Roybal Federal Building

Roybal Federal Building. . , There is no greater monument to Los Angeles’ ethnic diversity than Little Tokyo, the one-time commercial center of the growing little pueblo. , In the neighborhood originally settled by French immigrants is a government building named for a Latino congressman , and it stands at the end of a street named for a Japanese-American federal judge. , Judge John Aiso Street was named for the highest ranking Nisei (the second-generation Japanese) to serve in the U.S. Armed Forces during World War II, serving as a colonel. He was also the first Nisei to be appointed to the federal bench, as an appellate judge. Where the short street ends stands the Edward Roybal Federal Building, named for the patriarch of Los Angeles' Latino politics, California's first Mexican American congressman since 1883, and the first to serve on the modern-day Los Angeles City Council. , Although symbols of Latino and Japanese leadership mark this street, far less well known are the roles played by the 19th- and 20th-century French, Russian, Swiss and other immigrants who planted their roots in what was then the city's commercial district. , It all came together in the 1830s, when Jean Louis Vignes , exiled from France for philandering and political zealotry , arrived here from Bordeaux. He brought with him grapevine cuttings that he used to found a 100-acre vineyard just south of what is now Union Station. , Soon, other French families with names like Sainsevain, Viole, Penelon, Bouchet, Nadeau and Taix followed, building homes and opening businesses in what quickly became a French enclave. Henri Penelon set up the city's first photography and artist studio. The Viole family opened a pharnlacy while Marius Taix baked bread. , From Hardware Merchant to Higher Education , In 1849, Charles Ducommun, a one-eyed Swiss watchmaker, set up a watch shop on Commercial Street that he soon expanded into a general store, catering to the Gold Rush trade. The Ducommun company, in various forms, would endure into the 21st century. Soon thereafter, Penelon, the city's first professional artist, began creating portraits of his fellow Angelenos in photographs and oils at his studio. , Vermont native Ozro Childs opened a tin and hardware shop on Commercial Street in 1850, where the Roybal Federal Building now stands. A decade later, Childs' shop inadvertently became the scene of a chaotic treasure hunt that roused Angelenos with all the fury that the Gold Rush had. After a fire swept through Childs' store, one of the locals poking through the ashes found $5,000 in gold. Word spread quickly and a large crowd joined the hunt. , Childs hurried over and tried to persuade the man to give back the gold, but the crowd, believing in finders-keepers, swarmed over the smoking rubble, looking in vain for more loot. , Childs rebuilt the store and went on to build an opera house at First and Main streets. He eventually donated land for the University of Southern California, land he had been given in payment for digging water ditches when he first came to the city. , Casting Bread on Los Angeles Waters , In 1882, when Taix, the baker from the French Alps, arrived in Los Angeles, he bought a small lot on Commercial Street for $10,000, opened Taix French Bread Bakery and began catering to the 4,000 French who lived here. , The building survived until 1913, when Taix built the Champ d'Or Hotel on the site, and leased out space for a restaurant. In 1927, at the height of Prohibition, federal agents and Taix's pharmacist son confronted the restaurant's operator for selling liquor on the property. The angry restaurateur tossed the young Taix the keys and told him to "do it yourself." , Thus the Taix French Restaurant was born. In celebrating its opening, the same federal agents returned to toast the son's new profession with whisky that he had purchased for "medicinal purposes." , The restaurant served its last specialite de la maison at the site in 1964, when the city paid $412,000 for the property that eventually became the Metropolitan Detention Center. Ten adjacent buildings as were demolished, two of which dated to the 1880s. The culinary dynasty continued at a new location on Sunset Boulevard. , Today, the Roybal Center, honoring one of the city's most eloquent spokesmen for Mexican-Americans, shares pride of place with Judge John Aiso Street in a part of town as varied in its ethnicity as in its history.