Читать книгу Discovering Griffith Park - Casey Schreiner - Страница 9

Griffith Park is one of the wildest, largest, and most untamed parks in the US, and it sits smack in the middle of its second-largest city—a place that invented and exported urban-suburban sprawl, the freeway, and the auto-centric strip mall. In the region that brought us the four-level stack freeway interchange (still causing headaches at the junction of the 101 and 110), a mature male mountain lion has inspired activists to build the world’s largest wildlife crossing at Liberty Canyon. Just above Hollywood Boulevard, where it’s often easier to see a star on a sidewalk than in the night sky, one of the nation’s oldest planetariums has been educating the public about our place in the cosmos for free for generations.

Millions of people have seen Griffith Park in films and television, but you’ll still find longtime Los Angeles residents who have no idea where it is, what’s in it, or how to get there. The park is home to the city’s once-primary source of water—which was feared, then despised, then dammed and forced into a concrete tomb, only to be loved again and, in the future, set free. Even the story of the park’s donor is one of contradictions, wrapped in scandal and philanthropy, attempted murder and inhuman generosity, regressive ideas about people and progressive ideas about parks.

In many ways, then, Griffith Park is a reflection of Los Angeles itself. It is both an urban oasis and an untamed wilderness, a manicured garden and smoldering chaparral slope. It is home to hikers, stargazers, cyclists, golfers, equestrians, train enthusiasts, Shakespearean actors, drum circles, museum patrons, kayakers, dog walkers, people walkers, environmentalists, developers, gardeners, charlatans, anarchic trail runners, secret handshake practitioners, ghost hunters, eloteros, zookeepers, dreamers, and everyone in between. I hope you have fun discovering it.

Native oaks provide a welcome respite from the SoCal sun.