I’m standing in the northern section of MacArthur Park with City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, and the modern-day struggles of the historic space is all around us.
People lie on the sidewalk or stand hunched over and motionless. Others lounge on spotty lawns near overflowing trash cans. Graffiti besmirch trees. Police and firefighter sirens wail in the distance.
So much to see, so much to consider in a place that has transformed into a Rorschach test for how some people see the challenges of Los Angeles. And what Hernandez initially wanted me to pay attention to were … faded red curbs.
“We redid all of them in this area,” the first-term council member proudly said. “And you’re probably thinking, like, ‘Girl, like, that does not look like it’s redone.’ But the amount of labor and resources that we had to put in to get this done, even if it’s not pretty anymore, that’s just a little tiny bit of the work you do around MacArthur Park.”
What I was thinking, in fact, was that I was quite underwhelmed by the faded red curbs as a signpost for progress.
For decades, dispatches from here — in mainstreamand social media — have depicted an out-of-control park two steps away from “The Walking Dead.” The area is so nationally notorious that the Border Patrol chose it to stage an invasion here in July, complete with a literal cavalry of agents trotting down a soccer field where kids usually play while National Guard troops sat inside armored Humvees on Wilshire Boulevard.
It’s a shame, because MacArthur Park is the backyard for one of the densest neighborhoods in the United States, a modern-day Lower East Side of immigrants and their children. A succession of council members have worked for generations to keep these 35 acres free from troubles only to see it crash down on their political reputation.
The latest one is Hernandez, who’s running for a second term against a slew of opponents trying to hang MacArthur Park like an albatross around the neck of the 35-year-old politician.
Old-line liberals have blasted the democratic socialist for de-emphasizing a police presence in favor of volunteers and contract workers armed with little more than overdose kits, notepads and phone numbers. The New York Post, scheduled to launch a California edition next week, has printed at least seven anti-Hernandez stories since December, including one that described MacArthur Park as a “zombie drug den.”
She accepted my invite to take me around it for an hour and show what she has done to improve it, what still needs work and whether voters should judge her performance solely on this sliver of the 1st District, which goes from Pico-Union all the way to Glassell Park.
“MacArthur Park is experiencing” problems, Hernandez acknowledged shortly after we met at its community center on 6th Street. “Is it everything? Absolutely not. And it’s a shame. With that hyperfocus, you throw that neighborhood away instead of seeing its potential and value.”
MacArthur Park is L.A.’s Gloria Swanson — a place long lionized as a former jewel supposedly ruined by waves of newcomers and apathetic politicians. Throughout my life, I’ve known the place as gritty on its best days. I saw the worst in February, when I walked to Langer’s after a visit to the Mexican Consulate and saw groups of people smoking God-knows-what while bored law enforcement officers stood around.
I repeatedly asked Hernandez what she was seeing as we strolled past scenes of human misery. Past fenced-off sections of Alvarado Street, where vendors once sold their wares. Near a soccer match where the players brought in their own goalposts because the city can’t provide any.
“I see a lot of people, see a lot of potential, a lot of green space, a lot of spaces to activate,” Hernandez said.
The scent of urine wafted around us.
“It’s beautiful for everybody to care so much about it.”
She then threw the same question back at me.
“I see beauty,” I responded. “I also see a lot of people that need help.”
I see progress.
Over her three years in office, $28 million has been spent on MacArthur Park through city, county, state, federal and private funds. People reliant on social media reels might think it all a waste.
But the more we walked, the more I was seeing — dare I say — a change for the better.
Near a statue of St. Oscar Romero, Karen Bracamonte and Katharine Murphy helped a man fold his clothes and place it in a laundry cart. They’re members of the city’s so-called Circle team, mental health professionals tasked with checking in on unhoused people.
“We cover a lot of ground, but, you know, we can’t get everything,” said Murphy, 40. She started at MacArthur Park last summer. “There was a bad batch of tranq last week, so we had to deal with that instead of helping people with regular stuff.”
Bracamonte has worked at MacArthur Park for three years. Her son is unhoused. “Some aspects are better,” the 54-year-old said. “Because there’s more teams out here that can assist. But is it really better? Because now where do we put people up? There’s not enough beds. There’s not enough food. There’s not enough everything.”
