On a busy corner of the Pico-Union district in Los Angeles stands what at first glance looks like an interactive conceptual art piece.
Its make up consists of a stylized mural painted against the stuccoed wall of a one story commercial building not far from the Cuscatleca bakery and the 99 cent store, an assortment of used wares from a local street vendor and a pay phone.
The mural depicts the city and presumably, the local neighborhood, and what looks like a trolley and trolley cart operator- a throw back to the Toluca Yard or the old Belmont Tunnel- all in a Dutch angle, in gray and sepia tones.
The street vendor’s goods decorate the display at the foot of the pay phone with an assortment of men’s and women’s shoes. Used, but in good condition-dresses hang against the mural wall to the left and to the right of the pay phone, billowing from the gusts of wind created by the roaring traffic.
But it is no conceptual art piece.
A street vendor displays his wares in the Pico-Union district of Los Angeles, California on a December day, 2020.
The pay phone is defunct, the mural, most likely part of a beautification project and the street vendor’s wares are for sale. With a little luck, some passerby may put a couple of dollars into his pocket if looking for a decent pair of used shoes or a nice non descript blouse for the lady.
No coins can be deposited into the phone’s broken coin deposit slot. The meaning of its presence is left to posterity.
Like other pay phones in the area, it stands there, who knows for how long, like buoys floating on the concrete sea dotting the landscape – only a handful still work to some capacity.
In most cases, there’s hardly anything left to ID what’s left of them, save for the mounting pedestal or base. Sometimes, not even that. Only traces of the mounting studs and bolts are left to indicate one ever even existed in any given area.
What’s new is the interaction between pay phones and the street vendors who in the cases documented here appear to be nothing more than happenstance.
I have often gotten a quizzical look or two whenever I’ve approached such street vendors to ask about how they came to set up shop around a given pay phone.
“El telefono? Pues no se. Es un buen puesto,” one said in Spanish chuckling at my question.
“The pay phone? I don’t know. It was just a good spot.”
The photos in this story attempt to capture and document these memories, street exhibits and interactions – if anything, for posterity’s sake. Future volumes will delve slightly more in depth with interviews with such street vendors at these locations and other details to come wherever and whenever possible. Enjoy.
A street vendor along the Mayan Corridor in the Westlake-MacArthur Park district of Los Angeles displays t-shirts for sale from a refrigerator wire shelf tied to the front of pay phone. Fall 2020).Merchandise from the Mercancia De Tiendas Reconocidas (Merchandise From Recognized Stores) spill out into the sidewalk around a payphone on West 7th Street and Hoover in the MacArthur Park district of Los Angeles. (Autumn 2020).“Deme dos de asada y tres al pastor para llevar,” (two asada tacos and three al pastor to go) a customer shouts his order at a taco vendor over the noisy Olympic Boulevard traffic in Los Angeles. (Feb. 2022).Fake plastic Christmas trees and poinsettias camouflage a defunct Payphone outside the Market Alas H., a home goods store in the Pico-Union district of Los Angeles. (December 2020).South Central, Los Angeles, California (Fall 2022).South Central, Los Angeles, California (April. 2021).A street vendor’s umbrella and merchandise shades the remains of what’s left of a Payphone on the corner of Vermont Avenue and Burns Avenue in East Hollywood, Los Angeles, CA. Aug. 10, 2021.A street vendors umbrella is tied to a pay phone with a strap to keep it steady on a windy Sunday afternoon in the East Hollywood area of Los A Angeles (Summer 2021). A busy January evening on the corner of 6th Street and Alvarado Street in the Westlake-MacArthur Park district of Los Angeles (2022).A defunct Payphone outside the Westlake/MacArthur Park red line station in Los Angeles. “Hey, can I take a photo?,” I ask. “Orale!”Downtown Corporate buildings tower over the display of women’s clothing next to a broken down Payphone outside a parking lot in the garment district of Los Angeles, California. (May. 2022).A street vendor sets up shop with her assortment of fruits and vegetables in the Pico-Union district of Los Angeles.A row of t-shirts put on display by a street vendor hangs along the fence of a shopping center on 8th Street and Vermont Avenue in Koreatown, Los Angeles, California. (March 2022).Koreatown, Los Angeles, California (2022).Calling it a Day on a cool December day in Koreatown, Los Angeles, California. (2022). “Can I take a picture?” I ask. “I’m collecting pictures of pay phones.” He looks at me as if I’m crazy or pulling his leg. He scratches his head and says: “Can you spare a little something for a beer then?”
The streets were unusually quiet-save for the pitter-pattering rain and the muffled traffic sound of vehicles traveling over the rain-slicked roads. A night that would otherwise end with a cacophony of exploding fireworks, instead sizzled with the drizzle.
At the annual New Year’s Eve Grand Park countdown the thousands expected to show up for the live music, food and other festivities failed to materialize.
The same could have been said about the sex worker’s NYE celebration, Hosted by SWOPLA (Sex Workers Outreach Project) and Decrim SW California. The number of those in attendance barely registered at about 25, give or take.
But the vibe and energy turned out to be a different story entirely, thanks in no small part to the exotic dancers who lit up the night like fireworks in celebration of their latest legislative win as sex workers.
