The Little Park That Isn’t There

All across the land, downtowns have flourished in the ‘90s. But not here.

Chicago and New York have assumed an almost peacock-like quality, so brightly do their streets gleam and bustle. Even total-loss cities like Baltimore and Cleveland have seen their downtowns start to breathe after many years of near-death experience. People stroll the streets, hang out in cafes, watch the human comedy.

But not here. Los Angeles’ downtown languishes still--a virtual flatliner.

There are many reasons, of course. You have the old wariness felt by many toward our downtown, an attitude that approaches contempt. You have the apartheid quality created by the Bunker Hill development, which separates the new business towers from the old zone and leaves the old zone feeling abandoned.

You also have this: a bewildering failure to seize opportunities. If cities such as Portland and Seattle constantly search out lost corners of their downtowns for new uses, Los Angeles has never mastered the knack. Even when we try, we don’t get it right.

Today we’ll inquire into such a lost opportunity. It has all the classic ingredients of a downtown failure: years of official neglect, some outrage expressed, more years of dithering, and finally a conclusion that produces--bafflement.

If you want to see the baffling conclusion to this episode, stop and gaze sometime at the empty lot on the corner of Broadway and 1st Street. Understand you will be looking at a chunk of top-notch real estate. This property sits directly between City Hall and the Los Angeles County complex.

Like most people, you will probably first think you are looking at a small, pocket park. A landscaped slope leads up to a concrete platform where--surely--park benches and some lunch tables will follow. It just figures. A pocket park is what any city would do with a space that has been landscaped and prepared like that.

But what’s this? A fence runs around the property. If you look for a break in the fence, you will not find it. There is none.

The truly curious will discover that the concrete platform turns out to be the foundation of an old building. Actually the old foundation is better than a new platform because it has all the quirks of age. Surrounded by the greenery, the whole place could be a perfect urban spot for a quiet lunch, or a morning coffee, or just sitting.

But there’s the fence, of course. No sign, no explanation. Just a fence that blocks all access to the would-be park.

“It’s a really nice space,” says Lauren Melendrez, a landscape architect who loves downtown in spite of its problems. Melendrez worked on the design for the site, even though most of her recommendations eventually were overruled.

“We had a lot of discussions about letting the public use the space,” she says. “My suggestion was to let wisteria vines grow up around the old foundation so it would look like an urban ruins, the kind you see in Europe.

“You could use the ruins for all sorts of things like displaying public art or a cafe. Or you could just sit there. The platform is surrounded by the greenery along the slopes so you’d get this peaceful feel while you were doing whatever.”

Sounds swell, huh? Not a chance. Some $270,000 in taxpayer money was spent to landscape the site and clean up the foundation. Then the fence was added to make sure nobody used it.

The explanations offered by Los Angeles County, which made the decision to build the fence, are as numerous and complex as you might expect. And ultimately maddening.

Before the explanations, a bit of history. About two years ago this spot created much embarrassment to both the county and the city. Both governments, along with the state of California, own parts of the property, leaving them responsible for whatever happens on it.

At that time, the property was surrounded by a plywood construction fence. Supposedly an office building was getting erected there. But years had passed and no office building appeared.

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So Times reporter Nora Zamichow decided to take a peek behind the plywood fence. After all, this spot also happens to sit directly across the street from this newspaper.

What Zamichow discovered was a bustling community of drug addicts and dealers who were carrying out their business in the shadow of City Hall. One of the community members even told her they had picked the site specifically because it was next to the seat of government and therefore “safe.”

The presence of the drug addicts surprised almost no one except, of course, officials at the city and county who exclaimed amazement and promised a speedy cleanup. Never mind that the drug addicts, who read newspapers like everyone else and were not fools, had cleared out the morning the story appeared.

“We felt a lot of pressure to do something with the site,” says Sharon Yonashiro, who was in charge of the project for the county. “But nothing is as simple as it seems.”

In that, Yonashiro is right. Councilwoman Rita Walters expressed her preference for a “green space” at the site and others also supported the idea of creating a temporary park until a new developer could be found.

Then the wrangling began. After all, the property has three owners--the city, county and state--and a more quarrelsome trio could not be imagined.

At the county, lawyers began to raise questions about the city’s idea of allowing public use. What if the homeless settled onto the property? What if the drug addicts came back?

And finally the big question: Would a park designation, even if done on a temporary basis, preclude commercial development?

The lawyers argued that the answer was yes. Under state law, they said, once land is designated a park, it’s always a park. You can’t change it back.

So the park plan died. That’s when Melendrez and others suggested the cafe idea. It seemed a brilliant stroke.

The cafe qualified as commercial use so the land would not be designated as a park. Yet it would allow the public to enjoy the property in much the same way as a park. It might even make some money.

“The city was pushing the idea, but the county and state never got behind it,” Melendrez remembers. “They kept producing problems.”

For example: What about liability if someone got hurt on the ruins? Who would pay, hmm?

And what about the Americans With Disabilities Act, which might require lifts to get wheelchairs up the slope to the cafe?

Round and round it went until, finally, the doubters won. The cafe idea was nixed, just like the park idea was nixed.

The city planners then suggested that the fence be built in a small perimeter, close to the old foundation, so that the public could at least walk across the landscaped slope.

The county observed that such a fence would actually leave some flat land accessible. Flat land invites the homeless. The small-perimeter fence was nixed.

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In a final gesture to the general anxiety of the times, the landscaper was directed to plant Natal plums along the slopes. Natal plums have big thorns. No one ever tries to sit or sleep on top of a Natal plum.

And that’s how we came to build a park that isn’t. At City Hall, some of those involved say they still have hopes for introducing the cafe idea at a later date. At the county, though, the current status of the property seems to satisfy.

“It’s presentable, it’s clean,” says Yonashiro. “In the current configuration, no one is going to disturb the environs as they did in the past. We think that is progress.”