Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area | |
---|---|
Location | Los Angeles County, California, United States |
Nearest city | Los Angeles, California |
Coordinates | 34°0′31″N118°21′55″W / 34.00861°N 118.36528°W Coordinates: 34°0′31″N118°21′55″W / 34.00861°N 118.36528°W |
Area | 401 acres (1.62 km2) |
Established | 1984 |
Governing body | California Department of Parks and Recreation |
Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area, or Kenneth Hahn Park, is a state park unit of California in the Baldwin Hills Mountains of Los Angeles. The park is managed by the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation. [1] As one of the largest urban parks and regional open spaces in the Greater Los Angeles Area, many have called it "L.A.'s Central Park". [2] The 401-acre (1.62 km2) park was established in 1984. [3]
“Few Southern Californians seem to know about a park in Baldwin Hills, but the clean, well-developed park is no secret to nearby residents, who enjoy weekend picnics and barbecues on the expansive lawns,” wrote the Los Angeles Times in 1988. [4]
Hahn Park offers walking and hiking trails with some of the area's best scenic vistas. [4]
The park is a destination for picnics and family gatherings, having 100 picnic tables in various picnic grounds around the park. The park also has four playgrounds, a half basketball court, a multi-purpose field, and a sand volleyball court. Garden areas include a Japanese garden with a lotus pond and waterfall. [1] In 2017, a 9-hole disc golf course was added along the north bowl.
There are six sets of bathrooms for visitors. [1] Restrooms are locked at 5:30 p.m. daily. [5]
There is a lake for fishing, stocked monthly with trout or catfish, depending on the weather season. [6]
Since 2004, the park, primarily the bowl, has been the site of the Southern California USATF Cross Country Championships. [7] [ failed verification ]
There are at least 7 mi (11 km) of walking paths through the park. [1] LA County Trails app for Android and iPhone has detailed maps and route guides. [8]
Admission is charged for cars entering the park on weekends and holidays only (weekdays free). Transferable annual passes are available.
Day rates are $7 per car or $5 for seniors over 65 or disabled with handicapped placard. [5]
There is no charge to visitors using transit or hikers and cyclists entering the park. The county operates a circuit bus that visits the park every half hour on weekends and holidays, [9] and a map of nearby bus routes and bike paths is available. [10]
Kenneth Hahn SRA is one of the few California State Parks that does not accept the “annual day use pass.” [1]
The park is currently home to urban coyotes, California ground squirrel, elusive gray foxes, raccoons, striped skunk, desert cottontail rabbits, opossums, and California quail, among other animals. [4]
“Hummingbirds, hawks, northern mockingbirds and blue scrub-jays flock to Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area,” and the park is a nexus for the Black Birders movement. [11] The Baldwin Hills area is the nesting grounds for 41 species of birds, and the Audubon Society offers monthly birdwatching walks. [12]
The park is immediately adjacent to the 1,000-acre (4.0 km2) Inglewood Oil Field, which, when combined with the parkland, provides an unusually large habit range for Los Angeles urban wildlife. Kenneth Hahn and adjacent Baldwin Hills parks host four species of snakes: gopher snake, California kingsnake, ring-necked snake and red coachwhip. Warning signs to the contrary, rattlesnakes “don’t fare well in urban areas” [13] and there are no rattlesnakes in the Baldwin Hills at this time. [14]
The park's native habitat is the Coastal sage scrub plant community, with oak woodlands in northern arroyos and bunch grass grasslands on the southwestern windy and exposed terrain. Native plants present in the park include California sagebrush, coyote brush and prickly pear. Invasive species in the park include black mustard, castor bean, milk thistle, agave, ice plant, nasturtium, and lantana. [4]
“The native plant community has been greatly altered by the hand of man, so much so that botanists describe Baldwin Hills flora as being in a condition called disclimax,” reported the L.A. Times in 1988.
To serve as a monument to Los Angeles’ role in the Olympic movement, 140 trees have been planted together on the hills where the 1932 Olympic Village was located, with each tree representing a nation that took part in the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. [15]
The Olympic Forest includes “sea hibiscus from Seychelles, oleander from Algeria, sweet bay from Greece, Cajeput from Papua New Guinea…the paper mulberry from Toga, the carob from Cyprus, the date palm from Egypt.” [4]
The Baldwin Hills were part of the homeland of the Tongva people, inhabited by them for over 8,000 years. [16] In the 19th century the area was part of the Spanish and Mexican Ranchos of California era, with the Rancho Rincon de los Bueyes and Rancho La Cienega o Paso de la Tijera in and around the present day park. [17] As Los Angeles quickly grew during the 20th century, only the rugged terrain of this section of the Baldwin Hills protected it from being developed.
