The Brief

When it was built in 1925, the Grand Olympic Auditorium in Downtown Los Angeles was a cutting-edge sports venue and quickly became known as the Madison Square Garden of the West.

Now, a brand new exhibit at LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes titled "18th and Grand: The Olympic Auditorium," recounts the 80-year history of the Grand Olympic Auditorium. The historic venue, once the epicenter of L.A. fight nights, was designed to attract and host some of the biggest matches in boxing, wresting, roller derby and music.

The boxing card for a match between World Welterweight Champion Carlos Palomino and challenger Mando Muniz at the Olympic Auditorium on Jan. 22, 1977.

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Courtesy of Gene Aguilera

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"The Olympic was like a rite of passage for a boxer," said Latino boxing historian Gene Aguilera, who co-curated the exhibit. Cigarette smoke, cigar smoke, gamblers, beer drinkers — Aguilera emphasizes just how memorable an event at the Olympic could be.

Popcorn, cigar smoke, and a night out at The Olympic

At the center of the exhibit is the documentary 18th & Grand: The Olympic Auditorium Story from writer and director Steve DeBro, who co-curated the exhibit with Aguilera. DeBro, along with LA Plaza senior curator Karen Crews Hendon and Aguilera joined Larry Mantle on LAist's daily news program AirTalk to discuss the documentary, the new exhibit and the indelible impact of the Olympic.

Ruben Navarro (left) and Ray Adigun (right) trade punches during a boxing match at the Olympic Auditorium on July 25, 1968

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Courtesy of Theo Ehret Estate

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Allan Armstrong, Honey Sanchez and the T-Birds in a roller derby event at the Olympic in 1971.

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Courtesy Kevin Haupt

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Mil Máscaras and Ernie Ladd wrestle at the Olympic Auditorium in 1970.

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Courtesy Theo Ehret Estate

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Big Jay McNeely and his band perform on stage at the Olympic Auditorium in 1951.

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Courtesy of Bob Willoughby Estate

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Patrons gather outside the Olympic Auditorium in 1974.

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Courtesy Theo Ehret Estate

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"The Olympic was pretty unavoidable back in the day," DeBro says. With only a handful of TV channels to choose from, the nationally televised weekly match at the Olympic helped cement the venue as a cultural juggernaut. It was also a training ground and coming-out venue for many Mexican and Mexican American fighters to make their name and be featured in headline events. "Whether it was wrestling, roller derby or boxing, it was part of daily life in Southern California," DeBro said.

It wasn't all bright lights and sold out events for the venue. Within a year of opening, the venue had essentially gone bust, and aside from a stint in the spotlight as a venue in the 1932 Olympics, it had not lived up to its grandiose expectations. That changed in the early 1940s when the L.A. Athletic Club, which owned the Olympic, sent Aileen Eaton to find out why it was failing. Eaton not only turned the venue into one of the most iconic boxing venues in the country, but also made herself the most powerful boxing promoter in the country in the process.

The exhibit

Boxing robes on display at the “18th and Grand: The Olympic Auditorium,” exhibit installed on the first floor of LA Plaza in July 2023, including boxing shorts and a robe worn by Alberto Dávila.

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Courtesy LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes

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Hendon remembers the Olympic Auditorium story as one we all share. "It's our cultural history. We're telling cross border stories where people of color were made into local and cultural heroes in and out of the ring, which really created a legacy of hope, identity [and] representation that really has forever remained in our memories," she said.

Photography, hand-stitched robes, punk rock fliers, roller derby ephemera — Hendon describes the experience of the exhibit as being "thrown into the environment" that captivated so many hearts and minds. "It's a slow look of the fast visual details one can see in the documentary," she said.

Roller skates on display at the “18th and Grand: The Olympic Auditorium,” exhibition installed on the first floor of LA Plaza in July 2023.

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Courtesy LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes

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The exhibit is equipped with a boxing ring that is aimed at creating an immersive experience for patrons. A timeline of photos introduces you to local wrestlers and the famed luchadores of Mexico. For those who never made it to the Olympic for a live event, there is a living room set up with a TV to honor those who were captivated from home.

Photos and roller derby jerseys on display at the “18th and Grand: The Olympic Auditorium” exhibit installed on the first floor of LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes in July 2023.

