Maps Upon Maps

 On a Friday I found myself in the "North Industrial District" adjacent to Chinatown, awaiting El Velorio, a Dia de los Muertos art show at KGB Studios/Gallery. The sun hung low in the sky as I wandered amid  ginseng wholesale warehouses, artist lofts,  graphic design studios, and a parking lot for LA Unified School District school buses. Street art (of both the contemporary "high brow respected" kind and the "no brow" tagging kind) enlivened the sparse walls of the structures. I could see the vague outlines of the sculptures of the skyscrapers in the distance. In the foreground, I was drawn to a large field. This field is Los Angeles State Historic Park. Read that sentence again. And again. Let it sink in. Save for a few features, it is largely a field, yes, but in this place lies collective moments and memories buried within other moments and memories. Here are spaces upon spaces. All the incarnations of human settlement are represented here in this single space. The earliest human habitation was several thousand years ago when this was a northern extension of the Yang-na community of Tongva native people. Next came the Spaniard settlers in 1781 who established El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles, (The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels) just south of here in the vicinity of modern-day Placita Olvera. Zanja Madre (Mother Ditch) was the community's first aqueduct, bringing water from the Porciuncula (Los Angeles River). The remnants of this aqueduct can still be found, excavated beside the Metro Rail Gold Line tracks. To the southwest is contemporary Chinatown (now mostly a Vietnamese/Laotian/Cambodian community), and this exists upon the previous area known as Sonoratown (a Mexican barrio and black neighborhood) and a historic Little Italy and French enclave. The original Chinatown is where the sprawling Union Station complex of rail facilities currently exists. In the 1930s, the original Chinatown was bulldozed and a new Chinatown was erected, designed by Hollywood set designers and prop studios, which is the contemporary Chinatown that we know. By that time the Italian and French communities had assimilated and dispersed to other areas. What was Los Angeles State Historic Park during all this? Well, in the 1880s, Los Angeles experienced its first major boom period as hundreds of thousands of Mid-Westerners and others flocked into Southern California. This area was a large rail transport facility with a depot, hotel, and rail yards. Falling into disrepair, it remained an aging rail freight hub well into the late 20th Century. In 2005 artist Lauren Bon created Not A Cornfield, in which she planted a massive cornfield for one cycle. She considered it to be a sculpture piece. The three million dollar installation was funded by the Annenberg Foundation and the corn from the project produced bio-degradable containers and replenished soils. Now on to today. The entire 32 acre site is owned and operated by the State of California. There are fields. People ride their bikes, walk their dogs. The space is rented for large events. FYF Fest (a large indie rock festival) takes place here each year. In 2009, I saw Cirque Berzek (a "demented" circus) here. The smog line is profoundly clear here. When I was here on this Friday in October 2011, the space was mostly empty save for the occasional jogger. The skyscraper-sculptures looked lovely in the distance,  but I was drawn to the remnants of a cornfield and drought-tolerant native landscaping. Here I found marigolds growing in the golden light. The Metro Rail trains glided by to the west.  Curiosly, I came upon a sandy circle with a simple structure erected within. People gathering in native dress welcomed me and beckoned me to observe them. They were members of various local Californian groups, Tongva mostly. For me and a few others, they talked about their people, sang, and danced beside a fire pit, as the sun set low, and eventually disappeared. Emotions stirred within me and I was profoundly moved. I took note of the juxtoposition of the Tongva structure and the modern monoliths in the distance. Also of specific note was how here in a major city (not to mention one as highly populated as Los Angeles), corn could be growing within sight of skyscrapers. Upon completion, I ventured back across the street to KGB where earlier there was just organizers erecting the outward facilities, and now there were hordes of young art-admirers and fun-seekers. I picked several marigolds to bring seeing as how they are associated with Dia de los Muertos. Several hours later, people were spilling onto the sidewalk outside and lining up impatiently as the venue was at capacity. The ever present bacon-wrapped hot dog vendor was set up across the street. One day I will discover how they always know where to be.