Sentous Building, 617 N. Main St., Los Angeles, 1957

Photograph. "Mrs. Christine Sterling (arrow) nails black wreath on door -- For some people, old buildings should just get older and never die. That's how Mrs. Christine Sterling, so-called 'Mother of Olvera Street' feels about the old Sentous Building at 617 North Main Street. -- Yesterday she received word that the 77-year-old building would be torn down for a parking lot. -- 'It's like tearing out a page of our history,' Mrs. Sterling sighed in her house on Olvera Street. -- 'For awhile, Governor Pio Pico (the last Mexican governor of California) spent his declining years in an apartment there. It once housed the Wells Fargo office.' -- Mrs. Sterling was one of those who changed Olvera Street from a disreputable alley to a popular tourist attraction in the 1920s and led to the current project to rebuild the area around into a replica of the old Mexican 'Pueblo De Los Angeles.' -- 'I had always hoped that the Sentous Building would be included in the city, county and state's plans to restore the Plaza area. But it looks like another part of our past is going to be carried away in a truck.' -- So, yesterday, her rebozo over her head, Mrs. Sterling nailed a three-foot diameter wreath on the floor of the old Sentous Building. " -- Examiner clipping (article by Jack Massard) attached to verso, dated 13 August 1957. Photograph depicts woman with shawl draped over her shoulders placing a wreath on the door of a three story building at 617 North Main Street. Signs on the building include S. Nepus Imports MA 2071, El Rey Machine & Manufacturing Company, El Rey Mills, Aldezma Shoe Repairing and Oriental Employment Agency at 619.; Streetscape. Horizontal photography.