In 1932 the area east of the park was used as the site of the first Olympic Village ever built, for the 1932 Summer Olympics in the 10th Olympiad, which Los Angeles hosted. [18]
Between 1947 and 1951 the Baldwin Hills Reservoir was built in the hills here. In 1963 the reservoir's dam collapsed disastrously, washing away residences in the canyon and flooding the landmark Baldwin Hills Village (now Village Green). The news coverage of the disaster was the first time aerial footage was televised live. [19] Before the county demolished the ruined reservoir bowl and converted the land into parking and picnic areas circa 1990s, “Fennel, chamise and dandelion pushed through the cracked cement bottom of the reservoir” and it was overlooked by a “observation tower” that resembled “a castle from the Middle Ages.” [4]
The bowl of the reservoir (now called Janice’s Green Valley) has been planted with grass and trees but remains visible and is the site of a popular jogging track. [20]
In the late 1940s the city transportation master plan included building a new north-south freeway, the aborted Laurel Canyon Freeway-SR-170, that would have bisected the Baldwin Hills and park site where La Cienega Boulevard currently crosses the hills.
Los Angeles County Supervisors began negotiations to acquire the site of the Baldwin Hills Dam disaster in 1976. [21] In 1977 Los Angeles County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn convinced Vice President Walter Mondale to reuse the land, from former oil-drilling sites, for a public open space park.[ citation needed ]
At the time the area was also a very popular spot for the then-new sport of motocross, locals calling it “Motorcycle Hill.” An abandoned oil well at the top of the hill was decorated with sparkle lights during the holiday season and looked like a giant Christmas tree at night. [21]
The park is named after Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors member Kenneth Hahn, also the father of James Hahn, former Los Angeles mayor, and Janice Hahn, former U.S. Representative and now one of the five County Supervisors.
The Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area first opened in 1983 as the Baldwin Hills State Recreational Area, and was later renamed in 1988 to honor Supervisor Hahn and his preservation efforts there. Also since its opening the park has been expanded, as some of the adjacent oil wells have “dried up” and the oil field land cleaned up and acquired.[ citation needed ]
The park is home to the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Tree Grove. [22]
The park, which is part of the greater Ballona Creek watershed, is now connected to nearby open spaces across La Cienega Blvd. via the Park to Playa Bridge. Hahn Park is a keystone segment of the Park to Playa Trail, completed 2020. [23]
Ladera Heights is a community and unincorporated area in Los Angeles County, California. The population was 6,634 at the 2020 census. Culver City lies to its west, the Baldwin Hills neighborhood to its north, the View Park-Windsor Hills community to its east, the Westchester neighborhood to its south and southwest and the city of Inglewood to its southeast. With an average household income of $132,824, Ladera Heights ranks third amongst the ten wealthiest Black communities in the United States.
Chatsworth is a suburban neighborhood in the City of Los Angeles, California, in the San Fernando Valley.
West Hills is a suburban / residential community in the western San Fernando Valley region of the City of Los Angeles, California. The percentage of residents aged 35 and older is among the highest in Los Angeles County.
Baldwin Hills is a neighborhood within the South Los Angeles region of Los Angeles California. It is home to Kenneth Hahn State Regional Park and to Village Green, a National Historic Landmark.
La Cienega Boulevard is a major north–south arterial road that runs between El Segundo Boulevard in Hawthorne, California on the south and the Sunset Strip/Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood to the north. It was named for Rancho Las Cienegas, literally "The Ranch Of The Swamps," an area of marshland south of Rancho La Brea.
Ballona Creek is an 8.5-mile (13.7 km) channelized stream in southwestern Los Angeles County, California, United States that was once a “year-round river lined with sycamores and willows.” In conjunction with neighboring Ballona Wetlands, Ballona Creek remains a “prime bird-watching spot for cormorants, owls, and migrating ducks and geese.”
La Brea Avenue is a prominent north-south thoroughfare in the City of Los Angeles and in Los Angeles County, California.
The Baldwin Hills Dam disaster occurred on December 14, 1963, in the Baldwin Hills neighborhood of South Los Angeles, when the dam containing the Baldwin Hills Reservoir suffered a catastrophic failure and flooded the residential neighborhoods surrounding it.
