Description

Located in a courtyard close to 3rd Street and South Broadway is Biddy Mason Park. Biddy Mason, an African American pioneer who was born a slave and walked from the South to freedom in Los Angeles, worked as a nurse/midwife and then became a successful entrepreneur and a generous contributor to social causes. Mason was one of the first African American women to own land in Los Angeles, and in 1872 she and her son-in-law, Charles Owens, founded and financed the Los Angeles branch of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church, L.A.'s first black church. At this park, a public art installation honors Biddy Mason. Biddy Mason: Time and Place, designed by Sheila Levrant de Bretteville consists of an 81' long 8' high black concrete wall divided into decades containing photographs, imprints, maps and drawings. Closer to the garage entrance at the Broadway Spring Center is Biddy Mason: House of the Open Hand by Betye Saar. A sepia-toned photomural on the wall adjacent to the elevator doors shows Mason sitting with three other women on the front porch of the small house owned by her friend and neighbor Robert Owens.