40 Years Ago on October 27, 1979
(Return to MacArthur Park)
By Stephen Jay Morris
5/2/2019
©Scientific Morality
This was to be the last stop on our excursion to Los Angeles, about 120 miles to our final destination. I wanted to stop by MacArthur Park in downtown L.A. I instinctively knew what I was in for. Downtown was as congested as my sinuses are in the Spring. Even the side streets were gridlocked. Downtown L.A. is starting to resemble Manhattan in New York City. We drove east on Wilshire Boulevard to Park View Avenue. The old main vein didn’t look the same. I saw one high-rise building after another, once used to accommodate business offices, being remodeled into condominiums. Los Angeles is materializing into one was those futuristic Hollywood movies about a bleak dystopia. Pedestrians on the sidewalks were in trances and drivers had their heads in the clouds. L.A. drivers either drive too slow or as if cops are chasing them; there is no happy center. At another point, I saw five helicopters hovering above a block just south of Wilshire, cordoned off by the police. It was anybody’s guess as to what was going on. Was it some heinous crime or a celebrity making an appearance? Decadent Capitalist America is different than ancient Rome. This time around, they don’t feed Christians to the lions in some arena; rather the Christians are used as pawns for the chessboard kings.
From a distance, MacArthur Park looked the same as it always had. Wilshire Boulevard, dividing the park, the large man made lake glimmering on the left. The afternoon sun was reflecting on the water. It looked kind of nice. We turned left on Park View where I would discover more changes. The old Otis Art Institute was gone, replaced by an elementary school run by Los Angeles City School District. My mother had gone to Otis, as had Pamela. It was once the top art school in the state. Luckily, we found a metered parking space among a long line of them, angled toward the park’s border. We had no change, so I reluctantly walk over to 6th Street to locate a store so I could break a dollar. I noticed the Consulate of Mexico was across the street. Finally, we got a passerby to break a dollar and fed the meter. We only had 30 minutes.
Pamela and I descended down a slope of the northwest region of the park. Several people were sleeping in various areas, under trees and on benches. The path led right down to the band shell area, just where I needed to be. I was painfully stunned; it had changed immensely since 1979. For one, all of the spectator benches were gone, leaving only a roughly ploughed area of dirt. It appeared as if it was being prepared for some kind of landscaping. I wasn’t sure if it was the same band shell we had used in 1979; it looked different somehow. A homeless man was sleeping against the rear wall of the stage. A small placard revealed that the area is now called Levitt Pavilion. The City permits concerts and pro-immigrant rallies there. We shot several photos. The place just didn’t look at all the way I remembered it.
I had been toying with the idea of having a 40th anniversary concert, but then logic intervened. Who would care? This new generation of kids called Millennials couldn’t care less about racism, let alone music. “Rock Against Racism” – they wouldn’t know what the word “Rock” means! How about “Trap Against Racism?” “Hip-hop Against Racism?” Naw! Doesn’t sound quite right.
Before we left, we walked over to the park’s iconic lake, where we spotted some large geese and their fuzzy, green-tinged goslings in the water. We were astonished at their color! Pamela photographed them.
This will be the last time I post about that event. Forty years is a long time. We need “Rock Against Racism” now more than ever! We have a president who is an enabler of neo-Nazis. The White Power movement has grown with leaps and bounds. It was bad in 1979, but it is way worse now.
Pamela and I left the park. At one point, we got onto the wrong freeway ramp and ended up in Pamela’s old childhood neighborhood in East L.A., while trying to navigate our way back. It was mysterious and nostalgic at the same time. I was happy to head home.
On a related topic, click on link:
https://stephenjaymorrisblog.tumblr.com/post/174116916335/the-irony-of-coincidence-by-stephen-jay-morris
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