MacArthur Park
MacArthur Park was a beautiful, kid friendly, office worker, city park when I was a kid. It was a park that the whole city enjoyed. When I was in junior high the park was just beginning to go to seed.
Down Alvarado St there were excellent bookstores of all kinds. Shops specializing in many languages, technical, art, science, engineering books. Used book shops. Collectable books.
Across from the park was Mike Mazurki’s bar, here’s a story.
A bit down Wilshire was La Fonda, an upscale Mexican restaurant with exuberant mariachis. Next door was a modest movie theater that mainly showed foreign films or sometimes live theatre.
Above the park, and many still remain, were large neon signs, put up in the 1920s, after Piccadilly Circus, and before Times Square.
There were big theaters across from the park. One year my parents, who didn’t like to celebrate Halloween, took us to see a double feature of Harryhausen movies, one of which featured a family friend who played the villain in Captain Sinbad. After the movie we walked in the park. Today that would be unwise and dangerous.
For years Langers has been a vital stop for a pastrami and chopped liver sandwich. In fact, long ago the graveyard shift knew me well. For a couple of years, all I had to do was walk in, sit at the counter, and out would come my order without me having to say a word. A beloved place. If it is still open, go there, eat a pastrami, and think of me.
An unclear memory, but it is possible we hired a little motor boat, and rode on the lake with my dad‘s mom. An unlikely and happy memory of her.
The city has these wonderful Shakespeare in the Park programs. We went to one a couple years ago in Griffith Park, and they are still going on. In my 20s I went to many of these performances.
There was a production of Taming of the Shrew in MacArthur Park. Susan Tyrell, a wonderful eccentric actor, was playing Kate.
Wandering around before the show, looking that there might be a seat up front, who do I bump into? The actor Will Geer, who you may or may not remember as Grandpa Walton from The Waltons, a popular TV show at the time. Papa Walton, Ralph Waite, also had a little theater near Western and Santa Monica where I saw some good shows.
Will Geer was a wonderful character actor. He was on an episode of one of my all-time favorite T V shows, Then Came Bronson. So I was happy to talk to him.
He says, Oh, we have front row seats, sit with us. Sure, I say. Except, it was a surprise to discover that Will Gear was a notorious sexual predator, and he was being rather handsy with me and it was uncomfortable. He was sitting with an older man, who seemed familiar. I didn’t recognize at first that he was the amazing and wonderful actor Sam Jaffe. And he could see what was going on with the unwelcomed attention. He put himself between grandpa Walton and myself. Very protective and fatherly. I’ve seen glimpses of that part of him in his performances over the years. He was Gunga Din. He was the High Lama in Lost Horizon. He was the Professor in The Asphalt Jungle.
The show was great, Susan Tyrell was amazing, and I left quickly when it was over.
Years later, it turns out that our neighbor Jon Erland was the stage manager for that production.
It’s a small world
More recently, the park hired me to Yarn Bomb the stage area for a special event. It was lots of fun. While doing yarnish things, Jimmy Webb, the composer of MacArthur Park, was rehearsing. It was almost like he was playing just to me, it was a very special experience.
“MacArthur Park is melting in the dark,
all the sweet green icing flowing down,
someone left the cake out in the rain…”
Jimmy Webb