Cypress Park is a densely populated neighborhood of 10,000+ residents in Northeast Los Angeles, California. Surrounded by hills on three sides, it sits in the valley created by the Los Angeles River and the Arroyo Seco. It is the site of the Rio de Los Angeles State Park, the Los Angeles River Bike Path and other recreational facilities. It hosts one private and four public schools.
The Baldwin Hills are a low mountain range surrounded by and rising above the Los Angeles Basin plain in central Los Angeles County, California. The Pacific Ocean is to the west, the Santa Monica Mountains to the north, Downtown Los Angeles to the northeast, and the Palos Verdes Hills to the south - with all easily viewed from the Baldwin Hills.
Rancho La Cienega o Paso de la Tijera was a 4,219-acre (17.07 km2) Mexican land grant in present day Los Angeles County, California given in 1843 by Governor Manuel Micheltorena to Vicente Sánchez. "La Cienega" is derived from the Spanish word cienaga, which means swamp or marshland and refers to the natural springs and wetlands in the area between Beverly Hills and Park La Brea and the Baldwin Hills range.
Rancho Las Cienegas was a 4,439-acre (17.96 km2) Mexican land grant in present-day Los Angeles County, California given in 1823 to Francisco Avila by Governor Luis Antonio Argüello. "La Cienega" is derived from the Spanish word cienaga, which means swamp or marshland and refers to the natural springs and wetlands in the area between the Baldwin Hills range and Baldwin Hills district, and Beverly Hills. The rancho was north of Rancho La Cienega o Paso de la Tijera and east of present-day La Cienega Boulevard between Wilshire Boulevard and Jefferson Boulevard. The Los Angeles River would periodically change course historically, and flowed through westerly the rancho's lowlands to Ballona Creek and the Santa Monica Bay until 1825, when it returned to the southerly course through Rancho San Pedro to San Pedro Bay.
The Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation is an agency of the County of Los Angeles which oversees its parks and recreational facilities. It was created in 1944. It operates and maintains over 71,249 acres (28,833 ha) of parks, gardens, lakes, natural gardens, and golfing greens, and 200 miles (320 km) of trails.
Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook is a 57-acre (0.23 km2) California State Park is located just southwest of downtown Culver City. To some Los Angeles area residents, the site is more commonly known as the Culver City Stairs. This outdoor staircase is designed into the trails leading up to a view of the greater Los Angeles area.
Baldwin Hills/Crenshaw is a neighborhood in the south region of the city of Los Angeles. It is divided between the upscale, principally home-owning Baldwin Hills residential district to the south and a more concentrated apartment area to the north, just south of Jefferson Boulevard. A commercial corridor along Crenshaw Boulevard includes Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza, Marlton Square and Crenshaw Boulevard.
The Inglewood Oil Field in Los Angeles County, California, is the 18th-largest oil field in the state and the second-most productive in the Los Angeles Basin. Discovered in 1924 and in continuous production ever since, in 2012 it produced approximately 2.8 million barrels of oil from some five hundred wells. Since 1924 it has produced almost 400 million barrels, and the California Department of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) has estimated that there are about 30 million barrels remaining in the field's one thousand acres, recoverable with present technology.
The Park to Playa Trail in Los Angeles County, California is a 13-mile (21 km) pedestrian and bicycle route that connects the Baldwin Hills parklands to the Pacific Ocean. According to the Los Angeles Times, “Good views of L.A. are guaranteed on the dirt-and-paved track from Baldwin Hills to Playa del Rey.”
The Michelle and Barack Obama Sports Complex, previously known as the Rancho Cienega Recreation Center, is a multibuilding sports complex in Baldwin Hills, Los Angeles. The complex is named after Michelle and Barack Obama, where Barack Obama held a rally at the center in 2007. The complex neighbors Susan Miller Dorsey High School, who is partnered with them for its use in school events.
Edward Vincent Jr. Park is a 55-acre (0.22 km2) municipal park in Inglewood, Los Angeles County, California. Originally Centinela Park, the historic location was renamed in 1997 to honor Edward Vincent Jr., the first African-American mayor of the city. It was described as the "largest and most popular developed park in the Centinela-South Bay" in 1979. The development of the nearby larger Baldwin Hills State Recreation Area in 1983 was said to relieve some of the local demand on Centinela Park amenities.
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