A night of dance performances hosted by SWOPLA AND Decrim SW California gets underway on New Year’s Eve at Navel, a loft warehouse space in Downtown Los Angeles. Tickets to the event were on sale for $25, $40 and $50. The proceeds, according to the organizations hosting the event will support the “sex worker-led work being done by DecrimSWCA, the state-wide coalition that led the charge to pass SB 357, and SWOPLA an LA-based SWer mutual aid org that helped a lot to pass the bill.”
On that rainy New Year’s Eve sex worker’s rights organizations and their supporters hosted a night of dancing in what was dubbed “Baring it All, a sex worker celebration of sex workers and the passing of Senate Bill 357,” in downtown Los Angeles.
SB 357, the Safer Streets For All Act, authored by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and signed by Governor Newsom last July, went into effect at midnight, Saturday, Dec. 31, 2022. Its passage repealed a provision of California law that made it a crime to loiter “with the intent to engage in prostitution,” – formerly a misdemeanor offense.
“This criminal provision — arrests for which are based on an officer’s subjective perception of whether a person is “acting like” or “looks like” they intend to engage in sex work — results in the disproportionate criminalization of trans, Black and Brown women, and perpetuates violence toward sex workers,” Wiener said in a statement back in June.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the Peace Officers Research Association of California (PORAC) were among the group opposing the bill:
“While the intent of this legislation is to protect the prosecution of a vulnerable community, the unintended consequences will be to benefit the sex buyers as well,” an argument during the analysis phase of the bill in the legislature reads. “A repeal of this law will take a major tool away from law enforcement, especially patrol operations.”
For sex worker’s rights activists, the passing of SB 357 was long overdue and another step forward into the larger goal of one day decriminalizing sex work in total across the United States.
“Onyx Black,” who has worked as an exotic dancer for the past seven years and 20 years as an activist and advocate for sex workers, performs her dance routine during the SWOPLA and Decrim SW California New Year’s Eve event on Saturday, Dec. 31, 2022. In the past, she has worked in the phone sex industry and an escort but now predominantly focuses on pole dancing both as a performer and instructor.
“We hope that the Safer Streets for All Act will help people understand how policing does not create public safety, and will immediately deprive police of one tool they use to harass and oppress folks based on race and gender,” Ashley Madness of SWOP LA and the DecrimSexWorkCA Coalition, said in a statement.
A sentiment echoed in a separate statement by Fatima Shabazz of the DecrimSexWorkCA Coalition:
“SB 357 repeals a Jim Crow law that criminalized Black and trans people in public spaces.”
“Onyx Black” in a spinning “Superman” pose on the dance pole. Her performance induces attendees to “make it rain,” the act of tossing money at an exotic dancer.Audience members stand stand back and watch as “Ms. Angel” performs her exotic dance on the pole. “Ms. Angel.” “Elle Souza” begins her dance routine on the dance pole. An exotic dancer, “Elle Souza” collects the money she earned after her performance “made it rain” during the SWOPLA and Decrim SW California New Year’s Eve event on Saturday, Dec. 31, 2022. “Angel,” 25, poses for a photo inside a photo booth where she is volunteering as a portrait event photographer during the sex worker’s New Year’s Eve event celebrating the passage of Senate Bill 357 (Safer Streets For All Act) set to go into effect at the toll of midnight on Saturday, Dec. 31, 2022. “Angel” became a sex worker when she was 20-years-old after experiencing homelessness. She began to make enough money that she was able to provide housing for herself less than a month after becoming a sex worker. “It really saved my life,” she said. She recently graduated from UCLA where she has been pursuing a career in law.Attendees dance while the exotic performers pause for a break.“Nicole,” 26, walks up to the dance pole during a sex worker’s celebration of New Year’s Eve in Downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, Dec. 31, 2022. Nicole pursued her passion to become an exotic dancer at the age of 19 back in North Carolina. She had just recently arrived in Los Angeles last Summer. “I grew up in the South so I always knew a lot of dancers who were comfortable being on stage- I always loved the dance stage- so I figured, ‘why not dance?,’” she said.“Willow Nicole” stands back and observes “Xochit de la Noche” tease a member of the audience during her dance routine. “Xochi De La Noche” performs her themed dance on New Year’s Eve during the SWOPLA and Decrim SW California celebration of the recent passage of SB 357 bill into law when the clock struck midnight.“You have to genuinely not give a f-ck to be an [exotic] dancer- get up on a stage in front of complete strangers and take your clothes off for money. You cannot be ordinary. You have to be extra-ordinary to do that,” a supporter for sex workers said during the event.A makeshift memorial for Carol Leigh, a “member of Decrim Sex Work CA, the coalition that threw the party with SWOPLA (& help from other supporters). She was a fierce activist, organizer, creative, and visionary! And so full of humor and wonder. She was also very involved in BAYSWAN and the Sex Worker Film Festival in San Francisco, and is widely credited with coining the term sex work,” Ashley Madness of SWOPLA said.
Note: All of the names of the performers for this piece were kept anonymous and only their stage names were used for safety concerns. Many sex workers continue to deal with the effects of stigmatization against their profession.
