MacArthur Park

— Below is the last photo I took of my old apartment in MacArthur Park, a neighborhood whose name has been synonymous with danger for decades. From Chelsea Handler’s questionable inquiry about bodies in the park’s lake, made whilst buying pupusas from a street vendor on her Netflix special, to the “Gangs” header on its Wikipedia page, MacArthur Park has an infamous reputation both in pop culture and in Los Angeles. The name MacArthur Park refers both to its central park and the 2.72 mile radius surrounding it—a neighborhood also called Westlake that has a long and complicated history of overcrowding, gentrification, and displacement.