This Is Not Disneyland

The merry-go-round at Griffith Park Center isn't running today, but you can almost hear the organ playing and the children squealing in delight. Five generations of Angelenos and their children have played here, and Silver Lake native Tom LaBonge was one of them. He stares out over the expansive grass picnic area surrounding the attraction, and he recalls a story once told to him long ago by Diane Disney, daughter of the famed animation and theme-park baron.

"This is where Walt Disney used to take his daughters when he was in Los Angeles early on," explains LaBonge. "He'd stand right here, and he'd let 'em ride, ride, ride. He'd look out over the park, just like I'm doing now, and he'd be visualizing his Disneyland the whole time." LaBonge pauses, caught in the memory of that conversation. "I think he was one of the greatest men of the last century. But here, this is not Disneyland, this is Griffith Park."

Griffith Park is not Disneyland yet, but some fear it's headed in that direction. L.A. City Councilman Tom LaBonge, whose fourth district includes Griffith Park, presides over the country's largest urban park like a proud parent. He vows to protect it at all costs and walks a fine line between two radically different visions of the park's future - one that calls for Griffith Park to remain an "urban wilderness" and one that seeks to commercialize the park for profit.

Two Competing Visions

Back in 2003, the City of Los Angeles hired Melendrez Design Partners to create a master plan for Griffith Park, a plan that is supposed to be a roadmap for the future of the park over the next quarter century, according to Gerry Hans, president of the Oaks Homeowners Association. Before Melendrez started work on the document, however, the design firm held three community workshops to gather public input. During these initial workshops, which Hans attended, participants reached a consensus and told Melendrez "to basically leave the park alone, leave it the way it is now because we like it the way it is now."

Two years and $400,000 later, Melendrez finished the master plan and the city released it to the public in March of 2005. Those who attended those original community workshops with Melendrez were horrified by what they saw there, according to Hans, because "what we suggested was not really evident in the master plan at all."

Instead of leaving the park alone, the master plan aims for what critics call the complete development and commercialization of Griffith Park. Some of its most controversial ideas are to build seven multilevel parking structures, two aerial tramways, a culinary school, a commercial pier on the L.A. River, and a hotel. The document inspired a torrent of negative feedback from various organizations with vested interests in the park, from the Sierra Club to the Greater Griffith Park Neighborhood Council to Hans's Oaks Homeowners Association.

Some activists have vilified Melendrez for turning the master plan into a development boondoggle, but Melani Smith, principal at the design firm, says that before a master plan of any kind is ever started, the client always outlines the scope of work in what's called a "goals document." "This case was no exception," she explains. "I have seen the goals document that the city prepared for the master plan to guide the process." So the extreme changes called for in the master plan were not created out of thin air by the design firm, but rather outlined by the client, the City of L.A.

"What happened when the master plan came out was like what happens when you try to start an old car," says LaBonge. "It sputtered. It had some very far-out ideas, and it sputtered and missed the point." So, in response to the tremendous objections he received, LaBonge convened the Griffith Park Master Plan Working Group and appointed 11 members representing an assortment of interested parties.

The Working Group has labored now for the past 14 months to address each component of the 190-page plan and come up with an alternative. Hans explains that while most of the Melendrez draft is concerned with building things, such as restaurants and parking structures, the Working Group's vision embraces the natural, urban wilderness feel of the park right now.

Unfortunately, a lot of time and money could have been saved had the city convened a working group to guide the actual creation of the master plan instead of waiting until the document was complete. Smith says the three workshops held only in the beginning were not enough. Her firm always prefers to involve the community throughout the entire planning process. "That's not what happened with this plan, because the city either wasn't willing or wasn't able to fund the appropriate level of public and community involvement," Smith says.

And now, instead of having a proactive role, working group members are trying to effect damage control. Hans seeks comfort in the fact that at least the Melendrez version of the master plan is only a draft now, not a final product. "It's probably just $400,000 down the tube," he says.

But Joseph Young, co-chair of the Sierra Club's Griffith Park Planning Task Force, is not optimistic at all. The Sierra Club staunchly opposes the master plan because it contains the core belief that the park should be transformed from its present state into a revenue enhancer for L.A., according to Young. "Since L.A. needs money, and there are budget cuts being proposed in all departments of the city, it scares a lot of us because we think the city will create a development within the park ... to make money," explains Young.

He says the Sierra Club intends to fight to keep the 4,200 acres of Griffith Park green and open space, free from the noise, clutter, and mechanization of daily life elsewhere in the city. So why was there even a need to draft this 25-year plan for the park in the first place? "That's the $64 question," says Young. "There's nothing to be fixed. It ain't broke."

Father Knows Best

LaBonge's city-issued, charcoal gray Crown Victoria zips along until he sees yet another one of his favorite spots in Griffith Park, and we screech to a halt. It seems every corner of the park holds fond memories for LaBonge, who has lived in ZIP code 90039 his whole life and has worked for the city of Los Angeles for the past 32 years. "I come from a big family," he explains. "And where do big families go? Griffith Park. We came here for everything."

The history of the park also fascinates him, and there's a lot to tell. Colonel Griffith Jenkins Griffith was both a rapscallion and a benefactor, one of L.A.'s most colorful characters who made his fortune as a mining speculator. He owned the land that is now Griffith Park, where he farmed ostriches. In 1903, historians say, Griffith got caught up in an alcoholic, paranoiac rage, and he shot his wife while they vacationed at a Santa Monica hotel. She survived but was left blind in one eye and disfigured.

When Griffith emerged from his stint at San Quentin, he resolved to pay back his debt to society. Inspired by the urban parks he saw in Europe and New York, Griffith decided Los Angeles should have its own great park. So, he bequeathed his land to the city under this condition: "It must be made a place of recreation and rest for the masses, a resort for the rank and file, for the plain people. I have but one request: that the public - the whole public - should enjoy with me this beautiful spot."

LaBonge knows the park intimately, but it's hard to nail him down on what exactly he'd like to see happen as "recreation and rest" in the park. Although he likes some components of the master plan, he says other ideas in the document, like building a culinary school and restaurant, "stepped way out of bounds." But LaBonge has a history of "enhancing the park," as he puts it, and he expresses his desire to continue doing so.

Over the years, LaBonge has often been on the lookout for ways to update Griffith Park. For example, one of our first stops on the tour is Shane's Inspiration. This two-acre "boundless playground" and lawn offers an impressive mishmash of colorful jungle gyms, slides, and bridges that are all handicap accessible. As we watch the children busy at play, LaBonge remembers the day back in the late '90s when he met Catherine Curry-Williams at the ranger station. Back then, he was head of the Griffith Park Resource Board, he explains, and she told him of her son, Shane, who was born very sick and didn't live long. But, if Shane had survived, he would have been in a wheelchair, and there would have been no place for him to play.

"She wanted to build this place, and they raised all this money with donations from good people," says LaBonge. "And now it's the greatest little play area in the city."

LaBonge may not like the idea of constructing a pleasure pier on the L.A. River, but when it comes to sports fields, he's all for them. "Some people are anti-activity zones," he continues. "Well, I like activity zones, and we need more of them." The construction of the Golden State Freeway ate up a huge chunk of Griffith Park back in the mid '50s, including sports fields, making the baseball field at Crystal Springs the only one in the whole area. LaBonge stands firm on his commitment to build more sports fields in the park.

One controversial master plan idea that interests LaBonge is an aerial tramway. Although Griffith Park activists greatly oppose this idea, LaBonge argues that tramways would give more people easy access to popular points atop the park's peaks, like the Observatory and Toyon Vista areas. Pictures of the proposed aerial trams in the master plan look similar to the gondola at Mammoth Mountain; they are large cars suspended from cables that creep up the hillside. The councilman shrugs off the hysteria over the trams. "You've seen them in other cities," he says. "They go from one point to another."

Parking structures are another hot-button issue sparked by the plan. During our tour, however, LaBonge expresses dismay every time we drive across another sprawling, somewhat decrepit parking lot with weeds pushing up through the asphalt. "What if there's a good way to consolidate the parking into smaller areas and get more open space back?" he asks. He's not proposing the kind of parking garages you'd find at the mall. Instead, he likes the idea of cleverly disguised parking structures that are blocked by landscaped berms and come complete with rooftop gardens. "People need to have a place to park in order to enjoy the park," he explains.

When it comes to preserving open space in Griffith Park, LaBonge sides with the activists. At the end of our tour, he sneaks us up a steep winding road that is closed to public automobiles. When you are Tom LaBonge, you can come and go as you please in this park, and so we get a splendid glimpse of the vast open terrain and incredible views from the towering park interior peaks without earning it on foot, bike, or horseback. The sun begins to sink, and the horizontal light gives the sage-lined landscape an amber glow that lights up the councilman's face as he takes in the view.

"My district is pretty fun, huh?" He flashes another grin and surveys his responsibility, sucking it in. "I'm very honored to have this park in my district, and I would never let anything bad happen to the park," he promises. He's so enthusiastic it's tempting to simply be satisfied that the park is in good hands - despite the fact that it's not easy to know how much control he really maintains over the process. That master document, after all, still contains a school, two tramways, a pleasure pier, and all the rest, even after years of talk.

It does, however, feel amazing to be smack in the middle of Los Angeles with this amount of wild, open space under foot. In fact, Tom LaBonge's number one goal is to add even more acres of open space to Griffith Park by facilitating the purchase of Cahuenga Peak, an undeveloped summit adjacent to Griffith Park. Cahuenga Peak is privately owned now, but LaBonge is working to get the city to buy it and add it to Griffith Park's lands, making this urban oasis bigger and better than ever.

What's Next?

The Working Group will be wrapping up its review of the master plan in the next couple of months, at which point it will hand its recommendations over to the L.A. Department of Recreation and Parks, according to Hans. But what happens then is speculation, and many Griffith Park activists are concerned about how much weight the Working Group's ideas will really pull. The 11 members of the group have been slaving away, tediously revising every chapter of the master plan, but does the city even have to enact their proposal in the end?

"A very real fear on the part of many people on the Working Group is that they're going to spend months and months and months on this, and nothing will come of it," says Young. City officials like LaBonge and Department of Recreation and Parks General Manager Jon Mukri have assured the Working Group that all of its input will be taken into consideration when the final master plan is drawn up. But, Young warns, "I don't have a lot of confidence that will happen" because there is no written mandate anywhere. No one knows for sure what the city's final master plan will look like in the end. In the meantime, organizations such as Savegriffithpark.org and the Sierra Club will fight to raise public awareness of the plan's contents and promote their belief that tranquility should be preserved and the park should be left alone, according to Young.

LaBonge says he thinks a lot about Griffith and his dreams for the park, which is why he is trying to enhance park accessibility so more people can benefit from it. Griffith Park does not just belong to the neighborhoods right next to it, says LaBonge. "This is everybody's park."