On Wednesday, Nov. 17, El Camino College, along with L.A. County Supervisor Holly Mitchell’s office, Healing California and the Warrior Pantry hosted the Veterans and Community Thanksgiving event on-campus. During the event, veterans, ECC students and members of the community were invited to take advantage of a variety of resources and services provided for them…
— Read on eccunion.com/news/2021/11/25/photos-eccs-veterans-and-community-thanksgiving-event/
A year ago on Sept. 22, 2020, 21-year-old El Camino College student, Juan Carlos Hernandez was murdered sometime after his night shift inside a Los Angeles dispensary where he worked ended. Hernandez, better known to those closest to him as “Cookie,” was an engineering major while attending ECC. He had plans to transfer to USC…
— Read on eccunion.com/news/2021/09/29/family-and-friends-gather-to-remember-ecc-students-death-one-year-later/
On Saturday, Oct. 2, the Women’s March Action took to the streets of downtown Los Angeles marching from Pershing Square to City City Hall in what they called a March for Reproductive Rights. “We’re taking to the streets in response to Texas’ draconian six-week abortion ban, which allows individuals to sue abortion providers and patients,” a press release from the organization reads. Photo by Jose TobarAn East Side Moto Babes member, an all female motorcycle club, raises her fist as they prepare to lead the March for Reproductive Rights during the 2021 Women’s March on Saturday, Oct. 2 in Los Angeles, Ca. The latest Instagram post @eastsidemotobabes claims to have raised $1,000 for Planned Parenthood. “ESMB stands in solidarity with @PlannedParenthood and all organizations fighting for a woman’s right to choose,” a post from the groups Instagram page posted in September reads. Photo by Jose TobarThe tribal chairwoman of the Rumšen Am:a Tur:ataj Ohlone tribe, Dee Dee Manzanares Ybarra of Hesperia leads the Women’s March with members of the American Indian Movement of Southern California during the March for Reproductive Rights in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, Oct. 2, 2021. “As indigenous women we are always being put in the back burner,” Ybarra said. “So we are here to stand up for women’s rights. Most native women were never given the opportunity to own their rights, especially, reproductive rights, a lot of them were forced into sterilization and so that’s why we’re here and that is to make sure that women do have their right to choose. Whether they want to have children or not have children, it is our bodies. It is our choice,” Ybarra said. Photo by Jose Tobar“I Refuse To Have My Granddaughters Go From 2021 to 1971”. Demonstrators March north on Spring Street chanting “My body, my choice” as they make their way to Los Angeles City Hall during the Women’s March for Reproductive Rights on Saturday, Oct. 2, 2021. Photo by Jose Tobar“Can we get a medic?”. A woman is carried away after having fainted moments after the the Women’s March gathers in front of City Hall in Los Angeles, where the hot dry temperature reached 91 degrees Fahrenheit according to the National Weather Service on Saturday, Oct. 2, 2021. Photo by Jose Tobar“Huge Pussy”. Photo by Jose TobarDevon Anderson, left and her mother, Jacqueline Buckingham Anderson, right. Jacqueline who said she once had to get an abortion when she was 16-years-old wanted to make sure that her daughter and all women could have a similar choice. Based in Texas, “HUGE PUSSY is a philanthropic media collective that partners with artists and companies to create art, products, and initiatives to support activists on the front lines of women’s health,” a statement from her company’s website reads. by Jose Tobar“But this is illegal?” Photo by Jose Tobar“My MOM said I had to be here!” Photo by Jose Tobar“Ladies, Time To Kick Ass” Photo by Jose Tobar“Come And Take It” Photo by Jose Tobar“Trust Women” Photo by Jose Tobar“Fight The Patriarchy”. Alex Miller and her dog Murphy. “It’s important to fight for people who have less resources than me. I know for me, somewhere in the world I’ll always be able to get an abortion,” Miller said. “ But that’s because I’m physically capable. We need to be able to get an abortion right here in our neighborhood-and it needs to be basic health care .” Photo by Jose Tobar“Reyna” Photo by Jose Tobar“Warning, This This Is Not A Surgical Instrument” Photo by Jose Tobar
A detailed scene of a larger a mural in the MacArthur Park area illustrating the arrival of a European ship to the Americas. Photo by Jose Tobar
Story by Jose Tobar
The National Council of Indigenous Peoples in the Diaspora, announced its official formation made up of a number of Central American indigenous governments, organizations, community representatives and individuals to advocate for indigenous rights at both the national and international level, a CONPID press release sent out last Thursday reads.
CONPID, or the Consejo Nacional de Pueblos Indigenas en la Diaspora, in Spanish, will consist of indigenous community leaders of Maya Kiche, Qanjobal, Chuj, Popti, Kaqchikel and Nahua-Pipil ancestry whose nations and ancestral lands reside within the Northern Triangle of Central America.
The Council will also include a host of organizations like Centro Cultural Techantit (CCT), Liga Maya (LG), Frente Indigena Oaxaqueno Binacional (FIOB) and Tonatierra, organizations that individually have worked toward the protection and recognition of indigenous rights across the diaspora, according to the CONPID website, launched last Thursday evening.
“There are too many migrant people and children who have died at the hands of border patrol agents and who have suffered human rights abuses and issues exacerbated by the pandemic [that] it became necessary for us to band together in an effort to try and be more effective and harder to ignore in our work,” Haydee Sanchez, director of Techantit and a CONPID leader said.
