Jordan Green Public Art in Lincoln Heights

• PHASE 1: THE SITE 

    For this Civic Engagement project, I chose Lincoln Heights as my site because it is my neighborhood and a place I have a personal history with. The neighborhood has an abundance of public art, which I see daily, even though it is usually only in passing from my car. This project gave me the perfect excuse to slow down, use the day to walk through different corners of my neighborhood, spending time with and looking at pieces up close. I chose this site because I have been a resident of the neighborhood for three and a half years, and it feels meaningful to study the art in a neighborhood I know so well and have a strong connection with. Being familiar with Lincoln Heights also made me curious about what these works reveal about the neighborhood's people, culture, and history. I also made an accompanying map of the pieces I visited.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1hF3iIHYZe5Y5g6cWZjtmzM7YcWu8rsQ&usp=sharing

• PHASE 2: FIELD WORK 

Bill's Market

2800 Pasadena Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90031

    The first piece I observed was a mural done by artist Pável Acevedo. Acevedo is a printmaker and muralist originally from Oaxaca, Mexico, and now based in Los Angeles. His work is influenced by the traditional Mexican printmaking imagery of Taller Gráfica Popular Mexicana and by traditional family folk tales. These influences are important because they connect his public art to Mexican cultural traditions and visual storytelling. Acevedo has been commissioned to create murals for institutions such as Chaffey College’s Wignall Art Museum, La Sierra University’s Art and Design Department, the city of Riverside, We Rise LA, and Self Help Graphics, as well as public murals for private collectors in Los Angeles. Including his work on the exterior of Bill’s Market adds to the strong presence of Mexican and local cultural representation in Lincoln Heights and shows how public art can reflect the identity and history of the surrounding community.

Heritage Square

3545 Pasadena Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90031

El Quetzalcoatl de Xochicalco and Le Gente del Pueblo

    Next, I documented El Quetzalcoatl de Xochicalco and La Gente del Pueblo by Roberto Delgado. Delgado created art for the station with the surrounding communities of Cypress Park, Montecito Heights, Lincoln Heights, and Highland Park in mind, drawing inspiration from the area’s Mexican culture. He wanted to create a space that feels like a plaza and encourages people to gather rather than just waiting for the train. The plumed serpent, Quetzalcoatl, a major Mesoamerican deity, inspired the main sculptural form surrounding the platform. The sculpture is made from cantera limestone mined in Ojuelos, Jalisco, Mexico, and its segmented blocks were arranged in a serpentine form.

    The station also includes ceramic tiles placed throughout the platform. Delgado used 150 photographic images taken along Figueroa Boulevard, from the nearby Loreto Elementary School archives, and from his mother’s 1935-36 Lincoln High School yearbooks. He combined these images with Mexican motifs, many of them drawn from the Borgia Codex, along with pieces of Talavera tile, to create the embedded ceramic surfaces. What stands out to me is how the station’s art represents the people and history of the surrounding neighborhoods, bringing together local history, Mexican cultural identity, and public space. 

Faces of Elysian Valley

501505 N San Fernando Rd, Los Angeles, CA

    Next, I visited Faces of Elysian Valley, also known as the Riverside Roundabout Egg Sculptures or Egghenge. The piece was dedicated in February 2017, after more than eight years of planning, and was designed by Greenmeme artists Freyja Bardell and Brian Howe, in collaboration with Ourston Roundabout Engineering. It was installed at the intersection of San Fernando Road and Figueroa Street as part of the city’s first roundabout. The sculptures function as public art that beautifies traffic infrastructure in a historically underserved area at the confluence of Elysian Valley, Cypress Park, and Lincoln Heights. The nine granite egg sculptures and the surrounding barrier feature eighteen faces based on 3D scans of local volunteers, helping the work reflect the diversity of the nearby community and create a sense of local ownership. The project also includes environmental features such as native plants, solar-powered irrigation and lighting, and a system that filters rainwater into an underground cistern. This piece stood out to me because it is visually striking and a little trippy to see while driving by. I also liked how it combines art, community representation, and environmental design into public space.

El Parque de México

Mission Road and Valley Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90031

    One of my last stops was El Parque de Mexico. The park runs alongside Lincoln Park and was developed in the late 1970s to honor Mexican history, culture, and the Mexican American community in Los Angeles. Over time, numerous statues and busts were added, all dedicated to important Mexican historical and cultural figures. It was also a gathering place for community celebrations such as Mexican Independence Day and Cinco de Mayo.

    Today, the site feels very different from what it was intended to be. As of 2026, the busts and plaques are all gone, only the largest statues remain, likely because they are too large to steal. I noticed that all of the monuments are stripped of any context, with no identifying information about who they represent, who created them, or why they are there. Searching online, the information that does exist is very limited and outdated. I drive past these amazing statues every day on my way to campus, but getting to visit them up close really showed me how neglected the park has become.

