L.A.'s Grand Park

Grand Park from The Music Center (photo by Steven Chavez)

Grand Park in Downtown Los Angeles is located on an axis connecting the base of City Hall with L.A.'s Music Center at the top of Bunker Hill. The park is designed by Los Angeles based RCH Studios, and is part of the larger Grand Avenue Project. One of The Grand Avenue Project's goals for the park is to create a thriving urban center.

The first phase of the park opened on Thursday, July 26, 2012 and followed with a weekend of public inaugural events that coincided with National Dance Day on Saturday, July 28, and Music in the Park on Sunday, July 29. SCA-LARC visited the park on National Dance Day and was pleased to see the amount of people who attended and participated in the opening events.

Dance Class on the Performance Lawn (photo by Steven Chavez)

A main feature of Grand Park is the historic Arthur J. Will Memorial Fountain. The 1960s-era fountain (seen in films including 500 Days of Summer) has been restored and expanded to increase its viability as an interactive water feature for park users. On National Dance Day, kids and adults were enjoying the expanded wade-able water feature -- a sheath of pooling water with choreographed water jets pointing upward.

Restored and expanded Arthur J. Miller Fountain (photo by Steven Chavez)

Grand Park as a whole is opening in phases. This first phase opening includes the fountain plaza "block" and the performance lawn "block." The next phase, the community terrace, is scheduled to open at the end of August, 2012. The final phase, the event lawn, will open at the base of city hall in October, 2012.

Will Grand Park be a catalyst in creating a thriving Los Angeles urban center? An arguement can be made against the park's potential success by looking at its connection with Hill Street and its sidewalk. The decision to keep the existing underground parking garage and associated ramps at Hill Street has led to a largely severed park-street connection. Despite the compromised connection with Hill Street, the first phase of Grand Park has the makings of being a place that will foster a more socially dynamic and visually appealing central open space in Los Angeles.