El Paso: Art in the Park - Manhattan Heights

Art in the Park, Memorial Park, El Paso, Texas. October 2016.

October 2016.

El Paso's neighborhoods continue to delight me. Memorial Park and the Memorial Library branch of the El Paso Public Library System are in the historic neighborhood called Manhattan Heights.

The housing stock in Manhattan Heights is like a box of chocolates, with none of its contents being an icky chocolate-covered cherry (eww.) Each sweet morsel is a bite of eye-rolling goodness.

This is not to glamorize the neighborhood. The streets within the neighborhood reflect different socio-economic members, which, I believe, is part of what makes for a sustainable, inclusive community that we call a neighborhood. (A gated community is not a neighborhood. It is an enclave.)  A video in a Borderzine series on El Paso's neighborhoods addresses the diversity of blocks in Manhattan Heights. 

Regardless of the financial value of a particular house in Manhattan Heights, or the income of its residents within, all Manhattan Heights residents have equal access to the library, the park, the glorious views, the pleasant walks along the neighborhood streets. This is one of the characteristics of what "quality of life" means in a city.

A view of El Paso and Juarez from Manhattan Heights neighborhood, El Paso, Texas. October 2016.

In the video below, taken from the Memorial Library's parking lot, a view of the neighborhood south of Manhattan Heights and Juarez:

In the background, you can hear musicians from the ongoing Art in the Park.