Street artist S.C. Mero has been having a conversation with the neighborhoods of Downtown Los Angeles for many years. Her whimsical reinterpretations of such urban eyesores as potholes and abandoned buildings are witty and charming while also often bitingly ironic.

Her latest work, Electrical Box Theatre, sits at the corner of Traction Avenue and Hewitt Street, across from the American Hotel. It is an invitation to artists in the community, and those just visiting, to take part, entertain and enrich the creative environment that is in danger of disappearing.

Electrical Box Theatre has been getting a lot of press, and "Tales of the American" even got a shout-out in the Los Angeles Times article.

Next up: Electrical Box Theatre presents a burlesque show on March 20, 2026.

The Santa Fe Art Colony, which has housed artists for nearly 40 years, has been granted status as a landmark by the Los Angeles City Council. Several of the interviews for "Tales of the American" were conducted at the Santa Fe Art Colony. It's one of just a handful of true artist buildings left in the Arts District.

By Kevin Roderick April 2, 2018

There's a terrific new LA history documentary running through Thursday at the Downtown Independent. Tales of the American tells the origins of what we now call the Arts District through the hotel at the corner of Traction Avenue and Hewitt Street — it has gone under various names since it opened in 1905 as the first LA hotel for African Americans, but the name that has stuck is the American Hotel. It's been a center of African American night life, including the site of jazz clubs, and a Japanese American corner when Little Tokyo extended into the area. After the Japanese were interned during World War II, that part of LA became Bronzeville, home to thousands of black workers from the South.

The film documents the social and ownership changes through the years, but the driving energy is the story of the American as the vortex of the first Arts District east of Alameda Street — and as the home from 1980 to 2001 of Al's Bar, the legendary punk venue where a lot of Los Angeles musical history took place. Filmmakers Pamela Wilson and Stephen Seemayer, former residents and veterans of the first Arts District, gathered dozens of former residents and Al's Bar regulars to tell stories. The film picked up a new executive producer, the mystery novelist Michael Connelly, after the director's cut was screened last year. The final version includes interviews with photographer Gary Leonard, artists Richard Duardo, Colette Miller and Kent Twitchell, musicians who played Al's Bar, ex-bartenders and downtown fixtures. John Rabe of KPCC narrates the documentary.

This is the building where Pie Hole is located, across the street from Wurstkuche, and both symbols of the new gentrified Arts District came in for hissing from the opening night crowd of friends and family. But if you wondered why the street corner is named for the late Joel Bloom, and why there is a mural of Ed Ruscha on the side of the hotel, and why people still come looking for Al's Bar, "Tales of the American" will explain it for you.