Mariachi Plaza Hosts Día de los Muertos Twice This Fall. The Second One Ends at a Building That Isn't Open Yet.
On Saturday, Nov. 7, at 2 p.m., Aztec dancers will set out from Mariachi Plaza at 1831 E. 1st St. and walk west along 1st Street toward Anderson Street. There they will lead a crowd to a building whose doors are still closed. Self Help Graphics & Art is holding its 53rd annual Día de los Muertos celebration as a block party on the Anderson Street block outside 1300 E. 1st St. The art center itself is still under renovation and is expected to reopen in 2027.
The date falls five days after Nov. 2, so Boyle Heights' biggest Día de los Muertos night of 2026 comes after the holiday is over. The headliners are Los Lobos and La Santa Cecilia. The party will take place on the street, because the venue that has hosted this tradition for decades is not ready to take it back yet.
Most Día de los Muertos guides pile everything onto the last weekend of October. On the Eastside this year, the dated events listed in the Los Angeles Times' 2026 Día de los Muertos guide run from a Thursday in late October into the second weekend of November. Taken in order, they look like this:
The crowded day is Saturday, Oct. 24. Calvary's Mass and procession, the Calavera festival on Mission Road and Hollywood Forever's 27th annual celebration all land on it. Hollywood Forever runs from noon to midnight at 6000 Santa Monica Blvd. Nov. 7 is the opposite case. It is the latest date on this Eastside list, and nothing else in the guide's local entries competes with it.
On the calendar above, Mariachi Plaza appears twice, eight days apart.
On Friday, Oct. 30, the plaza is the destination. The 1st Street Collective will set up altars around the kiosk, and community members are invited to add images of loved ones who have died. The block party, set by the plaza between Boyle and Soto streets, also has music, dancing, local artisan vendors and free face painting. The Times listing gives no start or end time, so the event's Instagram post is the place to watch for hours.
On Saturday, Nov. 7, the plaza is where things start. Self Help Graphics' procession forms there at 2 p.m., and traditional Aztec dancers lead people from the plaza to Self Help Graphics on Anderson Street. The organization's own event page lists the procession window as 1:45 to 3 p.m., and its press release says the procession begins at 2 p.m. Both agree the main celebration runs from 3 to 10 p.m. If you want to walk the whole route, arrive at the plaza by 1:45.
Mariachi Plaza is also a stop on Metro's E Line, the route Metro's current timetable labels East Los Angeles–Santa Monica. That means the starting point for the Nov. 7 procession is a rail station. Self Help Graphics has not published street-closure limits or closure hours for Anderson Street, so for now there is no official word on which nearby blocks will be closed to cars.
People who want to bring something to an altar have a head start. Self Help Graphics is running a free series of Día de los Muertos art workshops from noon to 3 p.m. on Saturdays in the Community Room of the East Los Angeles County Library, 4837 E. 3rd St. All ages are welcome and materials are included.
The Oct. 3 stamp-collage session has already happened. Four sessions remain:
Registration is at selfhelpgraphics.com/diadelosmuertos. The Oct. 24 session overlaps with the start of the Calvary Cemetery event. The Oct. 31 candle session ends the afternoon before Plaza de la Raza's Nov. 1 festival.
Running workshops in the weeks before the celebration fits how Self Help Graphics started. It began in the East LA garage of Sister Karen Boccalero, a Franciscan nun and printmaker, with young Latino artists who brought neighbors into the work of making art. Its 1972 Día de los Muertos event is considered the first public commemoration of the tradition in the United States.
The lineup is bigger than a typical neighborhood block party. The festival is presented with the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Latino as part of Of the People: The Smithsonian Festival of Festivals. Quetzal Flores curated the performances.
The event is free and open to all ages.
For years, the renovation has pushed this celebration out of Boyle Heights. It was often held at the East LA Civic Center. Executive director Paulina Flores explained in a statement why this year's location matters:
"This year, that word carries even more meaning as we celebrate block-party style on Anderson Street and begin our return to our Boyle Heights home."
The schedule for the building has moved. In January, The LA Local projected that construction would finish this summer and the building would reopen this fall. The current word from Self Help Graphics and from LAist's Oct. 1 report is 2027. When it opens, the 12,000-square-foot building will meet museum standards, with seismic retrofitting, an expanded printmaking studio, upgraded gallery lighting and a larger multipurpose room for community gatherings.
The same thing is happening elsewhere in Boyle Heights. The 12-acre Sixth Street PARC, short for Park, Arts, River & Connectivity, under the 6th Street Bridge will not open until early 2027. That is months later than city officials expected. Mary Nemick, communications director for the city's Bureau of Engineering, attributed the delay to scheduling changes for installing playground equipment. When it opens, the park will have an arts plaza with a performance amphitheater, a garden and terrace seating, a café, a dog park, fitness equipment and sports courts.
Both of Boyle Heights' big new cultural spaces are now on a 2027 schedule. Until then, Self Help Graphics' celebration happens outdoors. It starts at a rail-station plaza, moves west along 1st Street, and fills the block of Anderson Street outside 1300 E. 1st St. from 3 to 10 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 7.
Neighborhoods change when buildings like these reopen, and the reopening dates tend to slip. Karean Wrightson tracks those timelines across Los Angeles for clients who want to know what is actually open on a block, not just what has been announced. If you're thinking about a move on the Eastside, request a complimentary market consultation and Karean will walk you through what's open now and what's scheduled for 2027.
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