A Little Back Story
Anyone who follows me must know by now that I live in the overcrowded city of Los Angeles, specifically in the neighborhood of San Pedro. It's kind of funny because even though San Pedro has been a neighborhood in the City of Los Angeles for over 100 years, people here still treat it like we are a separate city.
That is understandable when you consider that San Pedro really has its own identity within Los Angeles. Just hopping on the 110 North for a couple of miles and everything changes quite a lot. In many ways it feels a bit stuck in the 70s here, but in a nice way. Old school lowriders, old music, and really laid back people. Not the hustle and bustle like you experience when you leave the LA Harbor.
The biggest negative that I feel living here is that often it seems like the city of LA just doesn't give a crap about keeping things up in San Pedro. I have been noticing, however, that this has been changing a bit recently. Many of the local parks have climbing structures that are quite frankly down right dangerous.
From broken slides with sharp edges to rusted out swing chains, I have seen derelict park equipment sit unrepaired for years at a time. For example, there is a nice park with a large open field right next to a local Target. It has a large plastic tunnel that kids can crawl through to get to a winding slide. At one point about 3 years ago the plastic split down the middle at the top of the tunnel.
You could see that a little kid could get their leg stuck in there and do some serious damage. The city's fix was to wrap a chain around the entrance to the tunnel and strap a wet floor sign to it. This was their solution for the next several years. Kids eventually folder back the wet floor sign and crawled through.
About a week ago, I stopped by the park and noticed that seemingly out of nowhere, the tunnel had been completely replaced and repaired. I thought it was a fluke, but certainly wasn't going to complain. Now I could start letting @little-ricky play on it again!
The City Finally Did Something Nice
There seems to be some larger effort to fix up the parks around town, because this was not the only repair and upgrade that appears to be going on. I have posted before about the Korean Bell sitting at the highest point here in San Pedro. It is a popular spot to hang out and look out at the ocean. There has always been a really neglected small climbing structure and swing set there. The swing was in really bad shape and sounded like howling banshees when used.
To my surprise, when I showed up a few days ago the old stuff was completely gone and replaced with all new state of the art equipment. And that is what you see in the attached photos. It's kind of cool too because it follows the theme of the Korean Bell with the shapes as well as some musical instruments that have been installed.
There are some large xylophone type instruments that are tuned in a pentatonic scale that is common in east Asian music. While little Ricky is playing and climbing, I get on the musical instruments and likely drive the other parents crazy writing some new tunes. These are actually quite usable instruments compared to the normal playground 'toy' instruments.
I am not holding my breath that the city will continue to make improvements like these, but there does seem to be a concerted effort to spend some money where it actually matters for once. This is probably part of the effort to make the last affordable place in LA unaffordable, as home prices have nearly doubled here in just the last few years that I've lived here. At this point if something drastic doesn't happen I may die paying rent to very wealthy people.
For now I will just try to appreciate the fact that we finally have some safe and decent equipment for the little ones to use without having to drive to the fancy beach cities just to visit the park. I will call that a win for the day!
They couldn't even be bothered to put an actually applicable sign up. That's government for ya!
Place looks pretty great though. Even though it was a very long time ago I used to absolutely love these things. I'm sure you can remember back to how dangerous these places were in the 80's though and I don't think my parents even gave a damn.
Haha, yeah I always say that us 80s kids were basically feral. We would travel out for miles on our own, and play in all kinds of dangerous places. And the playground was sadly one of them.
15 foot high monkey bars rusted out with broken weld joints hanging over solid concrete. It was a different time for sure. There were so many ways to die as an 80s kid, yet somehow we are fine.... for the most part!
One of the things that me and my friends would do is enter these gigantic drainage pipes and just wander on and on and on until we popped up through a manhole cover ages away from where we started. We were a different kind of fearless back then because that was definitely not a safe place to be.
you likely saw one of these death traps as a child. They were the best!
Oh my lord that thing is amazing. Haha! Of course I was the kid to climb up the outside of the structure just to make it a bit more dangerous.
I didn't realize other kids were doing this. Whenever I would find any kind of large pipe I would crawl into it. I would convince my little brother to follow me in and we'd end up up halfway across town sometimes popping up in surprising places. I guess we were the original Ninja Turtles hanging out in the sewers!
I remember when they started putting metal cages over the entrances and wondered why. I never considered that other kids were going in there. I never came across any. Maybe it was to stop me!
These are lovely and amazing pictures ,the picture quality too is on point , thank you for sharing
Thanks, @wallay!
This remember me 3years ago when i was happy with My daughters, it's amazing how a face/body/soul can break after seen few pictures bro.
It's amazing the place where u live and it make me happy to SEE people living life with all those feelings (normally don't Even know what u have untill is gone) wish u the Best. Would be great if u wanna chat with me someday.
Fone
It is very true that you don't know what you've got until it's gone. You really have to appreciate each moment as it arises and don't dwell in the past or worry about the future. This can be challenging but is the only way to truly live freely.
Tbh i really gotta care about future, rightnow i need get a travel for legal pappers for My daughters, they going américa next year and this last weeks Will hard because if i don't get enought i won't SEE them for who know how many years...
U not asking but always would be great if some listen and maybe can help a little.
Hi, I come to leave my like, nice day.👍👍👍
Thanks man! Have a great day as well.
This is welcome news. The joy on Ricky's face is enough to make the entire ordeal worthwhile. I do hope that prices don't keep skyrocketing. It's sad that the rich constantly design means to keep being rich. At the expense of the average blokes.
He is such a happy little guy. I am trying my best to make sure he stays that way.
Yes, it is sad that people don't help each other out more. All we can do is try to be the best people we can be and live by example.
