Results tagged “park”

Just in time for downtown's most popular event tomorrow evening, the new 2nd Street Park at the Police Administration Building has finally reopened after a two-week closure for a private police foundation fundraiser. Unfortunately, it now looks terrible. "Its grass may look as if a season of football has been played on it," described Eric Richardson at blogdowntown. So who gets to pay for the reseeding and landscaping?

A shooting that left one man dead last night in a Santa Monica park led to the arrest of multiple suspects. At around 8:52 p.m. last night, two suspects approached and began shooting at a group of four people in Virginia Park on Pico Boulevard, a few blocks from Santa Monica College. Three people escaped safely, but 20-year-old Richard Juarez was killed. The Santa Monica Police Department this afternoon announced that four suspects are in custody.

A park planned along the L.A. River between the Los Feliz/Silver Lake area and Atwater Village jumped another hurdle today when the LADWP Board of Water and Power Commissioners gave its stamp of approval, something that was needed since the property lies within a LADWP transmission line right of way.

With a big smile on her face, North Hollywood resident Marta Duron has spent the last two evenings at North Hollywood Park. It's a first for her to be there after dark, but with newly installed solar lighting poles along the jogging path, she plans on taking advantage more often. "It makes it safer and more people are out at nighttime, even late at night" she said. "It's a major difference."

Actor and environmentalist Ed Begley, Jr. will help unveil 28 new solar-powered light poles at North Hollywood Park tonight. It is being touted as a green energy and safety improvement for the park, which abuts the east side of the 170 Freeway. At night, portions of the park are extremely dark as very little light bleeds in from the surrounding neighborhood.

There are indeed coyotes in Griffith Park, and lately they've been letting their presence be known. Last week a man who was sleeping near the Travel Town area of the park" reported being attacked by a coyote," according to the LA Times. The man said he woke up "to find a coyote biting his foot," however "he was not seriously injured."

       

The new Studio Oaks Park, officially a wide median along Ventura Boulevard with a walking path that straddles the border of Sherman Oaks and Studio City, is practically finished. The meandering walking path is open to the public, except for one block that was flooded out by a trunkline break on Coldwater Canyon, and all that needs to be done to complete the project is some landscaping, which has become an issue between neighbors.

Park[ing] Day LA returns for its third year, when on September 18th metered parking spaces all over the city will be taken over by temporary on-the-fly green spaces where anyone is invited to sit down, relax, play, grab a bite, or chill out. With the aim of promoting the value--and in turn, the lack of--safe, accessible, and plentiful green spaces in Los Angeles, the event is an opportunity to break with convention and bring communities together.

LA Creek Freek blogger Joe Linton leads us to a nice river vision in Studio City called the L.A. River Natural Park, which would go between Whitsett Avenue and Coldwater Canyon. Described as "a forward-thinking concept design for the last remaining unprotected open space along 22 miles of the L.A. River in the San Fernando Valley," the project could include walking and bicycle paths, a native habitat, a play area and tennis courts, which already exist as part of the former recreational space, now threatened by condo development.

              

It's one of the city of Los Angeles' better ideas: an interconnecting network of trails in the equestrian friendly Northwest Valley. The 117-acre Palisades Park--not to be confused with the one in Pacific Palisades or in Santa Monica--is one of the many, stretching close to three and a half miles from Tampa Boulevard to Reseda Boulevard between the Limekiln Canyon Trail and the ones in Eddleston and Aliso Canyon parks.

Studio Oaks Park, named that way because it stretches between the two Los Angeles city neighborhoods, will start to become a reality next week when construction crews enter Phase 1 of the project.

Tomorrow marks the second anniversary of the Griffith Park fire, which burned through 817 of the park's 4,210 acres in two days. So Councilman Tom LaBonge and other city officials dedicated the 750,000-gallon water Travel Town Tank that will be used to help fight fires in the park and irrigate areas in the Western portion of the park. "It's a tragedy when fires roar, as we see today in Santa Barbara," said LaBonge this morning. “This tank will help us protect Griffith Park long into the future.”

              

The story could begin like this: "Once upon a time, some folks decided to plant a corn field on 32 acres of brownfield near Downtown Los Angeles." And maybe that's the story you know. But that's only one chapter of the space that is/was Not a Cornfield, because the story of the space began in the 1800s (and earlier, still) and is still being told. This is the Los Angeles State Historic Park, and its evolving landscape right now boasts some pretty stunning wildflowers most worthy of a springtime stroll around the premises. Learn more about the land's amazing and rich history first via their website, and then via a visit; the park is set up with informational markers throughout to enrich your understanding of this wonderful little place in the shadow of our skyscrapers and nestled against the Gold Line's tracks.

Found at a park within Park La Brea where the going rental rate of a 580 square foot studio starts near $1200.

In the next few days and weeks, cherry blossoms are about to blanket the branches of local trees with their gorgeous blooms. Last weekend LAist headed out to Encino to the Lake Balboa area to see some early blooms, and today the Daily News has a listing of other places around town where you and yours can enjoy the cheerful springtime sight of cherry blossoms, take a stroll, snap some picks, and get outside.

