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Inside Jesse’s Barber Shop in Boyle Heights, Rodney Trammell gave an oral history of Brooklyn Avenue before it was renamed after civil rights leader Cesar E. Chavez.

The street, he recalled, was lined with Mexican and Jewish retail stores and bakeries. There was a movie theater and the original Canter’s Deli opened here. Different nationalities and ethnic groups lived and shopped side by side.

Brooklyn Avenue, he said, was Boyle Heights.

So when civic leaders sought to rename it in 1993, many in the community were opposed. They were longtime residents and merchants: Jews, Mexicans and Mexican Americans.

The residents lost the battle but refused to accept it. They still refer to the street by its original name in conversations. Shopkeepers — new and old — bear the street name on their storefronts. Custom clothing designers and artists pay homage to it in hats, shirts and artwork.

“To me, it was always Brooklyn Avenue,” Trammell said. “And it will always be Brooklyn Avenue.”

Now amid talks of renaming the street in the wake of sex abuse allegations against the famed labor leader, the old debate has resurfaced, along with the conflicting emotions over it.

Chavez is accused of sexually assaulting two underage girls and raping labor leader Dolores Huerta in the 1960s and ‘70s, according to a New York Times investigation. The accusations have created an outcry to erase Chavez’s name from schools, parks, streets, buildings and holidays.

Concepcion “Connie” Sotelo, who along with her husband opened Los Cinco Puntos, a Mexican carniceria and grocery store, on the avenue in 1967, said she felt terrible to hear about the allegations.

She said people have made hurtful comments to her. “They say things like, ‘Now you have a Mexican Epstein,’” she said. “That hurts, you know.”

She couldn’t help but think of the past when she and others protested that city and county officials were trying to rename Brooklyn Avenue.

“I feel we were right,” she said. “Not for the reasons we know today, but simply because we wanted to keep it Brooklyn Avenue.

“It was nothing against Cesar Chavez,” she added. “He had done a lot for the Mexican people and farmers, but I never felt it was necessary to name the street after him.”

She said she and her husband signed petitions and wrote letters to city officials opposing it.

Sotelo said the dedication ceremony for the name change occurred outside Los Cinco Puntos. She recalled seeing a large crowd and could hear people cheering and a mariachi band playing.

Mayor Richard Riordan attended, along with Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina, who along with other Latino politicians spearheaded the effort to rename the street after Chavez.

Cesar E. Chavez Avenue is more than six miles, cutting through the working-class communities of Boyle Heights, East Los Angeles and Monterey Park.

The area was established by an Irish immigrant named Andrew Boyle in 1858. It was Boyle’s son in-law, William Workman, who subdivided the land and created Boyle Heights, naming the main thoroughfare Brooklyn Avenue.

Historians say the street name was part of Workman’s overall effort to entice residents from the Midwest and East Coast. There were also Chicago, St. Louis and Cincinnati streets, and Michigan and Pennsylvania avenues, among others.

The area became home to Jewish, Mexican and Eastern European immigrants. From , Cesar Chavez and his family while he served as executive director of the Community Service Organization.

By the late 1960s, many Jewish residents, Japanese and European immigrants had moved out of the area. They were replaced mostly by Mexican immigrants and their families, who opened businesses and bought homes.

The region became the birthplace of the Chicano civil rights movement that included the and the .

The idea to rename Brooklyn Avenue after Chavez was raised by Molina, just a week after his death in April 1993.

The plan was supported by then-Los Angeles City Councilmembers Richard Alatorre and Mike Hernandez, who called for renaming portions of Brooklyn Avenue, Macy Street and Sunset Boulevard.

Abigail Calderon, whose family owns a store on the main street and has studied the issue as part of her doctoral dissertation at Yale University, found that Mexicans and Mexican Americans opposed the change because it masked their deep ties to the old neighborhood, as if they were just arriving and changing things.

She said civic leaders chose a street whose name had become deeply meaningful to people for various reasons. She likened it to Whittier Boulevard, a touchstone of Mexican American culture in Southern California.

“A lot of people would have issues if [officials] wanted to change Whittier Boulevard,” she said. “People attach meaning to it.”

She said the push to rename the street was political too. The proposal came at a time of heated anti-immigrant rhetoric as California was experiencing an economic recession and shift in demographics.

