“You are able to see almost the entirety in Los Angeles from Griffith Park,” Mike Eberts wrote 24 years ago in his centennial account of Griffith Park. It’s a good thing that it’s still the case to this day. In L.A.’s 4,300-acre wilderness heart, it is possible to reflect on the city, and escape from it at the exact same at the same time.
Its chaparral slopes as well as grassy picnic spots are bordered with its L.A. River on the east and north and The Hollywood Hills on the west and west, along with Beachwood Canyon and Los Feliz to the south. However, its history and culture extend far beyond the city.
In addition to beyond the Greek Theatre and the Griffith Observatory which are the park’s most well-known attractions There are camps for girls and boys open lawns, gardens created with the help of volunteers an exhibit, a historic automobile, steam powered trains pony rides as well as a Sunday-only drum circle and a lonely mountain lion.
In one of the golf courses, 100 back, Babe Ruth learned that the Red Sox were selling him to the Yankees. On the same land that the parking lot of the zoo spreads, city officials in 1946 erected 707 Quonset huts for those returning World War II veterans and their families.
Griffith Park is also where Walt Disney dreamed up Disneyland.
It’s also oh-so romantic.
The park performed its magic for Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone in the movie “La La Land” when they occupied the bench in front of the observatory to dance and sing in (or could it be from?) love. It’s not just them. People are in love with this park often. It is often featured as a top choice on lists of L.A.’s most romantic places to propose.
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The COVID-19 epidemic hasn’t affected the park’s landscape but it has changed the way people go to. There are more locals than tourists to be observed keeping their distance on the dirt trails and roads, or sitting on a bench surrounded by trees at Fern Dell, or spreading the blankets for picnics in Crystal Springs. It was a natural retreat for us when we didn’t have anywhere else to go.
It’s not a matter of whether or not Griffith Park takes you to L.A.’s urban fringe and is a plunge into the ruins in our wilderness, even if it’s only for a short time. This mini-guide will help you to the right direction.
The reason this park is unlike any other?
In 1896, a Welshman known as Griffith J. Griffith gave Los Angeles a huge gift over 3,300 acres to establish an area that would become described by him as “a place for the lower classes and the common people.”
“He was decades ahead of the game,” said Casey Schreiner the editor and founder of ModernHiker.com. “[He was of the opinion that parks are essential not a luxury to be used by cities. He believed should be free and available to all. This really helped made a difference in putting a lot about the park’s past and the future in the right perspective in my mind.”
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