18: Plaza de la Raza, Lincoln Heights

18: Plaza de la Raza, Lincoln Heights
Designed by: Fabian Debora, Homeboy Industries
Piano type: Full Upright
Playability: Good
Weather: 73°F, partly cloudy
How I got here: Car

I had been to Lincoln Park before when I was a kid and more recently a few years ago when I did the 9-mile Los Pobladores history walk from Mission San Gabriel to Olvera Street during early September to commemorate the birthday of Los Angeles. But I never been to a "Plaza de la Raza."

For some reason I thought it was the plazas next to Lincoln Park that had the statues of Abraham Lincoln and Emiliano Zapata on it. But the actual Plaza de la Raza was a cultural arts center built on the northwestern shore of the lake.

A Target-sponsored sign that's over 8 months old greets visitors to Plaza de la Raza.

There was a woman by the entrance selling snack foods, and inside the complex, people walking in and out of buildings for classes. but the actual street piano was placed on a short pier that sits right by the lake.

A street piano by the lake, with the LA County-USC Medical Center in the distance.

It was a Wednesday afternoon, and the park was largely empty, save for a few joggers circling the lake. If it were a weekend, it would be full of people for sure. I could play some old school slow jams Art Laboe style for them all day long.

Speaking of old school slow james, here I am playing Heatwave's "Always and Forever" (with Lincoln Linkin Park's "In The End" intro):





Out of the corner of my eye I kept seeing people, which is why my head kept darting back and forth in the video, thinking they were there to listen to the music, but they were just walking to different buildings in the Plaza.

The park was once home to a movie studio and zoo run by early 20th century film mogul William Zelig. There's a few remnants from that era here at the park: