Los Angeles State Historic Park | |
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Location | Los Angeles County, California |
Nearest city | Los Angeles, California |
Coordinates | 34°3′58″N118°14′4″W / 34.06611°N 118.23444°W |
Area | 32 acres (13 ha) |
Established | 2001 |
Governing body | California Department of Parks and Recreation |
Los Angeles State Historic Park, also known as LA Historic Park and the Cornfield, is a California State Park located near the Chinatown and Elysian Park neighborhoods of Los Angeles. The former rail yard and brownfield consists of a long open space between Spring Street and the tracks of the Los Angeles Metro A Line. [1]
This former site of the Southern Pacific Transportation Company's River Station (1876−1901) is considered the "Ellis Island of Los Angeles" where new arrivals from the East first disembarked. [2] [3] [4] Corn leaking from train cars and sprouting along the tracks gave rise to the nickname The Cornfield. [3] The 32-acre (13 ha) site was established as a California state park in 2001. [5]
In 2001, a 5-foot section (1.5 m) of the historical Zanja Madre irrigation canal was uncovered. [1] In 2005, the former industrial site was transformed into a productive cornfield for one season as an art project called "Not a Cornfield." [6]
In 2006, a contest was held in conjunction with the California State Parks Foundation to select a design for the park. [7] The preliminary park opened on September 23 of the same year. [8] Hargreaves and Associates of San Francisco won the competition. [9]
Development of the park has been slow. [10] California's budget deficit forced officials to scale back plans for the park in 2010, earmarking $18 million instead of the planned $55 million. Plans for a bridge, water fountain, theme gardens, an upscale restaurant, as well as an ecology center with restored wetlands were tabled. The tabled features may be added later if funding becomes available. [3] The park open with a campfire circle, restrooms and parking lot.
Numerous community fairs and gatherings have been held in the park. It also contains several plaques that relate the history of the Cornfield, Chinatown and Downtown Los Angeles.[ citation needed ]
The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, California. Situated to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it contains a large portion of the city of Los Angeles, as well as several unincorporated areas; and the incorporated cities of Burbank, Calabasas, Glendale, Hidden Hills, and San Fernando. The valley is well known for its film studios such as Warner Bros. Studios and Walt Disney Studios. In addition, it is home to the Universal Studios Hollywood theme park.
Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) is the central business district of Los Angeles. It is part of the Central Los Angeles region and covers a 5.84 sq mi (15.1 km2) area. As of 2020, it contains over 500,000 jobs and has a population of roughly 85,000 residents, with an estimated daytime population of over 200,000 people.
Chinatown is a neighborhood in Downtown Los Angeles, California, that became a commercial center for Chinese and other Asian businesses in Central Los Angeles in 1938. The area includes restaurants, shops, and art galleries, but also has a residential neighborhood with a low-income, aging population of about 7,800 residents.
The Arroyo Seco Parkway, also known as the Pasadena Freeway, is one of the oldest freeways built in the United States. The parkway connects Los Angeles with Pasadena alongside the Arroyo Seco seasonal river. It is notable not only for being an early freeway, mostly opened in 1940, but for representing the transitional phase between early parkways and later freeways. It conformed to modern standards when it was built, but is now regarded as a narrow, outdated roadway. A 1953 extension brought the south end to the Four Level Interchange in downtown Los Angeles and a connection with the rest of the freeway system.
Los Angeles Union Station is the main train station in Los Angeles, California, and the largest passenger rail terminal in the Western United States. It opened in May 1939 as the Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal, replacing La Grande Station and Central Station.
The Civic Center neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, is the administrative core of the City of Los Angeles, County of Los Angeles, and a complex of city, county, state, and federal government offices, buildings, and courthouses. It is located on the site of the former business district of the city during the 1880s and 1890s, since mostly-demolished.
The Museum of Neon Art (MONA) is an institution that exists to encourage learning and curiosity through the preservation, collection, and interpretation of neon art. The first museum devoted to art that incorporates neon lighting, it exclusively exhibits art in electric media, including kinetic art and outstanding examples of historic neon signs. The collection includes neon signs from the Brown Derby and Grauman's Chinese Theatre.
Broadway, until 1890 Fort Street, is a thoroughfare in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The portion of Broadway from 3rd to 9th streets, in the Historic Core of Downtown Los Angeles, was the city's main commercial street from the 1910s until World War II, and is the location of the Broadway Theater and Commercial District, the first and largest historic theater district listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). With twelve movie palaces located along a six-block stretch of Broadway, it is the only large concentration of movie palaces left in the United States.
"Not A Cornfield" was a 2005 art project that transformed a 32-acre (130,000 m2) industrial brownfield into a cornfield for one agricultural cycle. The project took place north of Chinatown.
The Arts District is a neighborhood on the eastern edge of Downtown Los Angeles, California in the United States. The city community planning boundaries are Alameda Street on the west which blends into Little Tokyo, First Street on the north, the Los Angeles River to the east, and Violet Street on the south. Largely composed of industrial buildings dating from the early 20th century, the area has recently been revitalized, and its street scene slowly developed in the early 21st century. New art galleries have increased recognition of the area amidst the downtown, which is known for its art museums.
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 Broadway Theater District in the Historic Core of Downtown Los Angeles is the first and largest historic theater district listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). With twelve movie palaces located along a six-block stretch of Broadway, it is the only large concentration of movie palaces left in the United States. The same six-block stretch of Broadway, and an adjacent section of Seventh Street, was also the city's retail hub for the first half of the twentieth century, lined with large and small department stores and specialty stores.
Santa Fe Freight Depot is a quarter-mile-long building in the industrial area to the east of Downtown Los Angeles, now known as the Arts District. The Southern California Institute of Architecture converted the structure into its campus in 2000. The building's use as a school has helped revitalize a neighborhood previously considered "a gritty corner of downtown".
Little Joe's Italian American Restaurant was a historic Italian-American restaurant which once stood in the Chinatown district of Los Angeles, California USA at the corner of Broadway and College Street. The area was once part of the city's Italian American enclave, which preceded Chinatown.
Koning Eizenberg Architecture (KEA) is an architecture firm located in Santa Monica, California established in 1981. The firm is recognized for a range of project types including: adaptive reuse of historic buildings, educational facilities, community places, and housing. Principals Hank Koning, Julie Eizenberg, Brian Lane, and Nathan Bishop work collaboratively with developers, cities and not-for-profit clients. Their work has been published extensively both in the US and abroad, and has earned over 125 awards for design, sustainability and historic preservation.
River Station was a Southern Pacific Railroad passenger station location, southwest of the Los Angeles River and north of Downtown, in Los Angeles, California. The site is within the present day Los Angeles State Historic Park.
Lauren Bon is an artist who works with architecture, performance, photography, sound, and farming, to create urban, public, and land art projects that she terms "devices of wonder" to galvanize social and political transformation.
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