The musicians who make Mariachi Plaza their office and the Boyle Hotel across the street their home are not singing their last song yet -- or at least, it doesn't appear that way.
After mariachis waged a public battle over the fate of the Boyle Hotel, the four-story brick building that for decades has been a home for many of Boyle Heights' mariachis, the East L.A. Community Corp. announced Monday that it had purchased the hotel, along with a neighboring commercial building.
The organization is planning a $5-million fund drive to restore the hotel and keep it as an affordable musicians' residence.
The purchase marks a victory for Boyle Heights forces that have been fighting what they see as the creeping gentrification, stemming from the condo and loft boom in nearby downtown Los Angeles, of their working-class neighborhood. Those critics worry that upscale development in their neighborhood will eventually push low-income residents out.
"We were fearful that developers looking at the building would propose some sort of loft development that wouldn't include people who were traditionally housed there," said Maria Cabildo, the community corporation's executive director.
Cabildo called the Boyle Hotel, which was built in 1889, "an iconic building ... perhaps the oldest building in Boyle Heights, at the gateway to the Eastside. It's just part of the history," she said. "If you grew up in Boyle Heights like I did, you know this building."
For the musicians who say they often scrape by weekly on a few hundred dollars, earned by serenading wedding guests, restaurant-goers and playing the occasional funeral, the Boyle Hotel offered low rents and a built-in community.
But in recent years, the mariachis have been involved in a bitter dispute with Asamblea de Dios, an evangelical, Spanish-language congregation that bought the building in 2003 and had been making repairs. The mariachis and other community advocates worried that the landlord would upgrade the building beyond their financial reach. And they complained about dangerous conditions in the building.
The mariachis lobbied city officials, filed a lawsuit against the church for breach of contract and negligence, and even took their case to the Mexican Consulate, where they staged a musical protest that they hoped would curry the consulate's support.
