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Carmen Villeda

Professors Batty

English 101

February 26,2018

A Community Without a Park

Communities have come together in district areas to raise money to convert abandon lots

or parking lot to grassy playgrounds. Banksy, a political British street artist, graffiti on a wall by

9th and Broadway in Downtown L.A. of a girl swing from the bridge of a capital letter "A", from

the word "Parking." Banksy created this mural in 2010, a block away a resident group were

trying to raise $6.6 million to convert parking lots into small neighborhood playgrounds. The

group hope they would get a $5 million state's Proposition 84park grant; over 1,000 projects

statewide applied for funding from the project. Banksy saw it appropriate to create his "Parking"

mural. Therefore, a public park should be accessible to anyone in the community without having

to pay a price for it.

In Banksy mural, there is a young girl, about the age of ten, on a swing sitting on a

wooden seat. The background is white and with only one word that says "Parking" capitalized in

red Calibri. "Park" is the only word that is in a red coloring, while "ing" is fading away, hardly

noticeable. The rope is tied to the capital letter "A" bridge as she swings back and front holding

unto the rope. One of her leg is pointed forward and her other is bent at the knee pointing back.

She is wearing a black button up dress that goes up to her knees with a white collar and white

buckle belt. White high knee socks with black formal shoe with a small strap that goes over her

foot. Her long hair flowing back as she swings forward. Her eyes are close and she has a clam

yet bored look on her face. When you go to the park, it's only quite in the morning and at night,
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but other than that there is laughing, yelling, and family talking all around. It's never quite at the

park. A park should not be empty, it should be fill with grass, playgrounds, benches and table.

It's a place that should be sociable.

As a child I would love going to the park to play by sometimes making new friends or

playing with my sister and brother. We went to many parks. We went to Dearborn, Lake Balboa,

North Hills, and Northridge Parks. I live in Northridge, there for each park is about a 10 to 15-

minute drive. In Downtown, Los Angeles there are at around 15 parks with large spaces, though

they have large spaces, half of them don't have playground or grassy areas for children to run

around and play. Parents should not have to drive or take public transportation to go a park that’s

not in their living area. Downtown is the central business district in Los Angeles, California, as

well as a residential neighborhood to 58,000. Looking for a park to go to in Downtown L.A. is

like finding a needle in a hay stack and depending what time to go to the park there will always

be traffic.

Public Parks bring people together. Public parks often host community events which can

be enjoyed by all family members and not just the children. In large cities, such as Downtown,

there no room to run around and play. The only place to do so is inside their home, but

sometimes they live in small living places or play in a parking lot, if they have one. With no

parks nearby, children have learned to play indoors since they live in the city. They learn to play

video games and children lose their imaginary minds and social skills. Public park should always

be accessible in every community's, especially near school zones. Some children and teen still

have energy and by going to the park it will help them release that energy and help they

concentrate on their homework and not get distracted. Apartments or any housing complex don't
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have extract space for children to run around without them getting hurt or lost depending where

they are.

In the San Fernando Valley, there are several cities that have parks for it residents

neighbor park. Not only do we have parks, we have houses or apartment complex where children

can run around and play. We also have a lot open space to walk around the neighbor and walk

freely without many being crowded by others. Downtown L.A. has many cities and district that

have parks, but it's not easy to commute to them. Citizen have been raising money and coming

together as a community to build small parks in the near future, hopefully, they’ll be a park easy

to accesses for family, children, and for the community to visit.

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Works Cited

Richarson, E. (2010). Banksy's "Parking" Echoes Real Life at 9th and Broadway.
Southern California Public Radio.
Catherine. (2017) What Did I Just See? The 10 best Art Murals in Los Angeles, CA. Trip
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