
June 21, 1821, Jose Antonio Carrillo, one of the aristocrats of the ancient pueblo regime, petitioned the Comisionado for a house lot near the “new temple which is being built for the benefit of our holy religion.” A lot 40x60 varas (the present site of the Pico House) was granted him.
Plaza fronts became the fashion with the pueblo aristocracy; and in course of time the homes of the Picos, the Carrillos, the Sepulvedas, the Olveras, the Lugos, and the Abilas were clustered around the square.
In 1838, the city authorities ordered Santiago Rubio's house demolished “to maintain the Plaza line.” When the vacant lots with Plaza fronts were all built upon, the irregular shape of what was originally intended to be a square became more noticeable.
Commissioners were appointed and they labored faithfully to evolve plans to remedy “certain imperfections which have been allowed to creep into the form of the Plaza through carelessness; and to add to the beauty of the town by embellishing the Plaza.” But they encountered opposition to their efforts.
[1] Pedro Cabrera's house lot fell within the line of a street that it was proposed to open out to the westward from the Plaza.
Then the Commissioners offered him another lot and for damages the labor of the chain gang for a certain number of days.
By reducing its dimensions and by giving the lot owners who had built back the land between them and the new building line the Ayuntamiento succeeded in partially squaring the Plaza.
[1] During the time of Spanish and Mexican domination in California, the Plaza was a treeless common; its surface pawed into ridges or trodden into dust by the hoofs of the numerous mustangs tethered on it or ridden over it.
But in those days the city exchequer was in a chronic state of collapse and the improvements made were not kept up.
[4] One of the conditions of that lease was the building within a year at a cost not to exceed US$1,000 of an ornamental spring fountain on the Plaza.
Juan Bernard and Patrick McFadden, who had acquired possession of the Dryden franchise and water works, disposed of their system and the old brick reservoir on the Plaza came into the possession of the City Water Company, the successors of Griffin, Beaudry, et al. Three years passed, and still the unsightly debris of the old reservoir disfigured the center of the square.
At a meeting of the council, December 2, 1870, Judge Brunson, attorney of the City Water Company, submitted propositions as a settlement of what he styled “the much vexed question of the reservoir and Plaza improvements.
The council, frightened at the prospect of a lawsuit and fearful of losing the Plaza, hastened to compromise.
The fence was built, the walks were laid, and the ornamental fountain, too, was erected by the company.
The Los Angeles Plaza was designated a California Historic Landmark (No.156) on Jan. 11, 1935.
The Marker on the site reads:[6] Below is a map of the Plaza area with streets and monuments marked as they appeared in the 1880s.
850 Institución Caritativa/ Orphan Asylum 1852–91[9]/ Lumber yard & mill p1906/ now Mozaic Apts
501–5 House of Jesús Domínguez 1888–pres Vickrey-Brunswig Bldg p1955 County offices 2011–pres La Plaza de Cultura y Artes
411–427 pre-1890 numbering 291–305 [12]1853 Hayes adobe, Jail [8] p1870s Felix Signoret Bldg [12]p1853 Montgomery House gambling saloon [10]p1888 Hotel Oxford [13][14] hotel p1894, p1906 Hoffman House now parking lot
