Boy in La Plaza de los Lagartos, El Paso-1976
La Plaza/A Memoir
I went to the plaza today.
It was deserted.
It’s official name is San Jacinto Plaza. In June 1995, the artist Luis Jimenez brought the Lagartos back to the plaza -in the form of a fiberglass and tile sculpture -and it became La Plaza de los Lagartos, again (the Plaza of the Alligators. Alligators used to be in a pool in the center of the plaza until the 1960’s).
The town used to be fun, I guess. Or was it the era? Or was it just wacky? Alligators in the desert. Who knows? After a lot of abuse (that wasn’t so much fun for the alligators), the alligators went to the zoo and the plaza became San Jacinto Plaza again.
It’s the first place I went to when I came to El Paso. A refuge in the desert. It welcomed me. Un refugio de la alma. I shot pictures. It fed me.
The plaza has always been the place I go to be re-nourished about El Paso. It’s always been a cultural crossroads, less than a mile from the border, near bus stations and the train, surrounded by El Paso’s version of tall business buildings. It was a melting pot kind of place. Funky. A little dangerous, a lot edgy, real, border-ish, mostly Latino. Pure real.
There is “redevelopment,” going on now and the buses have been moved away from the plaza. Good old boys are fixin’ the buildings. Like it used to be.
With that move, one fell swoop, the working people are gone, too. It happened in just a few weeks.
I was there tonight and I miss them. It was a foreign landscape, the name of which I no longer know. No smell. No energy. The purposefulness of people moving back and forth across borders, gone. There was history in la plaza. You could feel it (it pretty much looked the same way for 80 years).
I miss El Paso. I guess there’s always been a battle her, a struggle between north and south, or is it top and bottom? My El Paso is funky, dusty, plan-less. Busting with images of authenticity. If that is your cup-of-tea, Plaza Lagartos was the epicenter of funk.
Funk is good. At least it looks good from where I sit.
So, just like that -snap!- the plaza has become the San Jacinto Plaza again. It’ll be safe and clean and flat.
Good job.
I won’t be back soon.
