OS ANGELES - Truth be told, the convention hall looked a bit dingy. The paint was faded, the floors were scuffed. There were only two bathrooms.
But the delegates didn't seem to mind. By city bus and by beat-up car, many with young children in tow, they had come to downtown Los Angeles yesterday to set the Democrats straight: The Democratic Party is not just the party of extravagant nightly parties, they said. It is the party of poor people, too.
Francisco Arballo, a 40-year-old mother of six children, two of them grown, said: ''I hope they can hear us. I hope they know we're here.''
With 250 or so others, Arballo was at the Mothers' Convention on Welfare, a half-day event timed to coincide with festivities surrounding the Democratic National Convention, which opens tomorrow. While caterers prepared canapes for the galas that began last night, mothers and other activists around the city began trying to get their messages out.
The contrast between DNC-related activities and those organized by coalitions concerned about everything from the environment to immigration to union-busting can be stark, sometimes intentionally so, sometimes not.
Organizers of the welfare convention yesterday at Patriotic Hall, for instance, said they had only enough funds to provide participants with store-bought juice, coffee, and bagels, although day care was available without charge. On Friday night, organizers of the Homeless Convention, which expects as many as 200 delegates to turn out for its sessions this week, served a supper of donated rice, beans, and water at its party.
''We're the cheapest convention in town; we're playing with pennies,'' said Katy Habir, executive director of Dome Village, a downtown shelter running the event. ''Our only questions are: one tent or two, chairs or no chairs?''
Global Exchange, a San Francisco-based rights group, also saw a chance to make a point. Tonight, while a group of conservative Democrats rents out the amusement park on the Santa Monica Pier for a high-ticket fund-raiser, Global Exchange will host ''The People's Party'' on the beach below.
Union activists will be in the area after massing outside the Loews luxury hotel, where they are engaged in a dispute, as will a group that plans to rally outside The Gap on the Third Street Promenade, to protest the sweatshop conditions under which the company's clothing is allegedly produced.
''The real people will be in the shadow of their party sponsored by corporations,'' said Juliette Beck of Global Exchange. ''We'll be an ice cube's throw away.''
Many of the counterpoint events are being held as close to the convention center as possible so that delegates might see them on their way to to and from the Staples Center, now surrounded by fencing and blocked off by police cars.
At the First United Methodist Church downtown yesterday, volunteers began erecting 5-foot-tall crosses in the parking lot, 553 in all, each bearing the name of someone who had died trying to cross the Mexico-California border since 1994, when the government initiated Operation Gatekeeper to keep out illegal immigrants.
Initially, the installation drew the attention of dozens of police, who dispersed after observers from the National Lawyers Guild arrived and made clear that the group had permission to be there.
''We're hoping this is the kind of dramatic statement that will make people walk by reverently and think'' about US immigration policies, said David Hanks, an activist who was overseeing the site.
At St. James Episcopal Church, farther from downtown, they were trying to win notice for children who had been fatally shot. Women Against Gun Violence/Silent March displayed scores of pairs of shoes that had belonged to young victims - sneakers, dress shoes, strappy gold sandals, and beaded thongs among them. Among those present was LA's police chief, Bernard Parks, whose granddaughter was recently shot to death.
Said Ruett Foster, a lifelong Democrat whose 7-year-old son, Evan, was killed in December 1997, ''I think deep down inside, in the quiet moments, the Democrats will hear what we're saying. I don't know what will come out of it. I just hope they get down to work once the partying is done.''
The parties last night included a pricey and private farewell to the Clintons, and any number of other invitation-only dinners. The convention host committee was inviting the 15,000 journalists covering the convention to an event costing more than $1 million. And that was only the beginning.
It was also only the start to the demonstrations and alternative events, too. Hoping to show the other side of the city, the Figueroa Corridor Coalition for Economic Justice was running two bus tours through the neighborhoods. Global Exchange has tours of its own, to a juvenile detention center and the garment district, and to other locations off the typical delegate path.
''While delegates are being wined and dined downtown, we want to bring attention to the problems of the poor and working people,'' said Amy Schur, organizer with the Los Angeles Association of Community Organizations for Reform NOW, which rallied on Friday for housing. ''Unfortunately, it's just a small percentage of delegates and elected officials who want to see reality. It's not as high on their agenda as the parties.''