— dubbed the “Save Our State” initiative — would be introduced three months after the renaming of Brooklyn Avenue. The decade also saw an English-only movement in the schools that included the passage of Proposition 227 in June 1998. (In 2016, voters approved Proposition 58, which repealed bilingual restrictions enacted by Prop. 227.)

“A lot of big politicians were pushing for [the renaming] because they wanted to make sure Latinos had a space and an area that could be seen as very Latino on the map,” Calderon said.

Vivian M. Escalante, chief executive director and president of Boyle Heights Community Partners, said the sense of political urgency drove it as much as Chavez’s legacy.

“While the public was told the change was about ‘honoring a hero,’ the political reality was a calculated effort to solidify a Chicano political identity in East Los Angeles, often at the expense of the neighborhood’s multi-ethnic history,” she said.

Escalante and the organization have been calling for the street name to be switched back to Brooklyn Avenue for years.

On a recent Monday afternoon in a small Mexican diner, not far from the 710 Freeway in East Los Angeles, Gricel Gonzalez, 57, gazed out the window at the avenue.

She said she was in her mid-20s when rumors began to circulate that Brooklyn Avenue would be renamed after Chavez.

Growing up, she would often hear her mother and grandmother talk about Chavez and his efforts to help fight for the rights of Mexicans.

“He was a hero,” she said.

But when asked that day how she felt about the recent allegations, Gonzalez froze. She was confused and had not seen the news yet. Upon hearing it her eyes grew wide and her jaw dropped as she shook her head.

She was angry. It had brought back dark memories when an uncle had touched her inappropriately. She was only 8.

Her new judgment on the street name was instant.

“They need to change the name to Dolores Huerta, or any of the other victims.”

The United Farm Workers said it would not participate in celebrations of its founder Cesar Chavez amid what the labor union described as “troubling allegations” against the iconic Chicano figure.

The union, in a statement released Tuesday, did not detail the accusations against Chavez but said they were concerning enough for the organization to take action. But several events around the country honoring Chavez including events in Tucson, Houston, Corpus Christi, San Antonio and San Bernardino have been canceled in recent weeks, with little explanation given by organizers.

The claims against Chavez “are incompatible with our organization’s values. Some of the reports are family issues, and not our story to tell or our place to comment on. Far more troubling are allegations involving abuse of young women or minors. Allegations that very young women or girls may have been victimized are crushing. We have not received any direct reports, and we do not have any firsthand knowledge of these allegations,” the union said.

Canceling events, the union said, would “provide space for people who may have been victimized to find support and to share their stories if that is what they choose.”

Chavez is a towering national figure credited with organizing and raising the lives of migrant farmworkers in California and beyond and giving voice to the struggles of Mexican Americans.

Bursting into national prominence in the mid-1960s in the San Joaquin Valley, Chavez galvanized public support on behalf of them after organizing community groups across Central and Southern California. For decades, agricultural laborers had lived in substandard housing and were paid terrible wages. Efforts to organize migrant laborers were usually crushed violently by farmers and local law enforcement.

Chavez and his associates joined a grape pickers’ strike in 1965 launched by Filipino organizers centered around Delano, the heart of California’s table grape crop. Those early years were marked by bitter and sometimes brutal incidents involving picketing farmworkers who screamed “Huelga!” — “Strike!”—and growers who vowed never to give in to Chavez and his movement.

That eventually transformed into a boycott that earned international attention. Chavez, drawing on his Catholic faith, fasted for 25 days in 1968 to draw attention to the violence swirling around the effort, ending it by sharing bread with then-presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy. Two years later, the UFW was able to secure contracts for more than 10,000 grape pickers.

Those successes made Chavez an almost mythic figure. The UFW flag — a stylized black Aztec eagle against a red background — became synonymous with the Chicano movement that was emerging at the same time. Posters and murals featuring Chavez’s beatific face sprouted in the Southwest and beyond. He traveled across the United States espousing his philosophy of nonviolence, union and dignity for farmworkers.

A 1983 poll of Latinos by The Times found Chavez to be the most admired leader.

But Chavez’s legacy became increasingly tarnished as the years went on. Labor victories became fewer and fewer. His fierce criticism of illegal immigration — Chavez argued that they undercut his unionization efforts — put him at odds with immigration activists. A 2006 Times investigation detailed how dozens of former associates and workers left the UFW because of what they described as Chavez’s increasingly autocratic ways.

