Grand Park: Half-Way There
August 1, 2012 1 Comment
LA’s newest park opened this week with a splash (literally… there were tons of people, myself included, splashing around in the fountain’s membrane pool), but it’s only half way there.
I say this not to be negative, but because the park is actually only half open. The first two blocks (which are really contiguous as one) opened this week, but the final two will open later in the fall.
It’s hard to accurately judge the park before it’s completely open, but I’d like to give a quick review anyway.
With the lighted fountain and City Hall in the background, Grand Park feels like the open, public, and civic space Los Angeles had been missing.
First of all, I love the park. It’s been compared to Central Park in New York and Millennium Park in Chicago, with some push back from those involved in making it happen as well as those who are critical of the new park. Instead of focusing on “this one’s larger” or “this one has more art” and similar specifics, though, I think that the parks all accomplish a similar thing regardless of how different they may actually be. Its still opening week and the awe hasn’t worn off, but I’ve spent one afternoon and another evening at the park and it’s been full of people walking around, sitting at tables, reading, eating, playing in the fountain, taking pictures, and more both times. What the park does is give residents, employees, tourists, and anyone else a place to relax, a place to come together for events, a place to enjoy the beautiful weather, and a place to sit and appreciate the city. In this way, the park is very much like both Central Park and Millennium Park.