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Courtesy LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes

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The exhibit will also open a recording studio where people can record Olympic members in a way that DeBro said "has never been done before."

The exhibit is open now at LA Plaza, and runs through May 2024.

Listen to the conversation

Geffen Playhouse Artistic Director Tarell Alvin McCraney won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the movie Moonlight, but don't expect to see him at this year's Oscars ceremony.

"I tend to stay away from the awards show," McCraney said. " I think I might have PTSD."

McCraney is referring to the viral moment from the 2017 Oscars ceremony, where La La Land was mistakenly announced as the Best Picture winner instead of Moonlight.

McCraney isn't new to theater. In fact, you could consider it his original home before his play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue launched him into the Hollywood spotlight. But when the Geffen Playhouse asked him to be their artistic director two years ago, it called him back to the stage in a different way. Tapping a screenwriter for the position was a first for the theater, but McCraney said the roles actually overlap in more ways than one.

 "The job of the screenwriter most times is to make sure that everybody is understanding where the story is going and what the 'action' of the piece is," McCraney said. "So it's not that much different than being an artistic director.  My job here is to set the artistic goal for the organization. [To] point out its virtues and pitfalls, the dangers and the obstacles, and then move collectively as a single storyteller towards that goal."

McCraney said one of the great things about living in Los Angeles is its nuanced racial and ethnic communities, and he rides his bike around the city to better experience them.

"The landscape is constantly shifting and changing," McCraney said. "For example, Westwood has drastically changed over the past 15 years and will change irrevocably with the coming of the new train station down on Wilshire. It will change again with LA28 happening."

Just like Los Angeles, the Geffen Playhouse has had multiple transformations over its more than 30 year existence. Their world premier show, Silvia Silvia Silvia, is playing until March 8. Dragon Mama, starring Sarah Porkalob, begins March 4.

"Sarah is an incredible singer and writer and has created this incredible arc through a family that is both powerful and witty, but also deeply nuanced," McCraney said. "She's sharing that family with us, and family is our first community. They are the people we learn the most from. We learn unconditional love. We learn collective bargaining. Investigating family, investigating why we stay together and how we stay together through dire circumstances is a critical investigation for us right now."

When it comes to this year's Oscars ceremony, McCraney said he's rooting for all the nominees.

"It's been an incredible season," he said. "But Sinners is an incredible film that I've seen three or four times, so I'm really excited to see how it does."

The Long Beach Community College District has agreed to pay $18 million to more than 1,450 part-time professors to settle a class-action lawsuit that alleged they were forced to work unpaid hours outside the classroom, grading papers and tests, meeting with students, preparing lessons and other duties.

The settlement, which the district board quietly approved last month, still needs the judge overseeing the case to sign off. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for July 1 in Los Angeles County Superior Court. It’s likely that Judge Stuart Rice will approve the deal. Last year, he ruled that the part-timers, commonly called adjuncts, were entitled to the pay they sought, writing he found “a myriad of problems” with the district’s claims that its practices did not violate state law.

The case has made “a major impact throughout the state already,” as some districts have begun negotiating contract terms to give adjuncts what they’ve long sought — pay for time they spend prepping and grading, not just for class time, said the plaintiffs’ lawyer Eileen B. Goldsmith, in an interview. (EdSource published an investigative series in the issue, Gig By Gig At California’s Community Colleges, in 2022.)

The Long Beach district recently set aside $20 million for the settlement and associated costs, its spokesperson, Stacey Toda, told the Long Beach Post in an email. “Resolving this matter allows the District to avoid prolonged litigation and manage risk responsibly, consistent with standard practices across public higher education,” Toda wrote.

The settlement “is a big deal, it is tremendous,” said John Martin, chair of the California Part-Time Faculty Association, and a community college adjunct professor in Shasta and Butte counties.

Martin, a long-time advocate for better pay for adjuncts, is also the plaintiff in similar ongoing lawsuits, including one against the state Community College system.

In legal papers filed in the Superior Court, Goldsmith wrote that the proposed settlement, if approved, will result in 1,456 class members receiving more than “$11,000 — a very meaningful result for these class members, particularly given the novel issues in this litigation.”

The Long Beach Post contributed to this story.