Some of the work organizations like Techantit and Maya Vision who have operated out of the Westlake/Pico-Union in Los Angeles area and Tonatierra, out of Phoenix, Ariz., have done has helped indigenous-speaking migrants detained under Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers in the U.S. by providing them with interpreters who can speak their native tongues.
Many of these migrants, Sanchez said, have often found themselves in legal limbo while detained as they are often pegged categorically as Hispanics, Latinos or Latin X. While some may speak Spanish, others can only speak their native languages.
But the bigger picture lies in the root causes of migration, CONPID said, and the need to address these more specifically:
Agricultural deterioration due to climate change, water rights issues, “regimes that suppress indigenous rights, failed U.S. foreign economic policy that create the conditions for forced migration, and the narco-state that threaten their lives through violence and land theft,” according to CONPID, has directly contributed to the extreme poverty that continues to displace indigenous communities, to the U.S.
“As transnational corporations increasingly disrupt the indigenous communities at the southern U.S. border it is imperative that the international community help expose and address the root causes of migration so that our people may remain in their ancestral lands,” CONPID said.
“The Biden administration has yet to present any comprehensive plan that will address any of these problems at their root causes and as such the inhumane treatment of our peoples at the U.S. southern border continues.”
Seven Commissions have been created under CONPID to address specific issues as they pertain to native struggles. During the coming weeks these will be announced via social media.
“Some of these will include the Commission for Social Support, the Commission of Indigenous Language Speaking Interpreters and the Commission of Education and Culture, just to name a few,” Haydee said.
For the public at large what CONPID hopes to achieve through its social media efforts, Haydee said, is to bring awareness to people who may not be aware of their work in regards to indigenous and human rights issues.
“We want people to know that they are not alone. There are voices and people here to support them. And that we are here and have been here to assert indigenous peoples rights, our human rights and the rights of Mother Earth.”
Los Angeles, Koreatown – Every Sunday morning “church” is in service outside the 11-storied office tower known as Wilshire Park Place in Liberty Park, an iconic Los Angeles skate spot dubbed under pandemic inspired reverberations by the skateboarding community: JKwon, L.A.’s LOVE Park.
Skateboarders of all ages, shapes and sizes swarm to skater “Mass” there on the weekend. They veer like locusts “ollieing” into, off or over the plaza’s various granite stairs and ledges – practicing “tricks”, “giving offerings”, they say. The kind that can get you cracked ankles and wrists.
There’s no Robert Indiana “LOVE” sculpture present like the one installed in 1976 at the original Love Park in Philadelphia. In its stead, a replica of the Liberty Bell sits anchored in the center of the plaza just a few feet away from the large red and blue Radio Korea signage pinned above the building’s entrance.
JKwon, Church on Sundays. Photo by Jose Tobar (2020)
The unspoken rule between management and skateboarders sofar is that on Sundays the plaza is up for grabs. And that’s when they show up for what they call, “Church on Sundays.”
No overzealous cops or security guards are present. No tickethanding or chase giving, blocks past the property line- thanks due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There’s so much talent here, It’s crazy,” musician and skateboarder, Javan Lassane, 24, said. “It’s just how Love Park was back in the 90s. It might be smaller but I’m stamping it bro.”
JKwon. Photo by Jose Tobar (2020)
Lassane, who moved to L.A. from Philadelphia in July saw his music career suffer after musical venues began to shut down and opportunities to perform publicly ceased as a result of the pandemic. Skateboarding was the one thing he could always go back to during tough times.
“I grew up skating at Love Park until they tore it down,” Lassane said. “As I progressed with my music I put it aside for a while. But coming back here was like a second life for me. And coincidentally, a second life for this plaza.”
JKwon. Photo by Jose Tobar (2020)
As the pandemic continued to surge throughout 2020, parks and public recreational areas were closed in an effort to stem the spread of the virus. Even though most city parks have reopened it wasn’t until February 23 that skateparks were excepted from closures.
Echo Park Skate Park, Bummer. Photo by Jose Tobar (2020)
“We were like, ‘F-ck!” former Lucky and Val Surf Skate shop rider, Steve Kindle, said about skateboarding before and during the pandemic.
“We skated then. We got tickets. We got kicked out then and that didn’t stop us,” Kindle said. “So why would they think putting a padlock on a skate park would stop us now?”
Echo Park Skate Park, Hopping the Fence, BLM Skate Sesh. Photo by Jose Tobar (2020)Echo Park Skate Park. Photo by Jose Tobar (2020)Echo Park Skate Park. Photo by Jose Tobar (2020)
According to Don Cooly, manager for the professional skateboarding company, DGK (Dirty Ghetto Kids), a company headed by legendary street skater and native Philadelphian, Stevie Williams, months had passed with “nowhere to go” because of the shutdown.
“Everything was locked down, so we eventually said, ‘F-ck it,’” Cooly said. “We’re just going to start showing up every Sunday and call it Church. And with Stevie, Razoul, the Phily dawgs and the homies, it just brought back that Love Park feel. That’s why people here love it.”