When the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors decided to change the name of Brooklyn Avenue in East Los Angeles and Boyle Heights to Cesar Chavez Avenue after the labor leader’s death in 1993, many in the community opposed it, citing the economic burden businesses would undergo to update their addresses and the erasure of the community’s history on the street.

Yet his standing among Latinos nationwide was such that schools, streets and parks were renamed in his honor in the years after his death. In 2012, President Obama went to tiny Keene, Calif. — where Chavez had set up both his home and the operational headquarters of the United Farm Workers — to dedicate the César E. Chávez National Monument.

It’s unclear the source of the new allegations or when they might become public. But there has been rumbling for weeks among activists that something about Chavez was coming.

A Corpus Christi march was called off last week after labor leader Dolores Huerta withdrew, the San Antonio Express-News reported.

Huerta is not commenting on the issue at this time, said Erik Olvera, spokesperson for Huerta.

The news comes two weeks before Cesar Chavez Day, observed March 31.

Local organizers in Los Angeles haven’t announced whether they will cancel their events.

The UFW was vague about the claims but suggested they were serious enough for extreme action.

“These allegations have been profoundly shocking. We need some time to get this right, including to ensure robust, trauma-informed services are available to those who may need it.

“We understand this will be tremendously painful for many and we encourage our community to seek mental health support if they experience distress.”

Tuesday morning, the Cesar Chavez Foundation said in a statement that it had “become aware of disturbing allegations that Cesar Chavez engaged in inappropriate sexual behavior with women and minors during his time as President of the United Farm Workers of America.”

The foundation said it was working with leaders in the farmworker movement to be responsive to these allegations and support the people who might have been harmed.

“In partnership with the UFW, we are establishing a safe and confidential process for those who wish to share their experiences of historic harm, and, if they choose to, participate in efforts toward repair and reconciliation,” the statement said. “In addition, we are investing time and resources to ensure the Foundation promotes and strengthens a workplace culture that is safe and welcoming for all.”

In the 48 hours before the UFW and Cesar Chavez Foundation made their statements, La Unión del Pueblo Entero, a community-based union and nonprofit in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, which was founded by Huerta and Chavez, erased the names and affiliation with the leaders from its website.

The new allegations could have implications beyond Chavez’s place in history. If he has been accused of sexual abuse, a legal expert said it could spark legal claims against the union he ran for so long.

In California, Assembly Bill 250 opened a two-year window to file sex assault claims beyond a previous statute of limitations. The Catholic Church, Scouting and public school districts, as a result, have been hit hard with lawsuits.

“It is [a] matter [of] who knew what and when,” said John Manly, a sexual abuse attorney, adding that Chavez’s leadership role could create liability for the UFW.

LOS ANGELES - Gasoline prices across Southern California and the nation saw historic daily gains Saturday as military conflict in the Middle East throttled global energy supplies and sent crude oil past $90 a barrel.

What we know:

The average price for a gallon of regular gas in Los Angeles County hit $5.165 on Saturday, a 17.5-cent jump that nearly mirrored the record 19.2-cent spike seen in 2012. Orange County saw a similar surge of 17.7 cents, bringing its average to $5.153.

These hikes follow the Feb. 28 joint U.S./Israel attack on Iran, which has since escalated into a regional war.

The conflict has effectively blocked the Strait of Hormuz, leaving tankers carrying 20 million barrels of oil per day stranded.

Furthermore, retaliatory strikes by Iran on a Saudi refinery and a Qatari LNG facility have taken 9 million barrels of oil per day off the market and halted 20% of the world’s liquefied natural gas supply.

As a result, American crude settled at $90.90 on Friday, up 36% in a single week.

Local perspective:

The following breaks down the average price for a gallon of self-serve regular gasoline by county, based on the latest figures from AAA and the Oil Price Information Service as of Saturday, March 7:

What they're saying:

"It's unknown how long these price spikes will last or how high prices will climb — that will all depend on how long oil supplies remain disrupted," said Kandace Redd, the Automobile Club of Southern California's senior public affairs specialist.

"The more news we get, the more it seems like this is going to last a really long time," stated Al Salazar, head of macro oil and gas research at Enverus.

Mark Doran, a consumer in Vermont, expressed skepticism regarding a quick resolution: "I don’t think there’s been an end in sight to any Middle East conflict that’s been started by us, so the fact that they say that there’s going to be an end that quickly is not believable."

What's next:

President Donald Trump indicated Monday that military operations against Iran are expected to last four to five weeks, though he noted the U.S. has the capability to go "far longer."

