Sole Long L.A.

For 28 years he toiled at the feet of the most powerful people in Los Angeles--the judges, bankers, lawyers and politicians around the downtown Civic Center who run the city.

With a friendly smile, cobbler Sergio Benavides kept the big shots on the move, ready at a moment’s notice to nail new soles on their glossily polished wingtips or mend torn leather on their fancy tasseled loafers.

But Benavides never made a secret of his desire to move on himself.

His goal, he would tell visitors to his 15-foot-wide shop, was to find a teaching job where he could pass along the disappearing craft of shoemaking--the trade that he learned at the foot of his father while growing up in Mexico.

So when Benavides, 50, finally decided to apply for a teaching job at about the only place where shoemaking is taught--the state prison system--he went armed with letters of recommendation guaranteed to make inmates and wardens alike take notice.

“He is an extremely hard-working, articulate man . . . he will be an asset,” wrote customer Enrique Romero, a Superior Court judge.

“I cannot imagine a better qualified applicant. I have come to know him as a good and decent man as well as an accomplished leather craftsman,” wrote customer Alexander H. Williams III, also a Superior Court judge.

“I recommend you strongly consider this professional and personable shoemaker for employment,” wrote customer Gil Garcetti, the county’s district attorney.

“Sergio is uniquely qualified to share his tremendous knowledge . . . he would also serve as an outstanding role model for the inmates,” wrote customer Mike Antonovich, a county supervisor.

Those endorsements, along with others from customers ranging from lawyers to policemen and state Department of Justice investigators, helped get Benavides hired to help run the prison shoe factory at the San Luis Obispo Men’s Colony.

Benavides will close his 2nd Street shoe repair shop for good at 5 p.m. today.

All week long his friends and customers have lined up to say goodbye--and maybe get a last heel or two nailed on.

“This is like a divorce. Like a death in the family,” said Phyllis Leftwich, a nurse with the state’s Department of Health who has been a customer for 22 years

Sherwin Conway nodded. The Sherman Oaks attorney was sitting in a chair Thursday afternoon waiting for Benavides to put one last $3 shine on his shoes.

“I’m sad to see him go, but he wants to pass something along that will make people productive citizens. I admire that,” Conway said.

Benavides was already a veteran cobbler in 1970 when he scraped together $12,000 to buy out another shoe repairman and open the doors to his Civic Center Shoe Repair.

He had been 5 when his father, a shoemaker in Michoacan, Mexico, began teaching him how to cut leather and sew it into shoes.

He moved to Los Angeles at the age of 17 and went to work for a Beverly Hills shoe repairman before opening his first shop in East Los Angeles.

Between repair jobs at his downtown shop, Benavides made shoes by hand for orthopedic patients, walk-in customers and owners of trendy boutiques looking for custom-made shoes to sell. His dream in those early days was to eventually open a retail shoe store and sell his own footwear.

But the boutiques frequently went bankrupt without paying Benavides for his shoes. And the economic turndown of the late 1980s and early ‘90s--accompanied by the downsizing of downtown companies and the relocation of some government offices--caused his repair business to decline.

Benavides said he began collecting endorsements after his initial job application three years ago went unnoticed by officials from the Department of Corrections.

“I think people began trusting me more when I showed them the letters,” he said.

“I feel sad going, but it’s a good opportunity to teach others what I know. A shoemaker is a lost trade. I’ll show them how to make good shoes for the inmates.”

Benavides said he plans to return to his Eastside home on weekends for the next few months before moving his family to San Luis Obispo. For now, he plans to continue making shoes for flamenco dancers and a few other longtime customers.

He has telephoned the owners of 40 pairs of unclaimed shoes that remain in his tiny shop, urging them to come pick them up by closing time today.

Customers, meantime, are showering him with gifts, hugs and farewell handshakes.

“I hate to see you go, but I wish you the very, very best,” said Glendale resident Olga Iribarren, an executive assistant at a bank who has been a customer for 15 years.

Even many of those composing letters of recommendation to the Department of Corrections acknowledged they were doing it with mixed emotions.

“I write this letter with a deep sense of loss as I am truly sad to see, not only a craftsman, but a friend of 22 years leave,” wrote Philip Sugar, an assistant Los Angeles city attorney.

“I wish him all the very best. And I truly congratulate anyone who can become the recipient of his talents and his friendship.”