LOS ANGELES STATE PARK- 2017

photos by- me- rick castro- copywriter 2017

Los Angeles State Historic Park 

 is a state park unit in development within the Chinatown neighborhood of Los Angeles.  Also known as the Cornfield, the former brownfield consists of a long open space between Spring Street and the tracks of the Metro Gold Line.

 Located outside the main commercial and residential area in the northeast portion of Chinatown, the area is adjacent and southeast of Elysian Park neighborhood.

This former site of the Southern Pacific Transportation Company's River Station (1876−1901) is considered the "Ellis Island of Los Angeles" where new arrivals from the east first disembarked. Corn leaking from train cars and sprouting along the tracks gave rise to the nickname The Cornfield.

 The 32-acre site was established as a California state park in 2001.

In 2001, a five-foot section of the historical Zanja Madre irrigation canal was uncovered.In 2005, the former industrial site was transformed into a productive cornfield for one season as an art project called "Not a Cornfield."

In 2006, a contest was held in conjunction with the California State Parks Foundation to select a design for the park. The preliminary park opened on September 23 of the same year.  Hargreaves and Associates of San Francisco ultimately won the contest.

Development of the park has been slow. California's budget deficit forced officials to scale back plans for the park in 2010, earmarking $18 million instead of the planned $55 million. Plans for a bridge/water fountain, theme gardens, an upscale restaurant, and an ecology center with restored wetlands were tabled, while construction of a visitor center, entryway, and walkway overlooking an excavation of the railroad roundhouse is still planned to begin in late 2013. Other planned amenities include a campfire circle, restrooms, and a parking lot with space for food trucks. The tabled features may be added later if funding becomes available.

Numerous community fairs and gatherings have been held in the park. It also contains several plaques that relate the history of the Cornfield, Chinatown, and downtown Los Angeles.

On April 22nd, 2017- Los Angeles State Historical Park officially opened to the public.

RANDOM ANTEBELLUM

THOUGHTS TODAY~ JULY 20~2015~  9:11~ME BDAY~57 FUCKING YEARS OLD!

GRIFFITH PARK

Griffith Park: A Historical Cultural Landmark

On Christmas Day 1896, Colonel Griffith J. Griffith gifted Los Angeles with Griffith Park, the heart and lungs of our City. Immigrant-made-good Griffith knew what it was like to be poor and hemmed in. He envisioned a park that would be an antidote to the city, a "resort" for the plain people, open and free.

For the next 115 years Griffith Park was a green escape for Angelenos who found recreation, rest, adventure, and breathing room there. Over the years, Colonel Griffith descendents kept a hand in, completing the Griffith-endowed Greek Theatre and Griffith Observatory and at times resorting to legal action when the Park became the expedient answer to dilemmas linked to growth. A postwar veterans housing development was built there only to be demolished eight years later. One freeway and then another bulldozed through. Garbage came to the Park in the form of a landfill and in a last-minute reversal, a swath of wilderness meant to join it became a cemetery instead. Smaller hurts accompanied the big ones. Master Plan drafts proposing massive development were floated in 1968 and 2005 and met with widespread dismay. The 1968 Draft re-emerged in 1978 as an enlightened Master Plan. The 2005 Draft remains a source of contention. The urge to exploit the Park and the desire to protect it seemed locked in eternal battle.

In 2008, the Griffith J. Griffith Charitable Trust stepped in to protect Griffith Park, applying to have it declared a City landmark. Alone among previous candidates for monument status, Griffith Park met and exceeded all criteria. It reflects the community's broad cultural, political, economic, and social history; it is identified with historic figures; it contains inherently valuable architectural styles; it is a significant Cultural Landscape; and it includes of notable works by builders, designers and architects of genius. To top it off, the Park is unique on a national level for its sheer quantity of natural terrain that preserves for posterity rare ecosystems - some dating from the pre-European era - within the boundaries of a modern metropolis.