Viviana Franco stares at her reflection in a broken mirror found among the trash on the barren lot in Hawthorne 100 feet from where she grew up. She earned a masters degree in urban planning at UCLA specifically to clean up the lot and replace its hardscrabble dirt with a blanket of grass. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Construction of the 105 Freeway in the 1980s created dozens of forlorn lots like this one, at Doty Avenue and 118th Street in Hawthorne. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Trash litters the lot near the 105 freeway in Hawthorne. Viviana Franco has run into an array of troubles trying to turn the third of an acre into a park. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Viviana Franco, 30, is a ferocious community advocate, but her zeal and idealism have run headlong into reality into local politics, dizzying bureaucracy, a shoddy economy. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
