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Sculptures Inspired by Westlake Park
Bus Stop Bench
Whitey
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Go to Pinterest to see
More Westlake Park Photos by Michael Garman - 1957
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I left Texas at the age of eighteen. On foot, a camera in my bag and my thumb in the air, I headed west. I caught a ride, then another. Somewhere along that journey, I became another person - Sean Michael O'Connor, a traveling boy from Ireland. As myself, I was a loner and terribly awkward. But as Sean Michael, I developed a thick Irish brogue. I could laugh and flirt, I could be boisterous and charming, joking all the time, a sweet foreigner just a-wandering the countryside.
Eventually the accent stuck. I would try to talk Texan, but inevitably I'd return to Sean Michael. "Howdy," I'd begin as a Texan, but then I would switch. "I be Sean Michael O'Connor, making me way across this lovely country of yours, and I'm just a-wonderin' if I might mow your lawn or some such thing, in exchange for a meal."
It turns out people are much more generous if they think you're a foreigner. If you say you're from Texas, they're likely to tell you to go get yourself a job and a haircut, but if you smile sweetly and speak like you're fresh off the boat, people will bend over backwards to show you hospitality.
When I finally made it to Los Angeles, I visited every photography studio, but no one was interested in hiring a kid with no experience - accent or no accent. As my money vanished, I took to sleeping in Westlake Park. People forget how wonderful this place once was, right in the middle of downtown Los Angeles. Renamed MacArthur Park, its reputation now-a-days for gang violence and drug dealing has long written over the memories of old men like me. We remember a different time, a different place.
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Back in 1957, this park welcomed a delightful mix of wealthy businessmen from the Wilshire Center and the Jewish ladies from Figueroa Street along with transients that had been pushed out of Bunker Hill by urban renewal projects. I could sleep out under the sky and spend my days peeking into the stories of unhurried men and women who sat along benches, gabbing or napping or just letting the minutes tick by. All of these strangers would later inspire many of the stories I tell in Magic Town.
 It was here that I met Tommy Mitchell, a fashion photographer. He saw me with my camera, me trying to go unnoticed while I framed strangers in my wide-angled shot, and he invited me up to his studio. The sight of me, unwashed and hungry, would have repelled most guys, but at his heart Tommy was good man.
"Come on in," he said as he opened up the door to his gorgeous studio, high ceilings, incredible light. "You can stay here. Sweep the place up, help me out in the darkroom."
So that's how I ended up working and sleeping in his Westlake Park studio right there on Wilshire. I did the grunt work on his shoots - the grip, the lighting, the set design, whatever Tommy needed. Not for money. I didn't take Tommy's money. He let me sleep in his studio and use his darkroom equipment, his paper, as much as I could want. He guided me both creatively and technically. Tommy became another mentor who built in me a love of the human face, the human experience. And he prepared me for the adventures that lay ahead.
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