‘Random’ Day @ Hollenbeck Park

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P3000 ~ Hey, whadaya doing ?

ME ~ I’m at Hollenbeck Park taking pictures

P3000 ~ Of what !?!?

Me ~ People making out at the park

P3000 ~ (short pause)… How weirder can YOU get !?!?!?
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~ Find out how WEIRD I can really get…
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1987  ??
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~ While at the park I met a local celebrity, CHACHO.
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~ It sucks that you can’t fish at the park anymore. Water’s too polluted. hollenbeck-park-4-3-053

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~ Reminds me of the time Harley got out and went to the park to go chase the ducks and swim in the lake. Man did she smell when I got her back home.

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~ In case you haven’t noticed, the bridge has been under construction for repairs thanks to Council Member Joze Huizar.
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~ Says here it’ll be ready by August.
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~ For Junta

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~ Path converted into a little bike jump.

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~ Damn, even the stumps are getting whitewashed.

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hollenbeck-park-4-3-205~Any one know what this use to be used for ? I would love to be able to come to the park and catch a free concert or play. Maybe even a puppet show for kids.
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~ Kids being kids.
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~I have a huge soft spot for stray animals and I fell for her. I got her to let me rub her ears until these idiots came by and scared her away.

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This post is part of my super, duper, amazing spring break series of post. Yes I’m going to spend my spring break blogging, it’s what I do. Not all of us can go to Vegas or some other vacation spot to get drunk and party with fallacious co-eds.

~ This post was made possible in part by the EL Random Hero Scholarship Fund. ~

9 thoughts on “‘Random’ Day @ Hollenbeck Park”

  1. Great set of pics ERH! That Ross cart totally deserved it though, thinking it was better than the other local carts.

    BTW, I caught my first and last fish at Hollenbeck, with a soda can, a hook, and some fishing string, hace un chingo de años. I also once found a goose egg (uh, after we scared away a bunch of geese) and I was going to take it home to hatch it. My cousin that was 2-3 years older than me convinced me I should crack it to see if the lil’ chick was ready, cuz maybe it was starting to suffocate. It seemed totally stupid, having had hatched my own chickens before, but he convinced me with his being bigger and older and assumedly smarter. A quick chip of the shell and the “chick” ran out in a stream of egg and yolk. Fucking Omar!
    And if you can believe this, I once had a make out session with a girlfriend here. 2 days later, my uncle knew and was asking me about it! Bunch of ratas hanging out at this park, at least back then.

  3. Nice post! I love the pic of Chacho!
    When I was a kid, we lived across the street from Prospect Park in Boyle Heights. I used to think parks were for making out cause I saw couples everyday doing just that, smooching and rolling around in the grass. I couldn’t wait to get older to do the same! Hehehe…
    My brother got pushed into Hollenbeck Park Lake when he was like 6 or 7 years old by my cousin. My evil uncle had left us there to fend for ourselves. Luckily, a man jumped in and saved him. We weren’t scared of him drowning but of the lake monsters we thought lurked in the murky water.

  4. Nice post. Can you post something about the neighborhood in and around Hollenbeck Park? It use to be called “Hollenbeck Heights” and was still referred to as such well into the late 50s and early 1960s. On the same topic, another old neighborhood within Boyle Heights was “Brooklyn Heights” and that existed in and around Macy Street, the area where White memorial Hospital is today. These two neighborhoods existed within the greater Boyle heights community. Lastly, there was an attempt to rename Boyle Heights, “Roosevelt Heights”,in November of 1922, but the motion failed when the local citizens rallied against it.

  5. it’s funny you should mention that. My twitter still refers to Boyle Heights as “Brooklyn Heights” hahah.
    I’ll see what I can do Rob. I’m not making any promises though.

  6. that lake does smell, we had a picnic there last weekend and it wasnt as pleasant as i thought it would be. Still a nice park tho, perfect for wine and crackers with your haina.

  7. I used to live in Boyle Heights when I was small (by Brooklyn Ave (now Cesar Chavez) & Mott). Everyone I knew referred to this park as “El Parque de La 4,” since it’s on 4th St., not it’s proper name of “Hollenbeck Park”. This was one of the parks we used to go to, especially on hot summer weekends. Like 95% in the neighborhood, we had no Air Conditioning in our rented house & used to go to the local parks to cool down during 90+ degree weather.

    Around 20-25 years ago (1980’s), the little amphitheater/stage area used to have live performances at least once per month during the Spring & Summer. Local bands, Mariachis, Folklorico groups, and Conjuntos used to entertain the community with free performances. All you paid for was the paletas and churros that you bought from the local vendors for 50 cents.

    There used to be a lot of these free concerts at local parks…the biggest I remember was the Univision (SIN at the time) Channel 34 sponsored “Domingos Alegres” that they used to have at Belvedere Park. At least 2,000 people would show up to those performances, where a lot of big Spanish artists used to perform (A lot of the same ones you would see on “Siempre en Domingo”).

    Back to Hollenbeck Park…I remember fishing at the lake there with my dad with a homemade “Cana” fishing rod. If you fished deep you could catch nice size Bagres (Catfish), or if you just fished along the bridge then you could catch some other smaller fish that I guess might have been rainbow trout.

    I hope this park builds up a lot of memories for other little boys & girls in the area like it did for me, whether they stay in the Eastside or move out in their future.

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