Ahead of you is the back of the Sepulveda House, an elegant Eastlake-style Victorian built in 1887. If you want to see its front, it’s worth walking around to North Main Street. The Eastlake style is known for its geometric shapes, intricate woodwork, carved motifs, and attention to ornamental detail—think richly decorated façades, balconies, openwork railings, and finely cut wooden elements. This building marks an important moment in the neighborhood’s development. It was commissioned by Eloisa Martinez de Sepulveda, a businesswoman from a prominent Hispanic family. With around twenty rooms, the house wasn’t just a family home: it originally combined ground-floor commercial spaces with upstairs living areas, reflecting a growing urban lifestyle in late nineteenth-century Los Angeles. At that time, the city was expanding beyond its old center, and the Sepulveda House illustrates the shift toward a more modern Los Angeles, influenced by American architecture while still rooted in the old pueblo. Today, it houses a visitor center and exhibitions that give insight into daily life and the city’s transformations, and it’s worth stepping inside to explore. Just a few steps away, you’ll find the entrance to the América Tropical mural, a monumental work painted in 1932 by Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros, considered one of the masters of Mexican muralism alongside Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco. Originally fully visible from Olvera Street, the mural sparked controversy for its political message. Siqueiros depicted an indigenous man crucified beneath an imperial eagle, surrounded by symbols denouncing oppression and imperialism, in a bold, confrontational style meant to shock. Deemed too subversive, the mural was quickly whitewashed and hidden from public view for decades. It wasn’t until the late twentieth century that it was rediscovered and restored, and today it stands as one of the most important examples of murals with a political message in the United States.