Boyle Heights Turns Out to Support the Runners
Eric Richardson
[Flickr]
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES —
After watching the lead runners descend from the bridge into Downtown I made my way across the river via Seventh street. My primary goal was to get shots of runners with the skyline in the distance.
When I got over to Boyle Heights what I found was a community that turned out and made the race an event.
The new course came east across the river on Olympic before turning north onto Boyle. It then made a left onto Whittier, coming back to Downtown across the Sixth Street Bridge. That last corner, where runners turned from Boyle to Whittier, was packed with cheering onlookers. Heck, there were even cheerleaders, probably from a local elementary or middle school.
You better believe that a special cheer went up whenever a runner passed by who was wearing a jersey from Mexico. In the end, though, they were very egalitarian in their applause and yelling. They were just out to have a good time and help the runners make those last few miles into Downtown.
Kenarch on March 06, 2007, at 02:16AM – #1
Yeah, I saw that too - I lived in Boyle Heights back in the early 1990s, and it has always had a very strong sense of identity. I was probably the only non-Latin guy on the block (sometimes it seemed in the entire area) but I never felt out of place. Sure, there are a lot of problems over there, but there are a lot of real cool people also - people who know what a community really is. Someone said to me the other day that it was not a good idea for the marathon to run over there since it "glorifies Mexico" - and I said rather sharply that it is no different than an Irish pub glorifying Ireland, or much of Glendale glorifying Armenia. The fact is that we are a nation of immigrants, and IMHO that is what makes this nation, and especially this city, great. I was very pleased to seethe marathon run through my old neighborhood, and I was very happy to see the outpouring of supporters. As LA embraces its multiculturalism more and more I think we (meaning the city and region at large) will find that in spite of the gangs, crime and urban blight so rampant here, it is actually a very fascinating and dynamic city.