There is exciting news in Los Angeles! Griffith Park has been nominated for Historic-Cultural Monument status! The Griffith J. Griffith Charitable Trust hired the firm of ICF Jones and Stokes to prepare the application which was signed by Van Griffith, Colonel Griffith’s great-grandson. The application was delivered to the City’s Office of Historic Preservation on May 15. Monument status would help preserve the Griffith Park that we all know and love.
The HCM application – all 350 pages of it availabe for download in one big pdf here – identifies and describes in great detail all of the historic structures in the Park. It describes the wilderness area of the Park with its native plants and animals. In addition, it identifies numerous examples of “Park Style” retaining walls and culverts built be federal assistance programs in the 1930s.
This map is part of the application that is available for download here.
The Los Feliz Improvement Aassociation Board of Directors voted enthusiastically to support Griffith Park’s nomination. The Griffith Observatory and the Gabrielino Indian site in Fern Dell are examples of individual Historic-Cultural Monument sites in Griffith Park. Several other city parks and open spaces already have Historic-Cultural Monument status: Barnsdall Art Park, Echo Park, Lake Hollywood Reservoir and Mulholland Dam, Will Rogers Park, and the Venice Canal System to name a few. We feel that Griffith Park deserves no less.
Won’t you join us in supporting Griffith Park’s Historic-Cultural Monument nomination? Please write to your City Councilmember to express your support for the nomination.
The complete application is available for downoad here. Please be patient as it is a very large file – 40 MB. There is an excellent summary of the description and significance in the beginning of the application. The second half of the application is appendices with a detailed map at the end.
To find out more about the status of Historic Cultural Monument go to the web page of the City of Los Angeles’ Office of Historic Resources.
5/30/08
