Masterplanning! Where Do You Put a Park?

by Tony Chavira

The idea of a park is incredibly contradictive. We all seem to lose touch with the idea that we inhabit what is essentially wilderness, and instead find ways to incorporate a controlled version of this space into our cities. Planned wilds. Take a free moment this week and skim through the Department of Recreation and Parks master plan for Griffith Park or Elysian Park: no stone is unturned, no tree left behind.

There’s an image that appears in your head whenever you read the word “park,” and it probably involves wide-open fields of controlled greenery: a few trees here, grassy meadows, tennis and basketball courts, a playground for kids, public restrooms, a water fountain donated by the Lions Club in the 80s. But this park ideal isn’t ideal for all communities in Los Angeles, which is why planners and developers over the years have given us a lot of options.

These days we have complete control over where we choose to put our parks, even more than we did in past years. We can choose to have full-blown “parks ideal,” green-space, civic squares, beaches, playgrounds, golf courses, gardens and horticulture centers, skate parks, sports centers and fields, and (the most controlled wilderness environment of them all) zoos. With so many options, how does the discerning planner determine what will go where? What will happen if you place a sports center in downtown Long Beach? Will a garden and horticulture center in North Hollywood be welcomed by the community? Or a skate park in Rancho Palos Verdes? Or a golf course in Mount Washington? Or a zoo in La Habra?

Front yards, when originally conceived, were meant to replace this green space. But there’s an obvious problem with playing in someone else’s front yard, especially if you want to install your volleyball net and start up a competitive 3-on-3. So naturally, community leaders (and the community at large) love having parks integrated into their neighborhoods. Who can blame them? The idea of the park goes hand-in-hand with the idea of having an open community space, a civic space where people can hang out and talk and celebrate birthdays and relax and read and teach their kids to ride their bikes and just be themselves.

But it isn’t really the park space that people desperately long for ... it’s the open and accessible civic space. It’s the longing to be around other people comfortably, it’s the sense of peace and quiet that comes with relaxing amongst greenery. So what then is a park except for a successful public space? A space where you don’t mind waiting for some other guys to finish their half-court game so that you and your friends can play. A space where you can exercise in public and not have to run through streets, a space where you can set up a barbeque, cook carne asada and pig out with your family until the fireworks start.

Now that we can control where our public space will be, where do we put parks? What’s the smartest strategy? Knowing all the benefits of open civic space, one might say “Everywhere!” But in reality that’s only partially true. There is a reason why there are so many different options for civic spaces, and it’s because certain types of civic spaces are more appropriate than others. Some things work and some things don’t; it all depends on the community. An easy example of something that works is Griffith Park, a large open civic space that Los Angeles has slowly been able to transform into an entertainment location as well as a civic space. I love the quote provided on the front of the Griffith Park Master plan by Griffith J. Griffith (yes, that was his name) in 1896, because it really encapsulates the vision for Griffith Park which is still used today: “It must be made a place of recreation for the masses, a resort for the rank and file of the plain people. I have but one request: that the public—the whole public—should enjoy with me this beautiful spot.”

But of course Griffith Park is going to be a success story; the planners have had over 100 years to get it right. This is an argument that builders, planners and developers might be using regarding Orange County’s Great Park, especially since the master park plan was approved last September. It’s an interesting case study, considering that Griffith Park itself essentially had the freedom to control its destiny without much public dissent until the 1950s or so. Trying to replicate a large civic park in Orange County (with its roughly 1,300 acres) is daunting. Development is, of course, incredibly political when you have so many stakeholders with such watchful eyes. The Great Park leaders have their hands tied, with an ambitious formal vision for what the park will be but a slow record of physical progress. Worse yet, much of the existing park sits in stark visual contrast to their vision: abandoned military hangers and buildings, chain-linked gates, and expansive concrete runways.

