When he was a boy of 12 or so, and his parents were busy running the family restaurant, Norm Langer spent hours across the street in MacArthur Park. It was, at the time, an elegant urban oasis, with lollipop palms standing over a lake fed by natural springs.
“I grew up in the park,” Langer said, seated in a booth at the famous deli he now owns at 7th and Alvarado streets. “I’d play in the park, go for boat rides, take naps. There was this whole area on the 7th Street side where older people played shuffleboard, backgammon, gin, all kinds of card games.”
Today, that carefree boy of yesteryear is 79…