People of Glassell Park: Sandro Miranda

Sandro Miranda. I live over here by Glassell Park. I have lived here for about fourteen years. We work on wheel repairs, tires, powder coating, aluminum welding, just about everything. I started when I was sixteen or seventeen. I didn't like it a lot when I started, but now I like it. Now I know how to weld so it is a lot more fun.

For the past couple years I've been doing custom work on trucks, bikes, fixies, furniture and stuff like that.

For the last four years we've been good with the cops. They do an annual parade, and if they need any funding for Glassell Park we help them out. We're one of the regular mom and pop shops, but we tend to put lights outside so the area doesn't look dark. The people running and walking their dogs at night can be safe in our area. It's important to be able to pass by a shop and not feel like it is dark and scary. If you pass by our shop at night you'll see that it's clean, and so far the area has been pretty clean.

Gang violence went down. It's not as bad as before. We had an accident recently over here. I guess two young cats got killed on the corner over here, but besides that it's been pretty calm.

We used to be by Cypress Park and there was a lot of gang related things going on. But so far, it's been good here.

The above interview is transcribed and edited from the following interview: