A New Toy for Cudahy: a Park

While the dignitaries made their speeches and adults sat politely listening, the children of Cudahy skipped right to the good part.

Before them stretched a beautiful green soccer field, with a bright orange goal net and tall blue light posts. It was new, the first in their city.

And it was theirs. Oblivious to the official stuff, some of them grabbed balls -- big and small, pink and checked -- and took to the field.

Their unscripted, middle-of-the-ceremony play was a statement without words, speaking to the need for a field like this in park-poor Cudahy, a town that officials said is among the densest in the state, where one out of every three residents is under age 14.

“It’s exciting because they have lights,” said Bryan Moreno, 9, standing on the field at the new Clara Street Park after trying to kick a goal past a friend. “You can see at night, and the field is big.”

Before Saturday’s opening of Clara Street Park, this town’s 24,208 residents had only two parks, neither of which offered a soccer field dedicated for youth. Recreation officials had to set up temporary soccer fields with portable goals, but that limited other patrons’ use of the park, said Cudahy City Manager George A. Perez.

The new park was carved from land where homes once sat. The city bought the homes, and renters and homeowners received assistance for relocation costs.

“We’ve heard from residents for the past few years that they needed a soccer field,” Perez said. “There is a need here.”

Each season, between 400 and 500 children ages 4 to 12 play in a city soccer league, with others left on a waiting list, said Gina Delgado, senior recreation coordinator.

Aside from the official games, children would create makeshift soccer fields on school playgrounds, parking lots and patches of the city’s other parks, “where they shouldn’t be playing,” Perez said.

The new park was created with $2.7 million in Proposition A funds, approved by voters in 1996 for park facilities, noted Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina, who had pushed for the park’s creation.

In addition to offering the city’s only field dedicated to youth soccer, the 3.35-acre park includes basketball courts, picnic shelters and a colorful playground built by the Los Angeles Conservation Corps Youth.

“It’s about family,” Molina told a crowd gathered at the park Saturday. “It’s about community.... We have lots of children. They deserve this type of park.”

For Cudahy resident Beatrice Gonzales and her husband, Daniel, enjoying a Saturday morning with their two young sons often involved a trek to another city park.

“Now families don’t have to walk from one end of the city to the other,” Gonzales said as her sons, Daniel, 3, and Noah, 2, played nearby. “I was born and raised here. The things they’re doing -- it’s just awesome.”

Before the ceremony began, Andres Leon sat on a park bench, his hand resting on a well-used soccer ball.

When he was a child in Mexico City, Leon said, there was no time to play soccer or engage in other fun things; he had to work. His two children, though, have a chance to be children and play various sports.

“It’s very good for the children to have someplace to have fun and have something to do,” Leon said, adding that it would help keep them away from drugs.

Molina and others also announced a plan to connect the new park to the Los Angeles River. It’s part of a larger plan to increase recreational and green spaces along the Los Angeles and San Gabriel rivers’ bike paths.

Many were happy just to have the new park.

“It’s exactly what we need; this is the perfect park for the city,” said Steven Frausto, 17, while local band Sequencia Cero entertained park guests. “There’s going to be people here all the time.”