Griffith Park: Like Disneyland, but neither fun, nor happy.

There’s been a lot of press lately about Griffith Park’s move to get historic-cultural status – that is, be a designated Cultural Landmark. I thought, why all the fuss and the flurries of emails? It seems obvious that a park with a rather lurid past (look up Colonel Griffith and prepare to learn), that is over 100 years old, (which means 800 years old in Los Angeles time) is LA’s most valuable piece of land anywhere. Duh.

But it’s not so easy. Actually, Griffith Park is a hot box of contention, and there is a lot of drama going on! It’s like writing a script, with too many quirky characters to keep track of…

The conductor will take your E ticket.

Enter Train Man. You know Train Man. We all have a Train Man in our lives, a father, an uncle, a neighbor, someone who is so passionate about the look, the sound, the smells, the sensual experience of riding the rails that he thinks that’s the ideal place to spend the day, a vacation, a trip, or even a date. (yes, I know of this, sadly.)

Christmas is a special time for him, of course – train setups in homes, stores, store windows, and even in restaurants. I admit, I too love the miniature people and stores and houses, and the smell of the hot little engine on its endless but important circle around the track. And even when it’s not Christmas I love hearing the train horn several times a week from the Glendale line, right across the river from Griffith Park.

But one time a year isn’t enough for Train Man, for when train men go bad, they want to see trains everywhere, all the time. Like in a PARK if you can imagine that!

Yes, the silly 2005 Master Plan for Griffith Park includes this. It must have been drawn up by a committee jealous of how fun Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm are (I prefer Knotts, specially at Halloween), and includes plans for trains or aerial trams, restaurants, an eco-hotel, sports complex, cooking school, and more. How about closing off all unofficial trails, and sticking only to the marked ones? Is that Main Street enough for you?

While less greedy people have drawn up a more sensible Master Plan to counterattack, along comes Griffith van Griffith with a late, but great idea: why not get his great-grandfather’s park listed with Historical Resources, so that none of these squicky commercial ventures can harm the park in the future? The Weekly writes:

“We’re trying to keep it just a park, not commercialized, not developed,” says Griffith, 55, whose great-grandfather, Colonel Griffith J. Griffith, and his wife, Tina, donated the land to the city more than a century ago, spelling out in the deed that it must be maintained as free urban wilderness.

Griffith funded the study for the HR group with $75,000 from the family trust (and the trust is obviously not stingy, because they bought a lot of PR as well! The Daily News “article” on this, not online now, is a straight press release, and appeared several weeks AFTER my blog on this.) Obviously, this historical status proposal should have been done many years ago, but as I wrote when I first started this blog, Griffith Park is the ugly stepchild in LA that has been ignored for years, with no upkeep, no money (hey, talk about stingy, thanks for the dollar a year, Autry Museum renter!), no thought, and very little preservation.

Daily News recently did a poll about the issue, and 92% of the voters thought it should be listed as historical. It’s obviously the right thing to do. And I’ve talked with Historical Resources before, and they are a smart, practical group who want to do the right thing for the city, and for the future. A slamdunk, right?

Toot, Toot! Uh, oh, here comes Train Man again, and he’s not in Travel Town! Oh, let’s not hide behind masks anymore; you guessed it, it’s our Tom, Councilman Tom LaBonge. He is the lone voice objecting to Historic Cultural status for the park he says he loves. From CurbedLA:

LaBonge has asked the parks department to study how a Griffith Park monument would affect city water, power, and sewer systems. (Oh, Train Man, how low you have sunk. Remember what’s important!)

From the Times:

“I’m all for designation of buildings and spots of significance in the park, but right here?” LaBonge asked, circling his finger over the dirt trail path one Friday morning, “Would it be something to designate? I’m not sure.” [snip]

In particular, he worried that it might hamper park maintenance and his dreams for significant improvements to infrastructure.

Everyone deserves to have dreams. The question is, should they include trams and hotels and…trains?

LaBonge supports the historic-cultural designation for the park’s buildings “but not an entire park,” said Renee Weitzer, the councilman’s chief of staff and chief planning deputy.

“There are many unknowns that need to be researched,” she said…

Well, it’s hard to argue against unknowns, that’s for sure! But I will say that I can think of only one interesting building in the park, and that’s an electrical building, which looks like it’s from the thirties, and has a door only 3 feet high. It makes me think of the dwarfs in Phantasm. Most of the rest are trailers or bunker type places. So if that’s what LaBonge thinks is historical, I question his sense of style and taste, yes I do.

Save Griffith Park. Save it from the City of Los Angeles. Save it from your elected and appointed politicians. Save it from…Train Man.