Ricardo Palavecino
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It's nice being close to downtown but not quite so close and it's also nice being, somewhat close to Silver Lake or Echo Park, but it's a lot cheaper than those neighborhoods.
I've been living here since nineteen-ninety-six. It's quiet, a lot of people hop around.
I guess the best part of my life was growing up here; the community was little bit different than it is now. There were a lot of Cubans, a lot of Puerto Ricans.
I have just come back after 20-something years and I have seen all of the developments and how it's much friendlier than it was before.
I love dogs so much, I decided to work with dogs, so I became a groomer. When I first come in this store, I fell in love with all the decoration in the store.
There've been a lot of changes since we first came here. The lofts next door took about eight years to build, and now they're all filled up.
The park that we have right here on San Fernando is called L.A. River. It's great. They have two or three soccer fields, a basketball court, and playground.
No, I don't see any problems around here, maybe in other neighborhoods. I used to have friends that would do a lot of illegal stuff, but now I move more to the educational friends.
It was this little house that was $40,000 and I put $5000 down that I didn't have. I borrowed some from the owner of the LA weekly, some from a friend of JPL, and some from an old Chinese businessman.
There isn't a lot of businesses that cater to the youth, there aren't that many programs that cater to after school activities and there aren't enough people to supervise the youth.
I have lived and worked as an artist in Atwater for thirty-four years. We're the proud owners of the American Legion Hall.
Actually, this neighborhood was rough, there's a couple of years it was kind of rough because of the gangs that were around here, but they've left and ever since then it's been pretty peaceful, it's nice.