Pershing Square Invites Downtown Residents to Enjoy Concrete, Police Tape
Eric Richardson
[Flickr]
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — Pershing Square wants you to come out Saturday, June 3th, and meet your neighbors. They whimsically suggest you pack a picnic and bring your sketchbook.
Which is good advice if you want to sketch police tape. That is, after all, about the only thing Pershing Square offers you right now. You can find taped off gravel areas (pictured above), taped off paths, taped off benches and even some chained off grass.
Now of course I'm sure all of this will be gone by the 3rd, but that doesn't change the fact that it's been there for months now.
In the Garment & Citizen park office Louise Capone invites residents to come claim the park.
Capone is a Pershing Square booster first and foremost, though. So she saved her most emphatic pitch for the park itself.
"This is really a way to say that this is your park," she says. "It's your neighborhood -- so come out to meet your neighbors."
My park wouldn't be taped off.
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Joel C on May 30, 2006, at 03:14PM – #1
I agree, and I'm sick of that crap. I've complained by email to Parks and Rec, but I'm not even sure if PSq is one of their parks.
Someone on another forum suggested maybe they were working on the lawn, but I don't think that's the case. It doesn't take that long to make grass grow. In fact, I'd say the best way to grow grass is to get rid of the damn concrete!!!
I wish whoever controls that block would return the name to the original -- Central Park. Then maybe we would realize how carelessly we've treated this precious piece of land in the middle of our city.
Don Garza on May 30, 2006, at 03:49PM – #2
Wrong date dude! it is June 3rd
ed on May 30, 2006, at 04:18PM – #3
It looks like it's roped off for now because new grass was being re-planted. Looks like new sod too. Maybe just trying to keep it the high traffic areas crisp for now.
Eric Richardson (@blogdowntown) on May 30, 2006, at 04:41PM – #4
Don (and Kristin via email): Thanks on the date. Oops.
ed: I thought the same thing when I first heard people say that areas were taped off, but if you go look you'll see the grass is only one area that's closed. Check out some of those pictures -- no grass in sight. The entire park, save the middle concrete area, is closed off and has been for months.
Albert Paco on May 30, 2006, at 05:26PM – #5
Eric, why don't you do some sleuthing and ask someone in city government why there's all that yellow tape strung about parts of the park. Methinks it's for security and maintenance purposes, perhaps to keep winos from peeing and dropping turds all over the place, and pushers from using and selling drugs?
Tim Quinn on May 31, 2006, at 11:07AM – #6
Pershing Square gets my vote for oddest building downtown. It's a text-book example of design gone wrong. The tape is probably there to acknowledge that the park is just plain 'broken'.
You could start a new list of places downtown where the auto has had the worst influence. Pershing Square would top that list, too.
Dee on May 31, 2006, at 04:38PM – #7
Pershing Square gets my vote for Butt-Ugliest park in Los Angeles. Whoever approved the color scheme and the "sculpture" pieces should have their head examined. Every time I walk up Hill Street to get to the subway station, I cringe at the sight of it.
Joel C on June 01, 2006, at 10:33AM – #8
The architect says he chose the color scheme to acknowledge the Mexican influence in L.A.. By that logic I should ride to work every day on a burro wearing a 10-gallon sombrero shooting my pistolas into the air.
I am an American of Mexican descent. Painting a park yellow and purple is an absurd invocation of cultural influences that borders on racist parody. I don't remember any parks so ugly in Mexico City. Painting a park yellow and purple simply invokes tackiness, nothing more.
Brian Humphrey on June 01, 2006, at 03:31PM – #9
You may wish to contact Rec and Parks main number: (213) 928-9200, or touch base with Jane Kolb the blogging Rec and Parks PIO for some insight and to determine how best to voice your frustration. She publishes her contact information on the blog. While remembering that Jane may be a point person but is not a punching bag, the LA Department of Recreation and Parks has a Civilian Board of Commissioners who are in charge. Their meetings are open to the public.
Brian
Joel C on June 02, 2006, at 09:50AM – #10
I wrote an email to Louise Capone (email: pershing.square@lacity.org), and received the canned response:
"Thank you so much for your interest in Pershing Square. We look forward to seeing you this summer during our concert season."
jim winstead on June 03, 2006, at 03:45PM – #11
yeah, this event was a lot of fun. the 90 degree heat really made downtown's concrete park a joy to behold.