MacArthur Park continues to be a place for community organizing and joy

MacArthur Park, located in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, one of the city's first parks, was once one of the most popular outdoor retreats at the turn of the twentieth century.

The park, which is also one of the largest in the city, sits among a grand population of working-class people, immigrants, street vendors, and people dealing with mental health. 

The almost 30-acre park recently made national headlines for being under heavy military and armed occupation of federal agents, specifically from the Department of Homeland Security,  as well as National Guard troops. 

The sweep, which occurred in the early morning of July 7, featured agents occupying the park with horses, armored vehicles, rifles and other tactical gear at a time when the city had been the ongoing target of ICE raids. 

The park has also become a prevalent location for drug use and overdoses, despite the city’s ongoing effort to turn it around. 

However, the park, which in the 1800s was an unwanted block of land used for decades as a city dump, has become a park fostering community well-being, immigrant experiences, and environmental narratives. 

“MacArthur Park is one of the most beautiful parks in the city with a lot of issues around it, but with a lot of opportunity and a lot of community that recognizes its value,” said Eunisses Hernandez, the councilmember of L.A.’s first district, where the park is located. 

In 2024, the park secured $2.5 million to fund the Reconnecting MacArthur Park Project launch, which would regain more green spaces for people and less for cars. The funds would help assess the feasibility of reconnecting the two sides of the park, which have been intersected by Wilshire Blvd., which passes right through the park and is one of the most used streets in L.A. This would involve closing off a portion of Wilshire Blvd from vehicular traffic and regaining public space for direct community use. 

Hernandez stated that the park has been one of her district's top priorities since she took office in late 2022, but years of neglect and a lack of funding have made it challenging for the park to be utilized to its full potential. In the last few years, the city council and Hernandez’s office have secured millions of dollars to improve the park and enhance safety for nearby residents. 

As stated in a recent motion, the council district has secured at least $25 million in grants and collaborations with the county, state and federal governments, as well as partnerships with private foundations, to address both the urgent and long-term needs of the park, including over $1 million for dedicated clean teams six days a week and $950,000 for peace ambassadors seven days a week. 

Hernandez’s office has also partnered with the L.A. Mayor's office to upgrade street lighting and increase the presence of Crisis and Incident Response through Community-led Engagement (CIRCLE), a 24/7 unarmed response program that deploys a team of mental health professionals and individuals with lived experience to address non-violent LAPD calls related to unhoused individuals experiencing crisis. 

“Right now, I'm trying to turn the Titanic, and I didn't realize how much weight the Titanic had and how difficult it would be. But MacArthur Park is not something that we've given up on,” she said. 

Hernandez said she will continue to seek additional funding for initiatives that contribute to the infrastructure and safety of MacArthur Park. 

In April, her office called for additional funding for the park and introduced a motion calling for a report on potential funding sources to maintain staffing plans for several services and programs at the park and within a half-mile radius for the period from May 2025 through June 2026. 

She also asked for $69,500 for a tree project along the Alvarado Street vending corridor and $1.2 million for the construction of a public restroom. The funding will also tackle some of the park’s most crucial issues, which include illegal dumping collection in alleys around the park, park beautification, solarized lighting, graffiti removal, special event support and public restroom maintenance, among other items. 

“MacArthur Park is a neighborhood, a community; more than anything, it's a place of opportunity,” Hernandez said. “With the proper investments, with the proper care [the park] can meet the promise that the community expects.”

Hernandez also said one of the things her office is currently working on is restoring the water quality levels so that there can be recreation done on the park’s lake, as well as working with the street vendors in this area to educate them about knowing their rights while vending around MacArthur Park, which is home to one of the largest open markets in the country. 

The park serves about 41,000 residents living within a half mile, as well as the 22,000 riders who pass through the Westlake/MacArthur Park Metro station and six major Metro bus lines daily. 

It is also surrounded by several influential institutions, such as the Mexican Consulate, UCLA Labor Center, L.A. County Department of Public Social Services, Charles White Elementary School, MacArthur Park Elementary School and Fire Station 11, which is one of the busiest fire stations in the country. 

“While the population of the MacArthur Park neighborhood has significantly grown according to both formal and informal counts, public investments in municipal services and the social, economic and infrastructure needs of the neighborhood did not keep pace,” Hernandez wrote in a motion. “This has resulted in an area characterized by deep poverty, uncleanliness, and crime… The communities that have made MacArthur Park and the surrounding area the vibrant hub of culture, food that exists today demand and deserve appropriate investment to meet their needs and the needs of the people who pass through on a daily basis.”

However, the park continues to be a space filled with thriving community, resilience and memories. For years, the park has also been a historical and important site for community defense and political and social justice demonstrations, as well as other forms of activism.  

In the past, it has been the site of large-scale rallies and marches related to workers' rights, immigrant rights, and other social justice issues like Proposition 187. Among the biggest marches hosted at the park every year are the Labor Day and May Day marches, organized by local unions and immigrant rights groups. 

Last Saturday, August 8, the park was also home to an action titled “Take Back MacArthur Park,” in reference to the July 7th federal occupation of the park and the various ICE raids that have occurred in a Home Depot, less than a mile away from the park. 

The community and a coalition of over 50 organizations across L.A. met in the park to talk about the importance of community defense amid the ICE raids and holding businesses like Home Depot accountable for their alleged cooperation with federal agents. 

“MacArthur Park has a tradition of being a park where community members and activists gather to fight back against repression, violence and harm, particularly to our most vulnerable communities,” Hernandez said. “Right now, it's one of the locations where we have organized community defense training. MacArthur Park as a park and the neighborhood have not had a choice but to be the gathering spot for the communities that are always severely impacted disproportionately by a lot of the issues facing our city.” 

In the summer, the park is also host to the Levitt Pavilion Los Angeles concerts, which take place inside the northwest corner of MacArthur Park.  As stated by Levitt  L.A., each summer over 60,000 people of all ages and backgrounds gather on the lawn of MacArthur Park to enjoy free live music and concerts, organized to make live music accessible to all and foster stronger and more connected communities. Every year, the concerts feature acclaimed emerging talent and seasoned, award-winning performers such as La Sonora Dinamita, Inspector, Kinky, Eddie Chacon, Los Abandoned and more. 

Hernandez said that these concerts, more than just bringing the community together, are also a way to increase public safety in and around the park. 

“The concerts bring the community out to take up space in a positive way. These events bring out people to take up space in the park during the evening, which might be a time when people don't feel safe,” she said. “The other part of this important piece is not only the public safety that comes from these events, but it's the opportunity to gather, to develop relationships and community, particularly for a very dense neighborhood. Most people live in apartment buildings, and they don't have those backyards or front yards to congregate in, and so the Levitt concerts provide that.” 

One of the things Hernandez has particularly struggled with is seeing the ways MacArthur Park is often negatively portrayed in mainstream media. “I’ve always seen the promise in MacArthur Park. It's incredibly disappointing and frustrating when, in the media, people who are more conservative or who have never been to MacArthur Park talk about the park like it’s the worst thing on this planet,” she said. “They're degrading the families and the communities that live there. And yes, there are issues in MacArthur Park, but because of that, we are not throwing this neighborhood and community away.” 

"Of all the parks in Los Angeles," Belle Sumner Angier of the L.A.Times wrote in 1903, "there is none better loved by the people than Westlake."