Across the corner from us was Langer’s, whose owner made national news in 2024 when he vowed to close his famed delicatessen if MacArthur Park didn’t improve. Workers power-washed the sidewalk as Hernandez and I ambled on. Nearby, people huddled around a car handing out groceries.
What about critics who say the self-described police abolitionist should work closer with law enforcement to clean up the park, I told her.
“The heaviest hands have been representing this area before me, and what did they have to show for it? Nothing,” she responded as we made our way down to the lake. Hernandez brought up “The Rent Collectors,” a 2024 book by former Times reporter Jesse Katz that covers the history of MacArthur Park through a gang murder.
“It’s easy to blame me for the dereliction of duty that has been going on here for many, many years before I came into office,” she continued. “And part of my time in City Hall is trying to get the city to do things differently because for so long, they’ve been doing things the same way and expecting different results. And what do we have? A crumbling city…This neighborhood, these people, they deserve nice things.”
We now by the edge of MacArthur Park’s lake, which Hernandez hopes to improve its water quality so people can use pedal boats on it for the first time in two decades. For a good three minutes, the scene around us looked like a slice of Irvine.
Canada geese honked and waddled across stretches of grass where I saw condoms and broken glass pipes last year. Birds relaxed on the water. Senior citizens did their morning circuits. There wasn’t a single distressed person to see. It was still grimy, but MacArthur Park’s famed beauty was there, a beauty unmatched by newer parks — if only Hernandez and others could burnish it.
“See that playground?” Hernandez said, gesturing toward a jungle gym near Park View Street.
The one damaged by an arsonist in the fall of 2024 shortly after a multimillion-dollar refurbishment?
“We fought hard for that to be fixed ASAP, and now there’s a little bit of protection around it,” pointing at a small fence. She then looked at streetlights. “They’re solarized. We put them up late last year. It’s twofold. It gets us closer to our sustainability goals. And it also is far more resilient to copper wire theft.”
Hernandez plans more improvements for MacArthur Park and its surrounding streets. Trees. Spots for food vendors. Programming with local nonprofits beyond the Levitt Pavilion bandstand that hosts summer concerts. A $2.3-million fence proposed by the Los Angeles Board of Recreation and Park Commissioners last fall that would encircle it and which Hernandez supports because “the park does deserve what state historic park gets, which is to close down and refurbish.”
We crossed Wilshire Boulevard and ran into David Rodriguez and Diego Santana, who serve as so-called peace ambassadors, an Hernandez initiative that contracts nonprofits to help patrol the district. Both grew up in the neighborhood and have lived through MacArthur Park’s travails. Below us was the soccer field that the Border Patrol trampled over half a year ago.
“You see a lot of kids nowadays,” said Santana, 35. “And it wasn’t like that in recent years.”
Rodriguez waved toward a gated pathway. “There was a 5K run that it was opened for,” said the 42-year-old. “You didn’t see that before.”
“It’s much cleaner,” Santana added. “There’s still issues, but it’s getting better.”
A man named David approached us.
“You live around here?” Hernandez said.
“I’m homeless,” he responded.
“Do you need any help?”
“I need a job.”
Santana and Rodriguez walked away with him to take down his information and direct him to resources. Hernandez beamed.
“I think people and conservative media — and oftentimes even, you know, not conservative media — they paint MacArthur Park as if the sky is falling,” she said. “I hope people also see beyond the crises that this is a jewel. There’s so much life. But people shrink it down to problematic substances.”
We walked back to the community center but not before Hernandez stopped me from stepping on fresh dog poop as she said, “I’ve had to fight for every single penny and investment and resources that are in this neighborhood in my term. And I will continue to do so because they deserve it.”
An overdose team was checking in for the day. I asked the council member whether she was willing to stand by MacArthur Park under her watch as she campaigns for four more years.
“Every day with my whole chest, 10 toes down,” Hernandez replied. “And that’s why I keep coming back. I don’t run away from problems. I could have easily forgotten about MacArthur Park because, you know, that’s what traditionally has been done. But no, I ran to it.”
There’s still a long way to go, I thought — but Hernandez is getting there. She certainly seems to be trying, despite what her haters insist. The council member got in her SUV and drove off, but not before rolling down the window to shout out one more message:
“You can tell everyone that the sky isn’t falling here and we’re just getting started.”
The post A walk through promising, problem-plagued MacArthur Park with its council member appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