Don Cooley, DGK Manager. Photo by Jose Tobar (2020)
Love Park, or John F. Kennedy Plaza, was an urban park built in 1965 in Center City, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Its design provided an ideal combination of street obstacles made up of various size granite steps, ledges and rails that included the famous LOVE gap, a wide set of four steps that led into the fountain area.
From the early 90s and into the late 2000s, it became a fixture in countless skateboarding videos. It’s been featured in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series. And it was the site for the 2001-2002 ESPN X-Games.
But despite the rich cultural history skateboarding imbued the park with. Despite the public support and its designers’ original intent to make Love Park a public space for the public, city officials thought it was better suited for only some of the public.
Philadelphia police were notorious for ticketing or arresting skateboarders who frequented it. Throughout its formative and golden years as a skate spot the city outlawed skateboarding several times there.
In 2002, after the ESPN X-Games ended, skateboarding was banned again. Never mind the $80 million revenue the X-Games generated for the city. Even the park’s planner and designer, 92-year-old Edmund Bacon (actor Kevin Bacon’s father) and its architect Vincent Kling, protested.
In a publicly held demonstration caught on video, Bacon defies the city’s anti-skateboarding law by skateboarding the park himself-with a little help- hoping to get arrested.
“And now I, Edmund Dunn Bacon, in total defiance of Mayor Street and the council of the city of Philadelphia, hereby, exercise my right as a citizen of the United States,” Bacon said. “And I deliberately SKATE in my beloved LOVE Park.”
He skated a few feet and declared:
“Oh God, thank you, thank you, thank you. My whole damn life was worth it just for this moment.”
In 2004, one of the biggest skateboarding shoe companies, DC Shoes, offered to gift the city $1million for up to 10 years for the park’s upkeep in exchange for a “balanced” approach to skateboarding. The city turned it down.
As plans to overhaul Love Park got underway the city lifted the “no skateboarding” ban to skaters for one last rendezvous from Wednesday, Feb.10, to Sunday, Feb. 14, Valentine’s Day, 2016.
The renovation was the city’s final effort to end the cat and mouse game that had gone on for over a decade and a half between skateboarders and the police. In the end, the park’s ledges and stairs and all the things that made Love Park a mecca for the skateboarding community world-wide were gone.
Little was left in its wake after the park re-opened in 2018 other than what one resident described in an interview with the Philly Voice, as an enormous sidewalk that gave her “a case of the Mondays” every time she’d walk through it.
JKwon: LA’s Love Park, (Wilshire Park Place/Liberty Park), nearly suffered a similar fate. Like Love Park, Skateboarders have been congregating at Jkwon since the late 80s. Over the years, they’ve been similarly chased, ticketed, harassed, arrested, banned and outlawed.
The same year that Love Park was set to undergo its makeover in 2016, Koreatown’s biggest property owner, Jamison Services, planned to demolish the site on which both Liberty Park and Beneficial Plaza (Jkwon) rests in order to make room for a 500-unit mixed-use tower.
But a group of local Koreatown residents that fought to protect the space under a campaign they named “Save Liberty Park” succeeded in defeating those plans when the Los Angeles City Council declare the site a Historic-Cultural Monument in 2018.
In the group’s website, savelibertypark.org, the park and plaza are described as a place that hosts a number of public events like Earthday, National Night Out, Save Dok-do Island and an outside viewing of the World Cup.
JKwon. Photo by Jose Tobar (2021)
“The park is also a skateboarder’s paradise. The area outside the building is one of L.A.’s most iconic spots for skateboarders,” the site reads before it goes on to mention the lack of parks and green spaces in Koreatown, describing the area “as one of the most “park poor” neighborhoods in the county.”
‘KTown for BlackLives’ organizer and cultural worker, Cat Yang, right and her colleague, left, gather outside Liberty Park in Koreatown to collect mutual aid supplies they then donate to black led organizations like Watts Community Core and One Section At A Time. Photo by Jose Tobar (2021)
It was the Beneficial Insurance Group company that built Beneficial Plaza and Liberty Park in 1967. Its founder Edward D. Mitchell thought it important to dedicate the 315-foot setback and the hardscaped plaza as “an asset to the community,” according to the laconservancey.org website.
“I’ve never seen it like this,” Fabian Alomar, pro-skateboarder and member of the infamous L.A. skate team, Menace, said during a visit to one of JKwon’s “Church on Sundays” sessions last December. With him was his good friend, Danny “Machete” Trejo.
In no time an admiring crowd surrounded the two, snapping pictures and videos that would later resurface on skateboarder’s Instagram accounts. Even a young 14-year-old skater, Stacey Lugo who had just arrived from Whittier to skate JKwon for the first time, was invited by both Machete and Alomar to pose together for a photo op.
JKwon. Fabian Alomar (black tank-top) and Danny “Machete” Trejo (white baseball cap), during a “Church on Sunday” session. Photo by Jose Tobar (2020)
Alomar had just been released from Pelican Bay State Prison after having done four years of a nine-year stint for what he called “anger problems.”
Since, his release he has been working with the Anti Recidivism Coalition, a non-profit prison reform organization while pursuing a career as an actor and launching his LCKWD Athletics clothing company, named after another famous L.A. skate spot, Lockwood.
