“Simply earlier than visiting Los Angeles in summer season 2008, I learn a narrative within the Los Angeles Instances concerning the opening of the primary public park in downtown L.A. in additional than 100 years. I used to be intrigued by the outline of the park created at a former oil discipline in a low-income space the place residents are much less prone to have entry to a free public park. I bear in mind being amazed through the first go to at how nicely the world previously described as a weed-infested, dusty lot had been remodeled into an city oasis with fantastic views of downtown Los Angeles.
Kristy Serratos in Vista Hermosa Park in April 2022, photographed by her husband, John Sowell.
(John Sowell)
“I really like that Vista Hermosa Park supplies free entry to anybody who can stroll, experience a motorcycle or drive to it. I get nice pleasure watching kids of various ethnicities climb the rocks, play within the pond and the brief waterfalls and on the comfortable toy snakes and turtles. I wish to stroll alongside the paths trying on the flowers and completely different bushes that develop within the park. It’s just a little more durable to view downtown as a number of the bushes have grown loads since Vista Hermosa opened.
“I obtained married two years in the past and launched my spouse, Kristy, to the park on our final go to in 2022. It was enjoyable to match up the scene from the 2013 music video ‘The Walker’ from Fitz and the Tantrums, the place the character walks throughout the grass towards the town skyscrapers within the background. It was unmistakable the primary time I noticed the video that’s the place that scene passed off.”
— John Sowell, Boise, Idaho
