MacArthur Park
To go to MacArthur Park is to take a trip back in time. There are a lot of old buildings -- beautiful old homes, art deco apartments and even the Bullocks Wilshire, rising eerily over 7th street as you head away from the park. Unlike Bullocks (now owned and spectacularly maintained by Southwestern Law School), most of these buildings are run down and the people who live here are poor.Where there are poor people, unusual methods of commerce pop up. While in the area, we saw two women selling the flowering part of the yucca plant along the side of the road. Later, doing a websearch, we came across one person advising someone looking for drugs to go to MacArthur Park and ask around. Another was a site where someone made a post warning women not to walk in LA alone at night as it is "one of the most dangerous cities in the world." There was also mutterings of gang activity, but nothing as concrete.
Every teenager knows that you can get fake I.D.s on 6th and Alvarado, where they are proffered by men holding their hand as if they are holding a carcard out to you. If you pull over, you agree on a price, then go to a nearby photo shop where they take your picture and half the money. Afterward, you agree to meet in the Jack-in-the-Box where they bring you the finished product, complete with holograms. We were curious if this was still a practice in our security obsessed (and somewhat xenophobic) times, but driving by the infamous corner, we noticed only one man making the symbol. Still, he was there.
MacArthur Park isn't a place that occurs to the jet-set, the soccer moms or the indie kids, but it's a place we should all think of, especially with the object lesson of New Orleans before us. It's value to us isn't only in its history and architecture.
posted by kuaptic. @ 5:33 PM
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