MacArthur Park is melting in the dark.

In large part this is a personal account of how MacArthur Park has been a continual background setting for my life in Los Angeles.

When I viewed the July 7, 2025 video of MacArthur Park in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, being swept by officers from ICE to enforce federal immigration law—all I could think of was the 1968 song “MacArthur Park” as originally sung by Richard Harris.

My first realization was, “music sure has changed.” My second thought… “MacArthur Park sure has changed.”

In 1968 the Irish actor Richard Harris presented himself as a singer, and released his debut album “A Tramp Shining.” The record included the 7 minute song “MacArthur Park,” which became a runaway hit that reached number 2 on the American Billboard Hot 100 chart. It was also number 4 on the UK Singles Chart. The song contained the haunting words, “MacArthur Park is melting in the dark.”

All the songs on that album were written by Jimmy Webb, who went on to become a successful songwriter and composer. Listen to the full song below.

“MacArthur Park.” Sung by Richard Harris, released in 1968.

Webb lived in Los Angeles for career reasons, it was a hub of the music industry. He used MacArthur Park as the backdrop for his unusual love song, and if you listen closely to it you’ll hear Harris pronounce the park’s name as “MacArthur’s.” It was his way of honoring Douglass MacArthur, the American General the park was named after in 1942. Previously the park, founded in the 1880s, was called Westlake Park.

As a child my parents would take me to the beautiful historic park in the early 1960s to stroll the grounds, rent a paddle boat on the lake, have a picnic, and watch the geese. For decades the park was a gorgeous oasis to the people of Los Angeles… but those years have long since passed.

The original MacArthur Park Bandshell was built in 1896. The illustration above shows the Bandshell in 1908. That was the year John Philip Sousa composed The Fairest Of The Fair, Scott Joplin wrote Fig Leaf Rag, and the great Claude Debussy orchestrated Golliwog’s Cake Walk. Those were the sounds of 1908. Goodness knows what music was performed on the MacArthur Bandshell during that period, but I’ve read that thousands of people attended the concerts.

I was 18-years-old when I participated in a Los Angeles anti-Vietnam war march on April 22, 1972. It was part of a nationwide day of protest against the war organized by the National Peace Action Coalition. Around 10,000 to 12,000 people made their way up Wilshire Blvd to the MacArthur Park Bandshell. There, a wide range of speakers expressed opposition to US involvement in the Vietnam war.

In 1973 I went to the Otis College of Art and Design as an art student. The school was located across the street from MacArthur Park. Fellow art students and I often ate lunch in that idyllic park, where we talked about our favorite painters and artworks. I became disillusioned with the postmodern curriculum at Otis and decided not to study there. However, I’m proud to say that I’m a sell taught artist.

In 1979 I attended an infamous punk rock concert held at Elks Lodge, which was also directly across the street from MacArthur Park. The Los Angeles Elks Lodge is a magnificent Art Deco building completed in 1926. It fell on hard times in the late ’60s, was sold, and later rented out for weddings and music events.

On Saint Patrick’s Day, March 17, 1979, the punk hordes of LA (all 600 of us), flocked to the grand second floor auditorium of Elks Lodge, to hear our favorite punk bands kick up a ruckus. Scheduled to play were the Wipers, Zeros, Go Gos, Plugz, Alley Cats, and X… none of which were known very well—the punk scene was only two years old at the time. As bad luck would have it only four bands would play that night, and the gig would be remembered as “The Elks Lodge Massacre.”

To be honest I wasn’t paying much attention to the Wipers, Zeros and the Go Gos, who I’m told, all gave memorable performances, I was too busy shmoozing with the wild punk crowd. This was around the time I began drawing portraits of Los Angeles punks. By Oct. 1979 I was creating cover artworks for Slash magazine, LA’s premiere punk propaganda journal.

Before the Plugz began playing, there was a strange energy in the auditorium. Someone announced from the stage that outside on the street, a bottle had been thrown at a police car, and that everyone should “cool it.” That’s when I remember Darby Crash, lead singer for the notorious punk band the Germs, appearing on stage to yell at the crowd, “Do It Again!”

When the Plugz hit the stage their set was interrupted by the LAPD marching into the auditorium to declare fun time was over. When the band refused to stop playing, the police pulled the plug on their amplifiers and forcefully stopped the show. Riotous chaos ensued.

There was an enormous carpeted marble staircase outside the 2nd floor auditorium that lead to the 1st floor entrance-exit door of Elks Lodge. The police were using truncheons to rout angry punks, sending them tumbling down that staircase. I had friends that were battered that night. I somehow escaped by running into the darkness on Park View Street. There I saw police cars with broken windows and policemen using their clubs to push and shove punks away from Elks Lodge and MacArthur Park.

To graduates of the turbulent ’60s like myself, mobilizing dozens of LAPD officers to squelch a punk rock concert seemed the largest deployment of riot police since the Vietnam era. That night many punks, myself included, fled into the darkness of MacArthur Park to escape the mayhem.

