The hook
The oldest corner of Los Angeles is a short brick market street off the original plaza, anchored by an adobe house built in 1818 that's still standing.
01Why it's worth it
El Pueblo de Los Ángeles is where the city began, around a plaza that was the center of town through the Spanish and Mexican eras. The oldest surviving building in Los Angeles sits right here: the Ávila Adobe, put up in 1818 by a ranchero who'd been the town's mayor, its walls three feet of packed earth. By the 1920s the whole district was falling into ruin and nearly demolished, until a woman named Christine Sterling fought to save the adobe and reinvented the alley beside it as a Mexican marketplace, which opened in 1930 and still runs today: a narrow lane of stalls, taquitos, folk crafts, and mariachi, busy with two million visitors a year. It's touristy, no question, but it's also genuinely old and genuinely alive, the actual root of the city.
02How to experience it
It's across from Union Station downtown, about six hours from the Bay, easy to reach by Metro. Walk the market street, step into the free Ávila Adobe, and take in the old plaza and church around it. Go on a weekday morning to beat the crowds, or during a Mexican holiday when the plaza fills with music and dancers. It pairs with Union Station and Chinatown next door.