It's 11:15 a.m., and Gabriel Montoya sits calmly on a MacArthur Park bench staring at the group of crack dealers who control the south side of the lake.
By noon, Montoya, who has visited the park for the last 18 years, will have seen a woman run around the park naked after getting her crack fix; a man casually urinate on the grass bordering Alvarado Street; and two men threatening to fight in front of him. Nothing out of the ordinary for a Friday morning in this park, he says.
"Being here is being willing to die," Montoya says. "A rumble can start at any moment, and you can get caught in it," he adds. "This park is the worst I have seen in my life."
According to Los Angeles Police Department statistics, there have been 62 violent crimes inside the park this year: two homicides, one rape, 24 aggravated assaults and 35 robberies.
The violence has not gone unnoticed. Several coalitions--including police, business and community groups--and representatives from the city attorney's and mayor's offices are mulling strategies to reclaim MacArthur Park.
Among the proposals are boosting police surveillance, improving lighting inside the park, fencing it--even moving the police station into the park. Not everyone concurs on the alternatives, but they all agree that something has to be done to make the two-square-block expanse safe for the area's residents.
MacArthur Park, located west of downtown Los Angeles, dates from the 19th century and was once a gem of the city's park system. In an area of upscale apartments and elegant residences--Charlie Chaplin's former home lies a few blocks away--the park got its name from Gen. Douglas MacArthur, of World War II and Korean War fame.
But since the early 1970s, the park and its surroundings have deteriorated. Now, the neighborhood, one of the city's most densely populated, consists of poor families in small houses and large apartment buildings. With poverty came crime.
Nearly 375,000 people live in the eight square miles that surround MacArthur Park. The park could offer a respite for the community's working-class families. In its northeast corner, which recently has been refurbished, the paths are clean and children frolic on playground equipment.
But elsewhere, the park's palm trees provide shade for drug transactions, its lake is the center of gang disputes, and its bridges and bathrooms harbor prostitution.