    The park was created in partnership with Mexico, which makes the deterioration even more upsetting. It seems like an incredibly important place that represents the residents of Lincoln Heights and East Los Angeles. What remains at El Parque de Mexico shows the importance of public art in honoring community history and how easily that meaning can be lost when neglected.

• PHASE 3: CRITICAL ANALYSIS

    I visited sixteen pieces of public art in total in my neighborhood of Lincoln Heights. Due to time constraints, I was only able to include four in my blog post. I hope you have time to review the map I created and the accompanying photos of the other pieces. I feel like Lincoln Heights is art-rich, and I covered just the tip of the iceberg. Looking at the public art I visited, a clear pattern emerged that Mexican and Mexican American history, culture, and identity are strongly represented in Lincoln Heights. At Bill’s Market, Pável Acevedo’s mural draws from traditional Mexican printmaking and folk storytelling. At Heritage Square, Roberto Delgado’s El Quetzalcoatl de Xochicalco and La Gente del Pueblo centers on Mesoamerican symbolism, local history, and images of community members. Faces of Elysian Valley represents residents through 3D scans of volunteers from surrounding neighborhoods. El Parque de Mexico honors Mexican historical figures and the Mexican American community in Los Angeles. Public art in Lincoln Heights centers on Mexican culture and history, neighborhood identity, and community presence.

    Another pattern I noticed is that these works transform the way public space is used and understood. Delgado’s piece turns a train stop into a gathering place inspired by the idea of a plaza. Faces of Elysian Valley transforms a roundabout into a work of community-based and environmentally conscious public art. El Parque de Mexico was meant to be both a memorial space and a site for public celebration. These pieces of art not only represent the neighborhood, but also give these public spaces cultural and social meaning. 

    This project made me think about who gets to fund, commission, and preserve public art. Some of the works I visited were supported by major public institutions, such as Metro, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, and the Bureau of Engineering, as well as partnerships with the city and Mexico. That means community identity is being represented and supported. In the Faces of Elysian Valley, there was an effort to involve people from the neighborhood directly. In others, like El Parque de Mexico, the original purpose may have been community-centered, but the current neglect shows that representation alone is not enough if the work is not maintained and protected.

    The contrast between the artworks that are still cared for and those that have been left behind really stood out to me. El Parque de Mexico really shows how public art can lose its meaning when it is neglected, and the context for why it is there disappears. This made me think about how public art is not just about what gets installed, but also about what gets funded for preservation. In Lincoln Heights, the public art I visited shows cultural pride and community history, but also how vulnerable those histories are when cities and institutions stop investing in their care.

• PHASE 4: PROPOSAL

    I propose that Lincoln Heights should prioritize preservation over expansion. The neighborhood does not lack public art. What it lacks is consistent investment in protecting and maintaining the public art that is connected to and meaningful for the community. Preserving sites like El Parque de Mexico would help protect local history and strengthen the community by showing that its representation in public space is still valued.

    El Parque de Mexico was created to honor Mexican history, culture, and the Mexican American community in Los Angeles, and it once contained numerous statues, busts, and plaques that also represented a friendship between two countries and cities. Today, that meaning has been diminished by theft, neglect, and the loss of identifying information. Without context, the site can no longer fully communicate its history or significance to the public.

    Because of this, I would propose a restoration plan for El Parque de Mexico that returns the site as closely as possible to what it once was. That would include restoring damaged features, replacing missing statues, improved maintenance, and reinstalling plaques that provide information on who is represented and why the park matters. Since the site was created in partnership with Mexico, restoring it would also be a way of respecting the cultural and historical importance of that relationship.If a full restoration is not possible because of budget constraints, then the city should, at a minimum, make clear historical information available to the public. This could take the form of signage or digital resources with photographs and descriptions of the missing works. Even if the missing pieces cannot be replaced, the public should still be able to understand what was there, what remains, and why the site is important. 

Works Cited

Acevedo, Pável. “Bio.” Oaxaca Printmaker, www.oaxacaprintmaker.com/bio. Accessed 9 Apr. 2026.

Arellano, Gustavo. “Who’s Stealing the Statues of Pancho Villa and Other Mexican Heroes from an L.A. Park?” Los Angeles Times, 4 Jan. 2023, www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-01-04/column-el-parque-de-mexico. Accessed 9 Apr. 2026.

“El Quetzalcoatl de Xochicalco and Le Gente del Pueblo.” Metro Art, Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, art.metro.net/artworks/el-quetzalcoatl-de-xochicalco-and-le-gente-del-pueblo/. Accessed 9 Apr. 2026.

“Faces of Elysian Valley (The Riverside Roundabout).” Los Angeles Explorers Guild, 27 July 2021, losangelesexplorersguild.com/2021/07/27/faces-of-elysian-valley/. Accessed 9 Apr. 2026.

Historic Places Los Angeles Resource Report. Los Angeles City Planning, hpla.lacity.org/report/7c364b42-b580-4a61-ba77-2f172d892f81. Accessed 9 Apr. 2026.