              

Around the perimeter of Lake Balboa in the San Fernando Valley are hundreds of slender trees with fragile branches soon to be fully burdened by the buouyant pink of gorgeous cherry blossoms. These trees know it's verging on spring, and about 30% of them are sporting their cheerful buds and blooms. An daytime jaunt these days to the park and a stroll around the lake will grant you a hint of what's to come.

As Los Angeles began to reach out in all directions from its tenuous core in the early part of the 20th Century, the city became a place for families and for visitors, and finding ways to make money off keeping them entertained was a frequent pursuit of many visionaries and entrepreneurs. Although a massive theme park like Disneyland didn't come on the scene until the 1950s, in the 1940s animals were the stars at many local attractions.

Some people might be surprised to find out that Sherman Oaks Castle Park, that great place for a miniature golf date, is actually a city owned and operated facility. In a time when the city is searching every corner for a buck or two to fill the depleting city coffers, the park is symbol of an idea past that should be duplicated.

Councilmember Tom LaBonge, who represents Griffith Park, loves loves loves to hike and be in what he calls the greatest park in the world. Often, he holds hikes with residents and tomorrow is no exception.

The La Jolla Fire, eponymously named after the canyon currently ablaze in Point Mugu State Park north of Malibu, has grown to 32 acres, but firefighters have 50% of the blaze contained, according to the Ventura County Fire Department's webpage. Downed power lines, most likely due to winds, are suspected to be the cause of the Sesnon Fire, according to "sources close to the investigation," per ABC7's Twitter. Additionally, all evacuations for the Marek Fire have been lifted.

UPDATE, 1:02 P.M.: The fire has grown, but is 50% contained. Updated information can be found here.

The pool at Ritchie Valens Park in Pacoima closed last springs for repairs, which was not exactly good timing for the summer season in a not-so-good neighborhood in a city traditionally known for little recreation space per capita. Councilman Richard Alarcon's office said that "due to the age of the City’s pools, the Department of Recreation and Parks is unable to fully discern the condition of the pool until the Spring when the pools are filled and cracks and leaks can be discovered." The good news today is that the pool re-opens this morning to the public.

Since the 1994 Northridge Earthquake, architect Frank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House at Barnsdall Art Park in Hollywood has been damaged closed and has been awaiting repairs and retrofitting over the last 14 years (however, it is still open for tours). Some of the work has been done, thanks to Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funds that went towards the first phase of seismic retrofitting, repairs, and restoration, but the usual wild card for getting anything done these days (one word: funding) hindered the other phases to be completed.

Last month, Col. Griffith J. Griffith's grandson and the Griffith J. Griffith Charitable Trust put in an application has applied to formally preserve the park by getting it designated as a historic landmark. "We're doing it to stop commercialization," the grandson told the Daily News. "They want to build aerial trams, hotels and build restaurants. "We don't need any of it. I believe my great-grandfather would be turning over in his grave." Lots of people support the idea, but one person, Councilman Tom LaBonge is wary of limiting development under the guise of a possible need for infrastructure for things such as water, power and sewer.

      

The Old Spaghetti Factory on Sunset Boulevard is gone, leaving a trail of b'day party memories, indigestion and chain link fencing in its wake.

The Silver Lake reservoir has been drained for sometime now due to rare photochemical reaction that created carcinogens. In June, the Department of Water and Power plans to fill it back up, but its use as a place to hold drinking water is being phased out -- it will now become purely eye candy by 2015 (as well as the nearby Ivanhoe Reservoir). So if the water aspect has no functional use and takes up plenty of real estate in a city that is in desperate need of urban parkland, why not make some changes? USC journalism teacher and blogger Sara Catania has an idea:

A small patch of land in Silver Lake is about to learn its fate, as are the residents and officials who have been debating about what to do with it for close to ten years.

That's right, two weeks before the grand opening you can get into the brand new Culver City Skate Park on the corner of Duquesne & Jefferson in Culver City. It's open dawn till dusk, but ymmv until the real opening. Friday night they put up the fence, and Saturday the place was jammed with 300 locals trying it out. I dropped by Sunday morning at 8am to check out the Wake n' Skate crew....

These are the traveling rings at the original Muscle Beach, just south of the Santa Monica Promenade. Last week at a Van Nuys/Sherman Oaks Park meeting, a traveling ring enthusiast brought a proposal to have these installed at the park. I can't disagree with that, these are so much fun. Don't forget to chalk your hands!...

Bands, Food, Carnival, Rides, Animals, Shopping, an Indoor Snow Park, Monster Trucks, Freestyle Motocross, and a Demolition Derby. Everything you would expect at a County Fair. The Carnival has the usual assortment of rides, games, and carnies. There are air conditioned shopping areas with over 2,000 vendors, a 4H style animal area with petting zoo, cows, and some bulls with 4' horns. When you get hungry you can get some over priced bottles of water...