In this weeks reading “The
Great Towns,” by Friedrich Engels, he talks about a city in England called
Manchester near London. During the time he wrote this, Manchester was a very
poor neighborhood where the working class lived. After having read this reading,
I knew I wanted to visit a neighborhood in Los Angeles, where the lower/working
class was living. At first I wasn’t sure where I was going to go because I did
not want to be in a neighborhood where I would be unsafe and harm could be
caused (specially for a female being alone). That is why I chose to drive the
route on Wilshire Blvd., starting from Westwood, ending in Westlake. This route
is a great way too see all kinds of diversity from social class, ethnicity and
religion. It is also a great way to see how the lower class and working class
are separated from the upper class.
Going down Wilshire
starting from Westwood, you see high-rise apartments surrounding the streets of
Wilshire. This is where the upper class and maybe some middle-class live,
depending on their situation. This part of the road on Wilshire is pretty wide
and the conditions are good quality as well.
As you go further east, you get into Beverly Hills. This neighborhood is
where the upper class lives, and you can surely tell by the surroundings and
materials. Palm trees and other very well kept landscapes surround the streets
of Beverly Hills. You will see high-end department stores, fancy restaurants,
high-end boutiques, and expensive cars like Ferraris, BMW and Mercedes. The
people that are walking around are dressed very nice in expensive clothing, and
the majority of them are Caucasian, though you do see other ethnicities as
well. The buildings here are beautiful and thought out very well.
Passing through Beverly
Hills, before getting to Westlake, you go through Miracle Mile, La Brea, and
parts of Korea Town. Going through here the changes you start to see is the
change in buildings, people and cars. Most of the architecture are 10-story
buildings, with some little shopping complexes with small businesses and shops.
The people walking around are dressed casual or in business attire. Most of the
cars are economical cars like, Toyota or Ford. Once you start getting into
Korea Town you know you are there because of the change in language. Stores and
restaurants are now written in Korean. Korean’s are walking around the streets
and you can hear them speaking Korean. I also noticed it is not as clean in
these areas compared to Beverly Hills and Westwood.
Finally you reach
MacArthur Park Lake, which is the beginning of Westlake area. Once I got here,
I parked and walked around in MacArthur Park Lake. It was a beautifully dirty
park. I know that is an oxymoron, but I say this because the design, layout and
nature aspect was beautiful, but there was trash everywhere and foul smells. Similar
too what Friedrich Engels says in the reading, “Everywhere heaps of debris,
refuse, and offal; standing pools for gutters, and a stench which alone would
make it impossible for a human being in any degree civilized to live in such a
district.” Obviously it wasn’t as extreme as it is in his case, because we have
laws and regulations that would stop it from getting so bad that it would be
like how he described it to be in Manchester, England. Looking at the park at a
whole, it was beautiful, but looking at the details is when you noticed all the
dirty things about it. Walking around I could hear mostly Spanish and I saw a
majority of Latinos, but there were a few Caucasians and African Americans. I
walked through a tunnel that brought you to the other side of the park, and it
had graffiti art all over, mostly promoting education. Once I got to the other
side, there was a large playground for the children in the neighborhood to play
in. Most of the children were of Latin descent. Another thing I noticed was
that the park here was not kept as nicely as compared to the parks in Beverly
Hills.
After looking at the park
I decided to drive around a little bit in Westlake. The buildings here were
dirty, and the appearance was not very nice looking at all. Some of the
buildings were old and dilapidated, or cheaply built. Commercial signs and
businesses were written in Spanish. There were inexpensive stores, like the 99¢
Store. The qualities of the roads were narrow and poor, with lots of potholes. Not
as many cars were driving around on the roads as compared to Beverly Hills and
La Brea. There were tons of Latinos walking around and street vendors all over
the streets. Again you can hear people speaking Spanish throughout the whole
area. Trash, tagging and grime were found all over the neighborhood and vacant
lots.
(I had an audio recording, but unfortunately I cannot figure out how to upload it. I will try and get it up for you guys if I can)
Westlake and Manchester
were very similar in ways. Manchester was designed in such a way that it was
hidden from the upper class and middle class. “And the finest part of the
arrangement is this, that the members of this money aristocracy can take the
shortest road through the middle of all the labouring districts to their laces
of business, without ever seeing that they are in the midst of the grimy misery
that lurks to the right or the left.” Just like this quote from the reading,
Westlake is separated from the upper and middle class neighborhoods to where
nobody even needs to see it or hear of it. The freeways next to it have tall
walls, which block the sightings of this area. The surrounding neighborhoods are
other lower income neighborhoods, and the nearest upper class neighborhoods are
miles away, keeping themselves from ever seeing Westlake. Every city has a
“Manchester,” in Los Angeles we have several different “Manchester’s” located
throughout the area. Westlake was just one of them, and this was my experience
being there.
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