The Great Park planners, correctly I believe, have developed a very “Orange County” attitude toward this park’s development (i.e. to place large public attractions and sculpture throughout the space); this strategy worked with Griffith Park with the incorporation of the Greek Theater, the Observatory and the L.A. Zoo. But county politicians are trying to walk a fine line: gain community interest in the Master Plan, but minimize the dissent of community groups who want to see the attractions built ASAP. Millions of dollars in public relations have spilled into the effort to get OC residents to accept this park development, but it’s always hard getting people to understand the point of master plans when all they see are open, decrepit lots where parks should be. I fully support the development of visionary and well-organized master plans, and this is really no exception. This story will be a successful one, but at the moment OC residents are right: Great Park leaders need to show the public lots of movement. And to stick to your their schedule and be transparent. “If you build it, they will come.” Oh, and bring back the horses. That was cool.

These are only two examples of what a park could or should do for the community, but before I send you off into the world to advocate for incorporative green space throughout Southern California, I want to leave you with an example of a park that didn’t work: Pershing Square in Downtown Los Angeles. Yes, it's a historic park with summer concerts and open public space. But the problem with Pershing Square is that its planned design is totally inappropriate for its surroundings. Griffith Park sits in an area of the city of Los Angeles that naturally allows for open, incorporative green space. It’s a central and accessible location for residents of Glendale, Burbank, Mount Washington, Highland Park, Silverlake, Echo Park, and Los Feliz. The OC Great Park (despite its current condition) is literally surrounded by neighborhood communities who will use it on almost a daily basis: Laguna Woods, Mission Viejo, Lake Forest, Foothill Ranch, Irvine and (if incorporated correctly) many of the students at UC Irvine.

Pershing Square is essentially in the center of Downtown, ideally located between massive redevelopment areas in Bunker Hill and Historic Broadway. It has its own stop on the Red Line, with access one stop away in either direction to the Gold Line and the Blue Line. Pershing Square had the opportunity to be the park that united downtown, a space that everyone could use and agree on. Instead, go to Pershing Square on any weekday and residents walk around it on the adjacent sidewalk. Historic Downtown is still Historic Downtown, Bunker Hill is still Bunker Hill and never the twain shall meet.

Dammit, it’s still a park! Aren’t people supposed to love and embrace it as a civic space? Why does this work in other cities, like New York with Union Square or Boston with Copley Square, but not in Los Angeles!? The short answer is “yes.” People should embrace it, but the park design just wasn’t appropriate for what people needed or could use in Downtown. Union Square in New York is historically known as a place where people would meet up, and so the city catered to that by allowing for fresh fruit vendors, flat space for civic activism, and historic center points such as the Equestrian George Washington Statue. Copley Square in Boston is literally the front lawn for the Trinity Church in a city that is historically very Catholic, thereby centering itself around a point of interest, accessibility, and tourism. Further, the city of Boston has encouraged the use of this square over the years by lining it with other civically-incorporating points: the Public Library, the Fine Arts Museum, and all of the walkable community access it can handle.

Pershing Square’s largest fault is that the city of Los Angeles took a badly-planned but historic greenspace in Downtown Los Angeles and didn’t nourish its development slowly as the city built around it. Instead, they allowed architect Ricardo Legorreta and landscape architect Laurie Olin to essentially pave over the park in concrete and raise it from street level. Legoretta and Olin have, in fact, taken responsibility publicly for the failure of their design to incorporate into the Downtown Los Angeles community, but it’s too little too late at this point.

How do you design parks so that people will use them? By planning what will go in the “negative space.” It’s easy to demolish everything and install a large, empty field of grass, but all that blank negative space doesn’t make for a good park. Griffith Park is trails, attractions, hills, open green fields and forest space. Orange County’s Great Park plan is designed with incorporative trails, space for sports, and lots of other attractions and points of interest.

Pershing Square is a slab of concrete with a fountain, raised and walled off on all sides. You’ve been cheated out of an amazing and incorporative civic space. You’ve lost out on having a quiet place in the city, a place to catch your breath as you move from your office in Bunker Hill down to the restaurants on Hill or Spring Street. A place to eat your lunch and talk with your coworkers comfortably with other Downtowners. An open community space, a civic space where you can hang out and talk and celebrate birthdays and relax and read and just be yourself. It’s not really the park space that you’re desperately longing for ... it’s the open and accessible civic space, and you just don’t have it.

Pershing Square is a good place to put a park. Too bad there isn’t one there.