Well, I should have noticed the \xe2\x80\x9c in the apache message, which is the dreaded curly quotes. Copying and pasting between editors managed to muck up my config files. Here is the final config just for reference:
Apache alias conf:
Alias /laravel/ "/Users/user1/Documents/Web Development/laravel/public/"
Alias /laravel "/Users/user1/Documents/Web Development/laravel/public"
<Directory "/Users/user1/Documents/Web Development/laravel/public">
Options +Indexes +MultiViews +FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
</Directory>
htaccess file in my laravel project is the default
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
<IfModule mod_negotiation.c>
Options -MultiViews
</IfModule>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /laravel/
# Redirect Trailing Slashes...
RewriteRule ^(.*)/$ /$1 [L,R=301]
# Handle Front Controller...
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^ index.php [L]
</IfModule>
and I can access it at
http://localhost:8080/laravel/
Hope this helps someone else!