While the administration issued a plan Friday to insure up to $20 billion in maritime losses to restore trade confidence, energy experts at NYU warn that insurance cannot solve the physical threat of drones and mines in the Strait of Hormuz.

Consumers can expect continued volatility as refineries begin the seasonal transition to more expensive summer-blend gasoline.

California – Bright sunshine spills across downtown Los Angeles this morning as cool early air quickly gives way to springlike warmth. Commuters stepping outside feel crisp air at first, but temperatures will climb fast under clear blue skies.

According to the National Weather Service in Los Angeles/Oxnard, a dry and stable pattern is settling across Southern California. High pressure building over the region will push temperatures toward 75°F across East Los Angeles this afternoon. Light north winds near 10–15 mph may move through local corridors, but overall conditions stay calm and clear.

Across neighborhoods like Boyle Heights, Glendale, and Pasadena, sunshine dominates the day. The warm March sun reflects off sidewalks and rooftops, signaling an early taste of spring across the L.A. Basin.

Tonight stays clear and cool with lows dropping near 50°F. Drivers along Interstate 5, US-101, and Interstate 10 should see excellent travel conditions with dry pavement and light winds.

Sunshine continues Friday with highs again near 75°F, maintaining a steady stretch of mild weather across Southern California.

Even warmer air arrives heading into the weekend. Temperatures climb toward 78°F Saturday, bringing bright skies and comfortable spring weather across much of Los Angeles County.

Sunday looks even warmer with highs around 85°F, offering the warmest weather of the stretch. Early Sunday morning also marks the nationwide Daylight Saving Time change, when clocks jump ahead one hour at 2 a.m. The extra evening sunlight will make the warm spring evenings feel even longer.

Early next week stays warm and sunny with highs approaching 79°F Monday, reinforcing the region’s dry spring pattern.

Meteorologists say long-range signals point toward continued above-average warmth across the West as March progresses.

Planning outdoor activities this weekend? Expect sunshine, warm afternoons, and longer daylight. How warm is it in your neighborhood today?

Five Day Outlook – Los Angeles, California

Friday: Sunny and mild, high near 75°F.Saturday: Sunny with warming trend, high near 78°F.Sunday: Sunny and warm with clocks springing ahead early morning, high near 85°F.Monday: Sunny and warm, high near 79°F.Tuesday: Mostly sunny and mild, high near 73°F.

Start your weekend off right with the city's best pastries, freshly made omelettes and cocktails.

Whether you love it or hate it, brunch is a time-honored tradition in Los Angeles. From the ultra wealthy, who can afford to pop bottles in ritzy Beverly Hills dining rooms, to the budget-conscious among us, grateful for the respite of old-school diner prices, a long, drawn-out breakfast just makes sense in sunny weather. Ricotta pancakes, avocado toast, and classic egg preparations are a must for most players in this space, but the top of our rankings is reserved for those who go above and beyond in some way. Unexpected flavors and unmissable dishes that become signature plates, weekend traditions, and viral posts are all part of the charm. The food is only the beginning, though, as inventive cocktail lists, natural wines, and lots of bubbles are a must for lingering and relaxing before duty calls. Brunch is an escapist pastime, pure hedonistic bliss, and just a sweet, sweet fantasy, baby. Get a taste of the California dream at the best spots for brunch in Los Angeles.

Updated February 2026: The playing field for restaurants in Los Angeles has never been more crowded, but it’s also never been more difficult for chefs to keep their businesses afloat. Everything from tariffs to inflation to unspeakably high rents has made it hard for places like Crustacean and Horses to keep their doors open. Both places have been removed due to closures, though Crustacean will be back in a new location at some point. Gjusta has been removed because their other restaurant, Gjelina, is already included and we wanted to add more variety. Similarly, Chef Tony Dim Sum was taken off since it’s quite a ways from LA proper. For additions, Saltie Girl made the cut as a nod to the way East Coast spots can adapt themselves to fit into the sunny Sunset Strip scene—and to give seafood lovers a heads up on the best place to get their weekend fix. The other newcomer, Lodge Bread Co., is a steadily rising presence in Los Angeles due to a new location in Beverly Hills that’s serving up ​​chef Or Amsalam’s fantastic breads in all the cult-favorite formats. As for rankings, restaurants ebb between good and great all the time, and the new order reflects the reality of some classics falling behind and others surging ahead.