City Terrace Park

Some people believe there is nothing special or worthwhile in East Los Angeles. I think those people have been looking in the wrong places because they completely overlooked City Terrace Park. City Terrace Park is a large park located in the center of City Terrace, a small community near the northern border of East Los Angeles. It is right along Hazard Avenue, which couldn’t be a more perfect place to put a park. Its placement and open space provides relief to the tight, windy roads of City Terrace, and a great view over the rest of East Los Angeles. I live about three blocks away from City Terrace Park, so I spent a lot of time there over the years. I love walking to the park, seeing the giant mural on the side of the gym, and smelling the outdoorsy scent coming off of the trees. It is like a home to me too. City Terrace Park is important to me because it is where I learned how to ride a bike and where I went with friends and family to have a good time. It is also where I would go when I needed to relax and just clear my head.

City Terrace Park has been open since 1933, so I am positive that it is also important to many  other people that live in my community. The park itself is huge and has a gym, basketball courts, a swimming pool, tennis courts, soccer fields, two baseball fields, a playground, and a splash-zone. It also has a community center that hosts many activities like computer classes, dance classes, Zumba, tutoring, and many others. City Terrace Park is a unique place with things you cannot find anywhere else. For example, there is a giant dome where people play basketball under and a mural painted alongside the gym. The mural represents the people of East Los Angeles by showing its agricultural roots. It also has Aztec temples that symbolize the culture of the people, sombreros, and a beautiful woman surrounded by nature.

Since City Terrace Park has a lot to offer and has been around for so long, I feel like many people would be upset if it was no longer in the community. Life in my community would diminish because people spend a lot of time at the park, doing various thing like playing sports or just sitting down and getting tutored. The quality of life and experiences of the neighborhoods around City Terrace Park would also diminish because there isn’t a lot of space to do anything in the area. The park helps with that, but if it is not there, I feel like not many people would want to live in City Terrace or even East Los Angeles because the area would feel cramped. There is also some gang activity, so it is good that City Terrace Park offers tutoring, sports, and classes for teens and young adults to keep them busy and away from a bad lifestyle. Since City Terrace Park is an important place with a lot to offer, I do believe it deserves to be called a landmark and it is definitely a special place in East Los Angeles.