Raised in Echo Park, Alomar grew up skateboarding the streets of Los Angeles before getting sponsored. Together with Menace, Chocolate and Girl skate team members, other skate spots like Lockwood of Lockwood Elementary in East Hollywood, were put on the map as footage of these spots became fixtures in many skate videos of the 90s.
Alomar recalled first skating Liberty Park, then Beneficial Plaza (JKwon) with famed skateboarder, Gabriel Rodriguez, of the Pico-Union district, as far back as 1987-88. Sadly, Rodriguez passed away in 2019 at the young age of 46 leaving in his path an indelible mark on the skateboarding community at large.
“I took Danny (Machete) to JKwon,” Alomar said, “Because I wanted him to get a glimpse into my world. Since I’ve been out of prison, I’ve been in his world helping him give away toys and doing fund raisers. Doing God’s work. I just wanted to show him a little of what I’ve been doing and where I came from. After all, skateboarding saved my life.”
Trejo’s response and reaction? Well, he casually FaceTimed Mayor Eric Garcetti, Alomar said:
“He called the mayor and showed him everyone skating and told him, ‘Hey look, we’re all wearing masks here. Everybody’s cooperating. These are good kids here. Keep giving them spots to skate because they need this outlet,’” Alomar recalled during a phone interview.
For now, Jkwon, Liberty Park, is safe from any redevelopment plans. And at least on Sundays, skateboarding there continues to be hassle free. It’s common to see casual observers sit nearby to listen and watch the skateboarders:
“I actually grew up going to skate parks because my brother skateboarded. So, I would show up to skate spots like this all the time,” Kayla, 23, retired dancer, the “naughty kind” of Portland, Maine said. When asked what her thoughts were on the history of the spot and skateboarding in general, she said:
“Skateboarding is hot.”
JKwon. Photo by Jose Tobar (2020)JKwon. Photo by Jose Tobar (2020)JKwon. Photo by Jose Tobar (2020).JKwon. Photo by Jose Tobar (2020)JKwon. Photo by Jose Tobar (2021)JKwon. Photo by Jose Tobar (2020)JKwon. Photo by Jose Tobar (2021)JKwon. Photo by Jose Tobar (2020)JKwon. Photo by Jose Tobar (2021)
The weatherman on the radio had said that New Year’s Eve would end on a nice day. But for Christian singer, Sean Feucht’s “Let Us Worship” gathering at the Echo Park Lake on Thursday, things were anything but nice.
It began with the unrelated discovery of a man’s body that had been floating by the Lady of the Lake statue on the north end of the park.
Police were on site conducting an investigation into what looked like an accidental drowning. Although it had no connection to the New Year’s Eve gathering planned by Feucht who was not in attendance, it set an eerie undertone for how things would unfold.
The second of Feucht’s homeless outreach event in Los Angeles was met with resistance by homeless advocates and activists concerned that the typically unmasked gatherings would create a super spreader event that could pose a risk for the unhoused population living in the park.
Protesters lambasted and heckled the Evangelicals with disorienting siren sound effects that blared out of handheld megaphones. A bitonal Stravinsky-esque noise filled the air as the Evangelical rock band’s musical performance clashed with the rap and rhythm and blues tunes protesters blasted out of a giant speaker.
Chants like, “You’re not welcomed in our community without a mask.” and “Satan is here today without a mask” mixed with Christian singsongs and prayers throughout the day.
Photo by Jose Tobar.
A small group of independent community activists dressed in traditional indigenous attire performed a ceremony around the crowd of Christian worshipers, that, Maria Villamil said was done to acknowledge the ancestral indigenous lands on which the event was taking place.
She associated the Feucht gathering with the tactics, she said, were used by “Conquistadors” and “Colonizers” to spread diseases amongst the indigenous communities in the Americas when blankets infected with smallpox were handed out as gifts.
“This is an inhumane and unconscionable act,” Villamil said. “They come here without masks from other cities experiencing high levels of the virus and putting an already vulnerable homeless population at greater risk. It’s an injustice.”
The night before, Feucht congregants had been hampered by a blockade of vehicles organized by the Los Angeles Community Action Network and Church Without Walls in Downtown’s Skid Row where the first homeless outreach event was scheduled to take place, according to the L.A. Times.
Photo by Jose Tobar.
“It’s what we’ve seen all year long across America,” Feucht tweeted on Friday with a video that showed a man flipping over speakers and part of the band’s drum kit in Echo Park. “After enduring Portland and Chicago, our team didn’t miss a beat in LA. THE CHURCH HAS LEFT THE BUILDING.”
Feucht, a Redding, California resident and member of the Bethel Church, garnered notoriety over the maskless concerts and rallies he’s used to protest the states’ COVID-19 restrictions on religious worship during the pandemic.
He made a Republican run for Congress back in March but failed to gain enough votes to win. And in June, he angered the local community in Minneapolis, Chicago, when he showed up to perform near the site where people were mourning the death of George Floyd.
“These people are putting other people in danger by being so inconsiderate,” Sunflower, a protester who declined to give her full name said. “It’s so easy to put on a mask. It’s literally like putting your pants on. You’ve got two legs, you’ve got two ears, put them one over the other.”
In February, Sunflower, who suffers from asthma, had been hospitalized after she contracted COVID-19, she said. Despite having survived she can still feel the virus’ long-term effects as an asthmatic. But what she lamented the most was having lost an uncle to the virus.
