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Mariachis hope for a rebuilt Boyle
By Dan Laidman
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE
February 4, 2007
LOS ANGELES - Little more than a mile from the gleaming skyscrapers of downtown Los Angeles, dapper mariachi musicians gather most nights and weekends at Mariachi Plaza, where clients from all over Southern California pick them up to play at weddings, birthdays and quinceańeras.
Many of the musicians live across the street at the Boyle Hotel, a 118-year-old brick building that is home to an estimated 80 mariachis. For years, however, their lifestyle and livelihood have faced an increasingly uncertain future.
Many
rooms in the dilapidated hotel are squalid. And the structure is seen as a
prime target for the gentrification encroaching on the neighborhood as a
new light-rail station is built nearby.
All that could change, however, now that a nonprofit community organization has purchased the building with the intent of maintaining it as a home for mariachis and other low-income residents. The group hopes the action will serve as a model for how other communities can
manage gentrification and preserve unique cultural resources.
"I think the only way community organizations and community groups can really hope to impact gentrification is by controlling more of the actual real estate," said Maria Cabildo, executive director of the East Los Angeles Community Corp.
The nonprofit group has purchased 12 buildings to develop as affordable housing. The Boyle Hotel is the largest one, but it also stands out for its cultural significance.
"Mariachis have become
one of the most prolific symbols of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans," said
Steven Loza, a professor of ethnomusicology at the University of
California Los Angeles and the author of "Barrio Rhythm: Mexican American
Music in Los Angeles."
Maintaining the Boyle Hotel as a residence for the musicians is a particularly meaningful form of cultural preservation, Loza said. "The mariachi musicians that are living there, they want to not only have this plaza as some kind of a dedication site, an homage place, but to keep it working," he said.
The purchase of the hotel has won plaudits from some community members and mariachi music aficionados. However, the new owner's work is only beginning.
"There are many problems with the building," said Joel Ramirez, who has lived at the Boyle Hotel for 25 years.
The East Los Angeles Community Corp. spent about $1.8 million on the hotel and an adjacent site. Now the group is trying to raise $5 million for renovations.
The poor condition of the building has led to tensions and legal skirmishes with previous owners, and many residents remain wary about whether the community corporation will be able to achieve its goals.
One musician, Mario Tovar Jímenez, recently led some visitors to the bathroom he shares with his neighbors. The floor was covered with grime, and when he turned on a faucet at the sink, water burbled up out of the shower drain.
Down the hall in Jímenez's
room, which he shares with an older trumpet player, he pointed to a hole
in the floor that he and his roommate have plugged with a bottle cap to
keep out rats.
Even with all of the problems, the location is too perfect to give up, Jímenez said. "We wake up and go to work," he said, pointing to a window looking out on Mariachi Plaza.
Jímenez, who learned to play mariachi music from his father, travels back and forth between Los Angeles and his home state of Nayarit, Mexico, where his family lives. It's an itinerant lifestyle shared by many of his neighbors.
The migration of mariachis to the United States follows the same general patterns of Mexicans in other lines of work who come north to find jobs, Loza said. The concentration of musicians at the Boyle Hotel reminds him of arrangements in numerous Mexican cities - notably Mexico City's Plaza Garibaldi, where mariachis gather at a central location.
The mariachis
generally play in small groups that often include their neighbors at the
Boyle Hotel, as well as other musicians who live elsewhere. Many residents
said they get along well - often practicing together and sharing stories -
despite competing for jobs.
"We understand that everyone needs to work," said Moses Chávez, a musician from Michoacan who has lived at the hotel for nine years.
On a recent afternoon, Chávez and fellow resident
Rubén Barrera stood in a hallway and discussed some complaints about the
facilities with an organizer from the East Los Angeles Community Corp. All
the while, the two musicians took turns playing songs on Barrera's violin.
The nonprofit organization aims to gut the building's interior and give it a comprehensive upgrade. Meanwhile, the group has been seeking community input as it weighs uses for the building's commercial space - a touchy topic in the surrounding working-class neighborhood, where many residents and business owners fear they will be priced out as the real estate boom in downtown Los Angeles creeps east.
However,
Cabildo, who grew up in the neighborhood, said she wants to attract small
businesses, perhaps with musical themes, to help make the building a
vibrant gathering spot.
"I can't believe this
building that I watched since I was a little girl is a building that our
organization is going to be able to save as a neighborhood resource," she
said. "People should be coming out here to enjoy this plaza on a regular
basis."
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| 530 South Boyle Avenue - Los Angeles, CA 90033 |
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