When I first saw San Pedro, I thought it's going to be a city or a place in Mexico or something like San Diego. I don't know we have this kind of name of city in America or something.
All of the areas near the Mexican border have Spanish names. To be fair, Southern California as well as Texas were all parts of Mexico not too long ago. San Diego is in the United States as well, by the way! But it is a border town with Mexico.
Ooh! Now I understand clearly the difference. Thanks for sharing.
That's cool that they have done some upkeep on the stuff there finally. That's one of the things I like about living in a smaller town. I think they tend to care more about those things because they are trying to bring in families and stuff. We have some really great playgrounds around where I live. My nieces and nephews love visiting them.
That's true, in the smaller towns they take a lot more pride in keeping up the parks and public areas. When I visit my mom in Kentucky there are some really nice parks.
I think part of the problem here in the city is that a lot of teens and young people in general like to go to public areas and spray paint everything as well as destroy property for whatever reason. At some point the city just stops fixing things, even stuff that falls apart from normal use. I guess it's just the downside of living in an overcrowded area.
No, that happens here too. We had a park in the town where I work. People kept vandalizing the bathrooms so they finally stopped cleaning them. So a person in the community cleaned the bathrooms themselves and posted on social media about it. The response then was to just lock them up. Horrible for families that wanted to visit the park.
I am glad little Ricky can play in a safe zone. That's superb. Seeing money spent on things that matters is sure nice.
And, this part, though, seems funny as a lot of sad realistic parts to it.
It is just how things have been here, too. Inflation in price of things especially food and transport which are most vital part of people's life,and then rent... it has skyrocketed.
It is unbelievable how much inflation has occurred in such a short amount of time. There has got to be some relief soon or I don't know what is going to happen.
I don't know what will happen if it doesn't, too. I almost got really frustrated when I came back from the market yesterday. Something I bought 2 days ago added money. It is very sad.
It's great to read that the city is finally taking some steps to improve the parks in San Pedro it's definitely a positive change. The new playground equipment looks great, and it's especially nice that it follows the theme of the Korean Bell.
It's pretty cool! For once I am not worried about Ricky getting hurt on the equipment. Let's hope they keep up with maintaining everything.
Now that the park is better than ever and children can play and smile, parental control is very necessary for greater safety
Very true. And my little one is a real handful when it comes to keeping an eye on him. He is slippery!
Such a place for children is to prove a lot of happiness. How we see that your children are also very happy by going to such a place. I went to such a beautiful place where children were playing in the same way.
Spending time with children is a lot of fun. I didn't used to appreciate it as much but ever since Ricky turned 3 he has become a lot more entertaining to play with.
Yeah you are right.
Esta super lindo y ordenado el parque bien por eso , todo impecable, limpio..
Si es cierto @albertocova. Espero que se queda tan lindo
awww, lovely kids <3 they love to play when ever they go into place like this. they don't stop.
You are right - and my little one takes a lot to wear out!
Sweet playground man, my kids would love that. There are quite a few dotted around Galway where I live luckily, but it rains so much this time of year that we rarely see them between October and March
We almost never get rain around here which is a plus and a minus (if you are trying to grow plants!)
The upside is that you can leave stuff sitting outside for a long time. But when it does rain, it seems to go nuts for a day or 2. Earlier this year we had an insane amount of rain. I believe they said it hadn't rained so much in 100 years! But since then hardly a single drop.
Ya I know what it's like over there man, I lived in LA for 4 months back when I was 19 and still in University. We lived in a place called Woodbridge near the cross or Normandy and Vermont near Torrance. I've great memories of those days. We loved California.
Are you talking about right there across the street from that big park where Vermont splits off to Normandie and goes toward PCH? There are a bunch of hospitals over there. That is called Harbor City, are the apartments called Woodbridge?
I think this was the address...
Woodbridge
1101 Sepulveda Blvd,
Torrance, CA 90502
Ooh ok, up on Sepulveda. If you go down Normandie or Vermont a little ways they actually intersect in a V shape. It's kind of crazy around here because every other block is a new city and you can't even tell by looking.
From my house to where you were living is only a couple of miles, but you have to go through San Pedro, to Harbor City to Torrance!
We were all students when we lived there too, so only one of us out of seven had a car, so lots of walking and buses! It was a great summer though, much better than the summer before when I was in Santa Clara with different friends..
#hive #posh
Its' great to see them finally upgrading that park. A lot of parks have been ignored for so long that they really aren't safe for kids. That's part of the reason I moved from Long Beach to Orange County! I'm glad you found a nice park not too far from home, and your son looked like he had a blast!
Kids that age are a lot of fun!
It is especially nice because this is the closest park to my house. It is only a couple of blocks away. Before I was literally driving all the way to Torrance which is probably ridiculous.
Since I have had @little-ricky I have discovered nearly every park in a 20 mile radius. Lol
That's great, closest park to your home and newly refurbished! When my son was his age it was the same, you learn where the best parks are fast!
Looks like a nice playground for kids. Good for you. Hope little Ricky enjoyed it.
In Korea, I also take similar precautions when I take my child to a playground. Particular attention is paid to ensuring that contaminated or damaged equipment does not pose a threat to the child's safety.
Oh Also I will check out your previous post regarding Korean Bell. lol
It can be scary when you let your little one get on a slide or swing and you see that it is broken. It can then also be tiring because you want to keep them off of it, but they keep trying to climb on it! hehe.. Never a moment's rest for dad.
Yeah, check it out! The Korean Bell is really nice and has a great story behind it based around the friendship between the United States and the Korean people.
The view from there is amazing as well. It is the highest point in town.