Also in 1979, a Civil War in El Salvador broke out between a conservative government and communist insurgents. In the war government backed death squads killed thousands, they even assassinated the archbishop of San Salvador, Óscar Romero. Salvadorans fled the war and resettled in the rundown area of LA where MacArthur Park is located. Many war refugees entered the US illegally. In the ’80s a Salvadoran gang known as Mara Salvatrucha sprang up in LA to “protect” Salvadorans from other gangs.

A rough English translation of “Mara Salvatrucha” is “Salvadoran Gang.” The slang word for Salvadoran is “Salva” and “trucha” is slang for “alert” or “cunning.” “M” is the 13th letter of the alphabet, and for Mara Salvatrucha gangsters the number 13 is used to express their loyalty to the Mexican Mafia prison gang. The abbreviated name of Mara Salvatrucha became MS-13. They have always considered MacArthur Park and the surrounding neighborhood to be the heart of their turf.

I still visited MacArthur Park in the ’80s and ’90s to sketch people, but the place was turning grim. Sometime in the early ’90s I encountered in the park a wandering Mexican American Folk Dance troupe. They entertained crowds by dancing to the music they played with guitars and maracas. I was intrigued by the solitary Chicana in the group.

She wore a blue coat, had enormous gold earrings, clutched a pair of elaborately painted gourd maracas, and held to her breast a poster of the Aztec Moon Goddess. I decided to capture the woman’s visage in an artwork. In my home studio I used chalk pastels to create her full-color portrait. I made my drawing on a large sheet of printmaking paper that measured 2 feet 6 inches wide by 5 feet 6 inches high.

Today the large pastel drawing is framed and hangs in my home. I titled the work “She Who Wears Bells on Her Cheeks,” the English translation of the name given the goddess by the Aztecs in their native language of Nahuatl. The pastel drawing is the only artwork I created with a direct link to MacArthur Park.

I stopped visiting MacArthur Park in 2008 when it became clear it had become a very dangerous place. That year the FBI and LAPD cracked down on the park because of endless shootings, stabbings, and robberies. It was so bad Antonio Villaraigosa, the Mexican-American Democrat Mayor at the time, asked the US Department of Homeland Security to target illegal immigrants in LA who were in gangs or committed crimes. Imagine that.

But things got worse. In 2021 the LA Times published a report that MS-13 controlled MacArthur Park and its neighborhood. The gangsters extorted “taxes” from local small businesses, park vendors, the homeless, drug sellers, prostitutes, and even transgender people found in the park. Those who didn’t pay the “tax” were beaten or killed. In 2021 MS-13 stabbed to death a trans person found in the park.

On July 10, 2024 the Los Angeles Times published a report titled: It’s bold: LA moves to close Wilshire Boulevard through MacArthur Park. Mayor Karen Bass had announced a $2.5 million dollar plan to dig up the section of Wilshire Boulevard that bisects MacArthur Park, replacing the road with grass fields, trees and flower beds. The poor who live around MacArthur Park were not asked what they thought.

The Times article quoted a Latina who lives in the area. She insisted that she wouldn’t let her 12 and 15-year old boys enter MacArthur Park alone because “it’s dangerous.” Mind you, the Times didn’t mention MS-13 once, even though they control the park and surrounding environs. One gets the impression the only ones who will enjoy the new shade trees in the park will be MS-13 gangsters.

The hammer fell when the LA City Council voted unanimously on Nov 19, 2024 to “establish the City of Los Angeles as a ‘Sanctuary City’ and prohibit any City resources, including property or personnel, from being utilized for any immigration enforcement.” The ordinance says: “Los Angeles is home to more than 1.35 million immigrants, comprising over 34 percent of the city’s population.”

Mayor Bass signed the ordinance into law on Dec. 9, 2024. Which is to say, Bass and the LA City Council pledged to resist federal immigration laws duly authorized by the United States Congress. All of this occurred after Joe Biden allowed well over 10 million people from all over the world to enter the USA illegally.

Homeless camps, fentanyl zombies, MS-13 gangbangers. MacArthur Park is a great place to visit. Bring the kids!

When LA became a Sanctuary City conditions in the metropolis unravelled further. MacArthur Park certainly didn’t improve. It’s now overrun by gangs, drug dealers, and zombie fentanyl users, not to mention armies of homeless people. Criminals sell counterfeit drivers licenses and Social Security cards to illegals.

There’s no doubt Mexican criminal organizations like the Sinaloa Cartel profit from the drug deals made in and around MacArthur Park. But Democrat Party apparatchiks pretend all is well.

Mayor Karen Bass called the enforcement of federal immigration law at MacArthur Park, “outrageous and un-American.” Bass demanded that ICE agents leave Los Angeles immediately.

Someone should tell Karen Bass that mayors don’t establish or control immigration law. Congress does. With near total authority they decide if “aliens” (foreign nationals), may enter or remain in the US. Those ICE agents in Los Angeles are not the Gestapo, they are simply enforcing federal immigration laws put in place by the US Congress. Laws that Bass declines to enforce. Now tell me again—who is outrageous and un-American?

MacArthur Park is melting in the dark.