 | Little Italy |
major influx of immigrants was another wine-loving people, the Italians, who first began showing up in droves beginning in the 1880s. The first Italian winery to be established was Gazzos. Although large numbers of Serbs and Croats arrived alongside them, it was the Italians who emerged as the dominant ethnic group in the neighborhood and, in the 20th century, Sonoratown became known as Little Italy. Today there are still several vestiges of Little Italy in the area. Theres the Italian Hall, Casa Italiana, St. Peters Italian Church, Alberto Biasis sculpture, The Immigrants, and Little Joes Restaurant which began as the Italian-American Grocery Company in 1908.
With Italy insisting on fighting on the wrong side in both world wars, some Italian-American businesses changed their names to obscure their origins -- thus Bank of Italy became Bank of America and Italian-American Grocery Company became Little Joes. Little Joes permanently closed in 1998 and is currently slated for destruction to make way for a brand new parking lot and the construction of yet another shopping area, the Blossom Plaza (despite the fact that plazas like Mandarin Plaza and Dynasty Center are already not even close to capacity).
The Italian population peaked in the 1920s and 30s, with Italian businesses along Broadway between Sunset Boulevard (now Cesar E Chavez) and Bishop including Basso Motor Co., Bozzani Motors, Paris Inn, Giacchino''s Bakery, Pocino & Scavarda, and Dario''s Delicatessen. As the increasingly established and affluent Italian population began to fan out to nearby neighborhoods including Lincoln Heights, Frogtown, Echo Park, El Sereno and others, Chinese immigrants began to move to the neighborhood, spilling over from nearby Chinatown, which was located less than a mile away. Reflecting the changing character of the neighborhood, in 1923 Castelar School was expanded to accommodate the growing number of Chinese students and it became the first LA school with a Chinese principal.