Photo by Jose Tobar.
Over 10,000 L.A. County residents were reported to have died a COVID-19 related death as of Wednesday, Dec. 30, according to a Los Angeles County Department of Public Health press release published the same day.
“[The] tragic milestone comes as New Year’s Eve approaches,” the press release reads. “to date, Public Health identified 756,116 positive cases of COVID-19 across all areas of L.A. County and a total of 10,056 deaths.”
“I have my belief system, they have theirs,” a Cincinnati, Ohio resident, Rylan Hickman said. Hickman, who was in attendance in Echo Park as part of the “Let Us Worship” group wore a mask but said that protesters didn’t fully understand what they were trying to do:
“I honor what they believe,” he said. “But what they have to understand is that the things that they’re saying is contradicting their actions. There should be a freedom of speech and a freedom of worship, according to the Constitution. I have no hatred toward anybody. I honestly pray for these people.”
Later that evening, a larger third Feucht New Year’s Eve gathering was reported to have taken place by the L.A. Times. About 2,500 attendees gathered in a church parking lot in Valencia, California. Most without masks and little to no social distancing.
Photo by Jose Tobar.
Back in Echo Park, 45-year-old, LeTrenna Larry is four months pregnant. She lives with her partner Nathan in one of the tents. She’s experienced chronic homelessness throughout the pandemic. She was let go from her job as a security guard after her employer found out she was homeless.
The lack of affordable housing in the city made worse under the pandemic priced both LeTrenna and her partner out of a home. When she heard the commotion taking place outside her tent, she didn’t quite understand what was going on at first.
“I’m confused,” LeTrenna said. “But I think the people that are trying to advocate and help us are the ones I’d want to go with. While the ones that are not trying to help, I think that’s evil and demonic. People are suffering.”
Roberto Bautista and Antonio Bautista, pose for a photo in front of the 35-year-old mural depicting the fabled Virgin Mary’s apparition before the Mexica Indian, Juan Diego, on Saturday, Dec. 19, 2020. Despite COVID-19 fears and their unrelated familial bonds, their shared devotion to the iconic figure brought them together at a moment’s notice to organize a last-minute festivity in her honor. (Photo by Jose Tobar).
Despite the tightening grip of COVID-19 cases plaguing the city, scores of Catholic Latinos across the city celebrated the annual Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe in honor of the Virgin Mary on Dec. 12.
Not ignorant of the potentially deadly consequences, many of these undeterred devotees, COVID-fatigued but wary, strapped on their face shields and masks aiming to observe the religious holiday anyway.
But that was nearly not the case in one Westlake-Mac Arthur Park neighborhood where the local community has commemorated the iconic mother figure for years in front of a 35-year-old mural that depicts her mythical apparition before the Mexica (Aztec) indian, Juan Diego.
For the past 20 years, Roberto Bautista, a local party supply business owner and music promoter, hosted and organized the event in front of the mural located just off 6th Street and Union Avenue, every Dec. 11 to 12.
Between 500 to 1,000 mixed generation Mexicans and Central-Americans would enjoy freshly made tacos, pupusas, pozele and the traditional ponche-warm fruit punch-to live music that would play well into the morning hours along the Union Ave. incline.
The large gathering, Bautista said, would prompt an unofficial street closure with little to no police involvement so long as the event remained festive. People would flock to the finely decorated mural with candles to light, and flowers to lay beneath the image, imbuing the scene with a sense of magical realism.
Christmas lights, flowers and candles decorate the mural on Sixth St. and Union Avenue., on Dec. 12, 2020. (Photo by Jose Tobar).
But in March, when California declared its state of emergency as a result of the pandemic, Bautista’s business suffered. As more people stayed home and sales decreased, the economic uncertainty forced him to shut down. With revenue dried up and COVID in full force, he said, the possibility of a celebration this year didn’t seem likely.
“People would approach me on the street and ask me if we were going to celebrate La Guadalupana,” Roberto Bautista said in Spanish. “And well, at the time, I didn’t have any plans to. The money that I’d put in years prior just wasn’t there.”
For Bautista, celebrating his beloved Mary isn’t simply a matter of a Catholic upbringing. It is cemented more in the hard knocks he’s suffered growing up in Los Angeles, when drugs and alcohol use was his norm-topped with an incident that nearly cost him his life four years ago.
While swimming with his kids at a friend’s pool one day, Bautista cracked a portion of his spinal cord when he unknowingly dove into the shallow end head first. His mind although alert, he said, could do nothing for him as the water began to seep into his lungs.
“The last thing I remembered was floating upwards face down unable to let anyone know I was drowning,” Bautista said. “I could see the air bubbling out of my body and the water filling my lungs. The last thing I saw was my daughter’s face. Then everything went white.”
Whether luck or divine intervention, his friend looked out a window toward the pool and quickly realized something was wrong and yelled, “Hey check on Roberto. He’s been there too long.”
His daughter and others ran out of the house and pulled him out of the water. The ambulance arrived and rushed him to General Hospital where he laid comatose for the next 40 days, he said. When he finally woke up, he was paralyzed.
