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  #1  
Old Posted Aug 8, 2019, 9:44 AM
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Echo Park Lake Los Angeles

Minutes from downtown Los Angeles, Echo Park Lake has been around since 1860. It was use as a drinking water reservoir and later as a recreational park with canoes and fishing. Today you can push your way through the lake in a swan pedal boat or stroll around the path that hugs its borders. It truly is one of my favorite hangout spots in Los Angeles.



































Thank you for checking out Echo Park.
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  #2  
Old Posted Aug 8, 2019, 12:19 PM
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Really beautiful!
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  #3  
Old Posted Aug 8, 2019, 1:57 PM
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The neighborhood around it is really changing for the better too. Silver Lake keeps creeping south.
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Old Posted Aug 8, 2019, 2:09 PM
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The neighborhood around it is really changing for the better too. Silver Lake keeps creeping south.
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  #5  
Old Posted Aug 8, 2019, 3:47 PM
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I went there on a Sunday recently and absolutely loved the plethora of diverse street food vendors (primarily from all over Latin America). Very vibrant and made me feel like I was anywhere but the US.

I do wish that the City of LA would do a much better job of keeping our parks clean, however. LA honestly has some of the most scraggily, unkempt looking parks of any major city in the country (at least in my experience). Seattle/SF was the opposite. It makes it not as enjoyable to explore.
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Old Posted Aug 8, 2019, 4:59 PM
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One of my favorite parks in LA. Great photos!
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  #7  
Old Posted Aug 9, 2019, 12:37 AM
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Echo Park is great. Now if we could just get MacArthur Park up to the same standard...
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  #8  
Old Posted Aug 9, 2019, 2:12 AM
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Originally Posted by LAsam View Post
Echo Park is great. Now if we could just get MacArthur Park up to the same standard...
Unless Westlake/MacArthur Park gets major gentrification, I don’t see the city spending the money to upgrade the park. And that is really a shame since it could easily be LA’s gem.
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  #9  
Old Posted Aug 9, 2019, 1:47 PM
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Unless Westlake/MacArthur Park gets major gentrification, I don’t see the city spending the money to upgrade the park. And that is really a shame since it could easily be LA’s gem.
Gentificiation is going to occur there at some point. It won't stay shitty forever. City West/Koreatown/Silver Lake keep pushing on it's boundaries. I'd say by 2025 or so you'll see some real changes.
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Old Posted Aug 9, 2019, 4:51 PM
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These are delightful pictures.

Away from Echo Park, however... What I seem to hear you all saying is that MacArthur Park is still, even after all these years, frightening in the dark. Am I hearing you correctly?
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  #11  
Old Posted Aug 9, 2019, 4:59 PM
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Originally Posted by hauntedheadnc View Post
These are delightful pictures.

Away from Echo Park, however... What I seem to hear you all saying is that MacArthur Park is still, even after all these years, frightening in the dark. Am I hearing you correctly?
Much much better than it used to be. Lots of changes and development on its edges and the park has been cleaned up a bit
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  #12  
Old Posted Aug 9, 2019, 5:17 PM
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Much much better than it used to be. Lots of changes and development on its edges and the park has been cleaned up a bit
Would it be safe enough to leave a cake out in the rain?

Sorry, but I had to... Sometimes you end up with a place whose name becomes so iconic that it detaches itself from any real, physical place and ends up just floating around out there in the sea of a society's collective culture.

In all seriousness though, although I've never set foot in California, let alone LA, I admit that I have a fascination with all the areas and artifacts from historic LA.
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  #13  
Old Posted Aug 9, 2019, 5:22 PM
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It still has it's issues, yes. I dont like spending alot of time there, but if they can keep improving the area, it will be among LA's most interesting areas.
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  #14  
Old Posted Aug 9, 2019, 5:56 PM
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I visited MacArthur Park about a week ago. I can personally say it's much better than
a decade ago but it's definitely needing help.


















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  #15  
Old Posted Aug 9, 2019, 7:08 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hauntedheadnc View Post
These are delightful pictures.

Away from Echo Park, however... What I seem to hear you all saying is that MacArthur Park is still, even after all these years, frightening in the dark. Am I hearing you correctly?
The park itself is better than the commercial areas right around it. Alvarado St. is crowded with people selling any and everything you can think of. In my opinion, it looks terrible and totally unbecoming of a world city, or at least a city aspiring to be a world city. In addition to the hoards of people selling crap, there is a ton of trash scattered around and the last time I walked around there, the sidewalks were literally black with filth. Just disgusting. A lot of the buildings are hideous and only 1 or 2 stories, even with the metro stop being right there.

