It's the industrious little guy who keeps LA on its feet - Los Angeles Times
Take, for instance, Rafael Lopez, 71. He owns two faded, beat-up vans. The 1995 GMC Safari is his home. Lopez parks both in Echo Park, where everything has changed in recent years except him and his shoe repair business. Seven days a week, parked near a quinceañera mural on the wall of a Señor Fish, you can find him squatting in the back of his cramped van, gluing on new soles or hammering heels squarely into place. It's five bucks for this little job, 10 bucks for that one, and sometimes he'll make old boots new again for $30. Our Lady of Guadalupe, the holy comptroller, watches over the operation from a sticker pasted in the window of the van, praying,... Gentrification has many critics in Echo Park, where longtime residents have been driven out by rising rents and changing ways. But Lopez said in his line of work, there's an upside to the invasion of artists, musicians and kale-munching coolios. And when the boots wear out, they know where to go. "Business is good," said Lopez. One day while I was talking to Lopez — known to Latino clients as El Zapatero Don Rafa and featured recently in a Univision newscast — two young men approached on foot. Source: www.latimes.com
