100-Acre Urban Park Planned for Downtown

[djm19]

LA doesnt need a central park...for one, there just inst the room. When you combine this park, with the civic center park that will be built, and the cornfield park that will be built, thats three rather large designed parks in relatively close area.

They are also planning a cap for Hollywood, which will be nice to have a park right there.

I think South Park could use a new small park (small as to not detract people from visiting the three in northern downtown). Like a park the size of pershing square, which also needs to be totally redone.

[jswayne]

I know this sounds eccentric, but how about expanding that to Elysian Park? Rubbing up against Dodger Stadium? For good measure, keep it going until the river. Again, pretty eccentric, incredibly unlikely, but wouldn't it be nice?

[Wright Concept]

Here's a real crazy idea. Let's add more parks to the entire city that have loads of people and no green space and have them all connected together with parkways and bikeways. Take abandoned and leftover parcels break up the concrete throw down some dirt and sod add a bench or two and bam! There's a park.

[phattonez]

Parkways? Why not just make it all green and put all bikeways. We have enough roads as it is.

We need to stop erecting concrete on surface level for cars (aka roads) and do what the Dutch did.

"Henceforth other functions will be given priority over motor traffic [and] the car's dominance should be diminished by deliberately increasing travel times, by creating a less dense network of main roads, and by reducing speeds. (Ministry of Transport and Public Works, 1982)"

Try getting a politician in America to agree with that. Just imagine if we took section of our biggest roads and replaced a lot of it with traffic calming techniques that decrease speeds and increase the amount of foliage. I can always imagine. But hey, since we still see cars as the main mode of transportation, it will not happen. What will it take for the change? Obviously it's not $4 per gallon of gas, and it doesn't look like $5 will do the trick either. Maybe we have to wait for $10?

Maybe we can put grass in the trackbed of out light rail lines, that always looked nice to me.

[PotatoGuy]

[Wright Concept]

Phattonez, I'm using the term Parkway as it was originally defined as "a green space that on an adjacent street or road". The trees, landscaping and grass on the edge of an older wide boulevard is called a Parkway. By adding those treatments to existing boulevards it reduces speeds, improves traffic volumes and make streets more pedestrian friendly and pleasing.

[phattonez]

Ahh, I see now. I thought you meant parkways as in the Pasadena Freeway sense. But I guess you were going for traffic calming that focuses on aesthetics, which I'm completely on board with you on.

[klamedia]

Originally Posted by Wright Concept

Here's a real crazy idea. Let's add more parks to the entire city that have loads of people and no green space and have them all connected together with parkways and bikeways. Take abandoned and leftover parcels break up the concrete throw down some dirt and sod add a bench or two and bam! There's a park.

And where are these abandoned parcels that no one is using?

[Wright Concept]

I can think of 10 right within 1/2 mile of my sisters house. I'm thinking a simple green space like the Maguire Gardens at Central Library, where park is nestled in between the Library and the California Club.

[phattonez]

Originally Posted by klamedia

And where are these abandoned parcels that no one is using?

Parking lots would be a nice spot.

[PotatoGuy]

Yeah.. there are plenty of parking spots... those need to go

[phattonez]

Originally Posted by PotatoGuy

Yeah.. there are plenty of parking spots... those need to go

That will require cooperation between the city planning department, city council, and MTA board. By taking way surface parking lots for parks (I think we need to focus solely on replacing them with just parks right now) then we need to change the zoning around those areas to accommodate higher density and mixed-use development that will create a walkable neighborhood. This should be limited to areas that we consider to be deep in the city or zones that we set apart as ready for urban villages. The city council we have to respect those decisions and Metro's LRTP should reflect the planning commission's recommendations.

[PotatoGuy]

Yeah, and also, I think as awesome as it would be to have a less car-dependent culture in LA the fact of the matter is that LA still relies heavily on cars and removing the parking spaces won´t solve that problem, if anything it´ll make it worse..

I think we should remove those large slabs of blacktop that flatten and uglify the city and replace them with not only green space but also parking structures... regardless of our "needs" or rather wants as city enthusiasts on this forum, or even of those of the actual planners, developers and architects.. The needs of the people should not be overlooked, and the truth is that people need parking spaces and they are not going to stop needing them anytime in the immediate future. We can´t force people to drop their usage of cars, especially when (as sad as it is) the alternative use of mass transit isn´t readily available to most of the population

[phattonez]

We should encourage people to live closer to their jobs. How do you do that? Well since the only method for many people is driving, then they are forced to have long commutes. The average commute length for centuries across the globe has been 30 minutes. We have to provide for that. You can do this with traffic calming and other methods. So you can force people to live in the city instead of further out in the suburbs if you provide plenty of parkland and have the housing for it (so fixing zoning). This city can be made less car-dependent, and we need to start the process at some point, and now is a good a time as any. It starts with traffic calming and building a transit system at the same time. So let's traffic calm the roads that are near stations. This will lessen car dependence and increase density in more localized areas which will provide us with a more sustainable way of life for this city.