Look at some of the scenes around there:
https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0574...7i13312!8i6656

https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0581...7i16384!8i8192

https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0563...7i13312!8i6656

I understand that it's an immigrant neighborhood, and I do like the fact that LA has some neighborhoods that really feel like they're in another country or something. But the architecture and dirtiness of the area (and yes, the crime issues) really holds Westlake back, imo. Immigrant neighborhoods don't have to be dirty with the sidewalks turned into swap meets.
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  #16  
Old Posted Aug 9, 2019, 8:03 PM
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Vermont Avenue looks worse with all the "vendors" peddling weird shit. The City needs to bulldoze Vermont and start over.
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  #17  
Old Posted Aug 9, 2019, 8:30 PM
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Originally Posted by edale View Post
Immigrant neighborhoods don't have to be dirty with the sidewalks turned into swap meets.
Hard to know how much fault lies with the residents, with property owners & with city officials. Some of the big bldgs on broadway were allowed to fall apart for decades because its owners didn't care....even today more than a few of their bldgs are a gratified mess.

there are also the ppl who live & shop in such areas...if they don't give a damn, no one else will.

various ppl in govt also haven't helped because they're apathetic or don't want to step on the toes of vested interests...ppl who make money from homeless shelters or subsidized housing....or not fitting their political reputation.


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  #18  
Old Posted Aug 9, 2019, 6:13 PM
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I don't think that I can take it, 'cause it took so long to bake it, and I'll never have that recipe agaaaaaaaain...

Oh-oh nooooooooo...
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  #19  
Old Posted Aug 9, 2019, 6:42 PM
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Originally Posted by hauntedheadnc View Post
I don't think that I can take it, 'cause it took so long to bake it, and I'll never have that recipe agaaaaaaaain...

Oh-oh nooooooooo...

those are strange lyrics....lol.

https://www.newsday.com/entertainmen...park-1.9477080

Quote:
For years, Jimmy Webb has been coy when asked to explain that cake left out in the rain and the rest of the lyrics to his classic "MacArthur Park." It's been recorded by some of the industry's most celebrated names: Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Diana Ross, The Four Tops and, most recently, Carrie Underwood.

Many tales have evolved, in the media and online to explain the genesis of the song. Here are but a few:

* They're a metaphor for the end of his relationship with a relative of Linda Ronstadt's who later got married in that Los Angeles park on a rainy day.

* Webb was annoyed by British record executives, so he extended the song past seven minutes, something unheard of on AM radio.

* He bet Richard Harris a Rolls-Royce that he could write a No. 1 song for him.

* And not long ago, Simon Cowell supposedly said Webb had told a friend of his the song is about sex and drugs.

So which ideas are apocryphal, and are any true? We asked not only Webb but also his wife of a decade, Laura Savini.

"I've also tried to tell the truth, which is that it's just a song about a girlfriend of mine, Susie Horton, and this place on Wilshire Boulevard where we used to have lunch, which is called MacArthur Park. And the truth is that everything in the song was visible. There's nothing in it that's fabricated. The old men playing checkers by the trees, the cake that was left out in the rain, all of the things that are talked about in the song are things I actually saw. And so it's a kind of musical collage of this whole love affair that kind of went down in MacArthur Park.

I've never seen the macarthur memorial before. It obviously comes with a water feature, and graffiti has forced a bad paint job on the lower part.

the park's palm trees could use a trim.... as destroycreate described, parks in LA aren't exactly the best in maintenance. Some of that is because ppl with money started abandoning older parts of the city over 70 yrs ago, making city officials even more uninterested & neglectful than they'd otherwise be.

the walter towers bldg in the background used to be painted in a red, white, blue theme....looks better today.
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  #20  
Old Posted Aug 9, 2019, 9:23 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hauntedheadnc View Post
I don't think that I can take it, 'cause it took so long to bake it, and I'll never have that recipe agaaaaaaaain...

Oh-oh nooooooooo...
Remember the old men playing Chinese checkers by the trees?



Quote:
Originally Posted by edale View Post
The park itself is better than the commercial areas right around it.
Is Langer's still in business? That's a great deli, catty-corner to MacArthur Park. I haven't been there in a few years, though.

Great photos of Echo Park. I love me some Echo Park. Back in the 90s, it was actually quite a cruisy place at night, with all those DL cholos...
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