“I prayed then,” Bautista said:
‘Virgencita, are you really gonna leave me like this? Please, let me walk again. I don’t care if you leave me with my arms dangling and flailing afterward. Just please let me walk again.’
“She gave me back both.”
After an extensive eight-hour operation to repair his damaged spine and months of physical therapy, Bautista was able to regain his ability to walk again. And that, he said, he owed in a big way, to Guadalupe.
Mariachi Lindas Mexicanas plays in front of the Virgin Mary mural off Sixth Street and Union Avenue on Friday, Dec. 11, 2020. (Photo by Jose TobarTobar).
And that is why, as the day of the feast approached, he found himself praying once more for a little help. This time however, the help he needed was for the yearly feast he had hoped to have as a show of his continued devotion and appreciation for her.
He had just about given up hope when someone from the neighborhood told him there was a man who had spent three hours trying to locate him-to discuss the possibility of hosting a small celebration in front of the mural depicting the Virgin Maria.
“It’s as if he fell to us straight out of heaven,” Bautista said over the phone, about the man whose last name he soon learned was-Bautista.
“When I learned that we shared the same last name, I knew I was supposed to be here, “Antonio Bautista, said. “I’ve always asked God to put me wherever he needs me to be.”
Driving east on 6th Street days before the Dec. 12 celebration, the 46-year-old house painter from Cambria California had just picked up paint supplies from the local Home Depot in the Mac Arthur Park area for a job he’d been hired to do when from the corner of his eye, he spotted her posted over the east facing wall of Coqueta’s-Coquette-clothing store.
Not the type to second guess himself, Antonio Bautista, pulled a U-turn and parked his vehicle, still dressed in his white painter’s bib overalls, to find the person in charge of the mural.
“I just wanted to give people a rest from all of the bad things that happened this year,” Antonio Bautista, said. “I felt that the fact that [the mural] was out in the open like that would make the festivity accessible to the community.”
Although, hesitant at first, Roberto Bautista was finally won over by Antonio’s enthusiasm.
Wasting no time, the two Bautistas pulled their resources together and by Friday evening, the mural blossomed with flowers, Christmas lights and decorations.
La Tremendisima Banda San Juan plays La Guadalupana, on Saturday, Dec. 12, for the annual Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Union Avenue. Antonio Bautista in coordination with Roberto Bautista organized the event days before the holiday. (Photo by Jose Tobar).
It was hard to know how many people would show. COVID-19 cases and related deaths continued to rise throughout the county by the hour and they worried about creating a super spreader event. So, in an effort to avoid the possibility, they’d put the word out that mask wearing would be strictly enforced.
By 10 p.m. on Dec. 11, as the first musical group, Mariachi Lindas Mexicanas, began to play, a small crowd of 50 or more, all wearing masks, had slowly gathered.
“These days really represent something to me bro. It just brings me a lot of joy to see this after all the crazy things we’ve been through this year. Tomorrow is my birthday, so this here makes me feel good,” Danny, who declined to provide his last name, said, after inadvertently stumbling into the festivity.
Despite the smaller number of attendees, the atmosphere was jovial. People encircled the band just close enough to get nearer the music. Others hanged back, watching from across the street, alone or in a group, eating tacos or bacon wrapped hotdogs from Maldonado’s taco truck, parked just a few feet away from where the Virgin Mary was being serenaded under a starless sky.
“I didn’t plan on coming,” a local woman who declined to give her name, said. “I was on my way home from the laundromat when I heard the music and it drew me in. It feels a little sad compared to other years, but she looks beautiful.”
Locals in the Mac Arthur Park District volunteer to decorate the mural dedicated to the Virgin Mary on Friday, Dec. 11, the night before the culmination of the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Word had been sent out that mask wearing would be strictly enforced as a COVID-19 safety protocol. (Photo by Jose Tobar).
The event ended on Dec. 12, just as quickly as it had been organized. But days later, Christmas banners were popping up-stretching from lamp post to lamp post at the same intersection.
For Christmas, Dec. 25, Antonio Bautista, said, they will host a small musical celebration at the same location to help liven people’s spirits, up a bit. There will be pinatas for the kids and live music for the grown ups.
“There’s a lot of people like me who’ve known poverty but who have been blessed like I have,” Antonio Bautista said. “I hope those people will do something good for others-today, hopefully. Because we just don’t know whether we’ll still be here tomorrow.”
Note: Some changes were made to headline for clarity and a few minor grammatical errors.
Giancarlo Cotta, 21, fire and emergency technology major, one of surf instructor Kurt Peters’ students, rides in front of a wave at The Strand Friday, Oct.11. Peters’ surfing class is only available during the Fall semester. “There is just something about being in the water, being on your own, you’re out there with your own thoughts whether you’re surfing with friends or by yourself,” Peters said. Rosemary Montalvo/The Union
By Jose Tobar
The half-mile stretch of beach bordered by the El Segundo Chevron oil refinery looms against the northern sky, extending out to the southern pier. Silhouetted figures of surfers scattered outside the beach break can be observed sitting atop their surfboards since the crack of dawn, idling over the swells of El Porto where the Manhattan…
— Read on eccunion.com/features/2019/11/13/a-professors-role-in-the-movement-that-made-surfing-californias-official-sport/
Notes From MacArthur Park/Pico-Union... 