[svs]

Last month in another thread about revitalizing downtown, I wrote:

"Which brings us to the issue of downtown parks. By all means build the proposed "great park" replacing the Civic center mall. This includes tearing down the ugly court buildings, municipal, criminal, and district as well as the Hahn hall of administration, and the hall of records. If possible extend the park all the way across the 101 to Olivera street, over the freeway similar to the proposal for the freeway park over the Hollywood freeway.

But don't stop there. Develop a chain of parks extending from Elysian Park to Exposition Park.

Elysian Park is an underutilized treasure of the city, mainly because it is a little awkward to get to and also because a lot of it is rather hilly. Still it has the oldest arboretum in the county and at more than 600 acres is the second biggest municipal park in the city after Griffith Park. I would make an easy transition from the proposed Dodgertown development around Dodger stadium into Elysian Park. Develop some high density housing around the perimeter of the park. Develop hiking and horseback trails, gardens, picnic grounds. etc.

Open the Police Academy for Public tours with a Criminology museum explaining modern crime fighting techniques for the CSI fans out there and also giving some history of some of the more notorious criminal history of our city, the Manson murders, Black dahlia, Buggsy siegal asassination, Symbionese Liberation army, Hollywood scandals, etc. (I have a nephew who trained at the Police academy in the OC and was able to tour the facility. Its really rather interesting.)

Recognize the city has a major shortage of housing. We have a choice to build high or to pave the mountains and the deserts. I favor building tall. Continue to build mixed use developments in South Park but also around Chinatown and surrounding Elysian Park, along the LA river, south of the 10 freeway and in the industrial areas adjacent to the arts district. We need 150,000 units of housing in the next 10-15 years. That's a lot of apartments. I'd rather see them downtown than wiping out the single family homes in the Valley.

I like the proposal for the development of Dodgertown. I would integrate this with Elysian Park, build a Dodger Museum and sports themed restaurants and stores and make the ravine a year round destination.

The trails in Elysian Park should connect to the park being developed at the Cornfield, ie. the Los Angeles State Historic Park. I would like to see development of gardens especially a Chinese style garden in this park given its proximity to Chinatown.

I'd like to see another park developed over the air rights of the utility yard located east of the river west of the I-5 north of Mission and south of Alhambra ave. Right now this is a collecting area for trailers. I suspect it needs to function but it is ugly as hell and occupies a prime piece of property right along the river. We could copy Chicago's Millenium Park idea and build a new park over the air rights of this utility yard. A side benefit would be the San Antonio Winery is located just across the street and could be incorporated into the park design.

I would locate another park over the air rights of the rail yards between 1st and fourth just west of the river and east of Santa Fe Blvd.

Lastly I would grass over the parking lots that take up way too much of the space in Exposition Park and put the needed parking underground. I would also finish the buildout of the California Science center. I would expand the LA Natural History Museum. It has the third or fourth biggest collection in the country but the facility is way to small to show it all off. I would build a separate history museum and locate it close to Olvera Street, maybe in the old Post Office building."

Since no one responded to my post I dropped the subject but you may notice that I included the proposal for a park over the slot in my first paragraph.

If we are serious about developing a "world class park" downtown we can do it by connecting Elysian Park to Exposition Park by way of the cornfield and a series of parks over air rights above railyards and submerged freeways. We can expand downtown by building talls adjacent to these new parks. We may be able to pay for the development of this park system by having developers pay for the rights to build taller than current code in return for developing this needed parkland in the city center.

[Westsidelife]

Some of you missed the inherent message of the article. The purpose of the article was to point out LA's lack of cohesion and how such a park could bind together an otherwise disjointed civic center. The allusion to NYC's Central Park was merely a prosaicly convenient analogy.

[mikey001]

While it would be great to have something like Central Park in LA, let's not forget about what we already have. Yes, Central Park is a place where you see New Yorkers of all types relaxing, strolling, biking, and just enjoying the scenery. But in LA we also have places like that. It's the beaches. Stroll down Venice Beach and you'll see Angelenos of all backgrounds doing the exact same thing New Yorkers do in Central Park: playing sports, biking, jogging, or just enjoying the outdoors with thousands of fellow residents.

[milquetoast]

Millions by last weekend's count

[dweebo2220]

The beaches aren't in any way central.

[klamedia]

Originally Posted by phattonez

Parking lots would be a nice spot.

Parking lots are not abandoned lots!! They are commercial parcels whereinwhich whoever owns it makes money off of it. Where are the ABANDONED PARCELS in the urban core of LA??