Homeless Women to Reenact Roles of Pioneers

Los Angeles’ past will have a familiar look Sunday to denizens of downtown’s skid row. The reason: Homeless women will take to the streets to reenact the role pioneer women played in the creation of the city more than 100 years ago.

The amateur actresses will be costumed in hoop skirts and bonnets as they lead spectators on a three-block walk along Spring, 4th and Los Angeles streets. Stops will be made at sites where their characters once lived and worked.

Those being portrayed are Biddy Mason, a onetime slave who saved enough working as a midwife to buy an important chunk of the business district; Louise Hayes, the city’s first teacher; Mary Emily Foy, the town’s first librarian; Alice Stebbins Wells, Los Angeles’ first policewoman; Arcadia Bandini, one of the old pueblo’s best-known Mexican socialites; Sarah Bixby, who as a child chronicled the city in a journal, and movie star Mary Pickford, who lived downtown to be close to early film studios.

The unusual production, called “Now and Then,” is being staged by the Downtown Women’s Center, an 18-year-old drop-in center for homeless women. The play will start at 1 p.m. at the center at 325 Los Angeles St. and end at the landmark Bradbury Building.

Streets in the area will be closed during the hourlong event to allow use of a horse-drawn trolley, said officials of the center.

Homeless women researched their characters and helped write the script, organizers said.