A Day In The Life Of An LA Flower Vendor

I hope you had a loving Valentine’s Day yesterday, my friend. For some, it’s a day of romance, steak dinners and chocolates. For others, it’s a hustle and a chance to bring in some good money.

The daily hustle for an LA flower vendor

For street vendors in Los Angeles who sell flowers, Valentine’s Day is the most lucrative time of the year. Followed closely, of course, by Mother’s Day. Sure, there is the cost of materials, which always go up this time of year (the wholesale price of roses, for example, almost triples to $80 for two dozen). But still, a profit can be made.

In Koreatown, Lilia Lopez set up shop in a busy pedestrian corridor: Vermont and 3rd Street. She's been selling in this very same spot for 23 years, and noted she has three city permits to be able to do this. She sells goods all year round but only peddles flowers and teddy bears during the holidays.

“I don't make a lot of money, but yes I can pay my bills, pay my car and pay for my necessities, “ Lilia told us in Spanish. “Now with Valentine's or Mother's Day I can save a bit for whatever I might need.”

Vendors start their day at 5 a.m. at the Flower Market downtown so that by the time they're set up on the sidewalk, the roses, lilies and tulips have just started to open. Often it is a family affair with multiple generations helping out: mothers and sons and granddaughters, sisters and cousins.

In the latest episode from the How To LA podcast, my colleague Brian De Los Santos hangs out with Lilia and other flower sellers throughout L.A. to get a glimpse into a very busy day in their lives. You can listen here to learn about their hustle.

My colleague Samanta Helou Hernandez also took some absolutely gorgeous photos. Check them out here.

As always, stay happy and healthy, folks. There’s more news below — just keep reading.

How To LA

We’re here to help curious Angelenos connect with others, discover the new, navigate the confusing, and even drive some change along the way.

Listen Now

More News

(After you stop hitting snooze)

• A year after becoming superintendent, Alberto Carvalho still faces some challenges, even amidst his victories. Those challenges include engaging with parents and local organizations, labor negotiations and pressure from advocates to divest from the school district’s police department and reinvest them into the well-being of Black students. 
• Edwin Castro has been named as the winner of that record-setting $2 billion Powerball jackpot. He’s taking the lump sum of just under $1 billion, and a portion of the pot will also go to public education.  
• Members of the Los Angeles City Council have put forth a proposal for people facing eviction to get appointed an attorney for free. It’s a service that housing advocates have been demanding for a long time, but it's yet to get off the ground beyond a small pilot program.
• Federal funding for COVID services like testing is going away soon. But L.A. County public health officials are trying to figure out how to keep costs down for uninsured people to get vaccines or tests, if needed.
• The Culver City Council recently voted on a law that would prohibit camping on streets, now city officials are required to find safe places for people who are housing insecure. 
• Local universities are trying to make an effort to broaden the celebration of Valentine’s Day into more than just romance. My colleague Adolfo Guzman-Lopez talked to Megan Carroll, a CSU San Bernardino sociology professor about her research and work on asexual and aromantic relationships, and how love should be celebrated in all of its forms. 
• After a lot of speculation, longtime California Senator Dianne Feinstein announced Tuesday that she will not seek re-election. Already, a number of Congress people in the state are eying her seat.
• Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has reportedly granted amnesty to the “tens of thousands” who have been detained for protesting the government. But here’s why human rights groups don’t think they’ll ever go free.

Wait... One More Thing

Nazis In Space: A Dark Time In Modern Rocket Science

Theodore von Karman, the first director of Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Archival footage courtesy of M.G. Lord)

The plot thickens on the latest episode of LA Made: Blood Sweat & Rockets, the podcast series all about the wildly fascinating history of how NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (where NASA engages in robotic space exploration) at CalTech in Pasadena came to be. Back in the days, rocket science wasn’t an esteemed subject to actually study. But the Suicide Squad, a bunch of young engineers, chemists and mathematicians dreamed of making aerospace a respected science field.

You can catch up on that history in the last few episodes of the podcast here. Now, let's dive into Episode 10: Operation Paperclip.

We’re going back to the end of World War II, where we’ll find a pursuit of space exploration from the Allies and the Axis military alliances. But podcast host M.G. Lord considers a particular decision to be one of the American government’s biggest deals with the devil: hiring and promoting Nazi aerospace engineers, while pushing away while its own engineers, Suicide Squad members Frank Malina and Tsien Hsue-Shen. Read more about the latest podcast episode here.