CLA and CAO Say PHF Costs UP UP UP

That open area creates natural courtyard surrounded By City Hall, The Los Angeles Times, Cal-Trans, and The Higgins bldg. Can you imagine a greenbelt in front of City Hall while they wait for funding? (Add underground parking and you have an urban idea worth thinking about.)

What the city should do is locate the new police center on the the land that is currently Bowron Square. Bowron Square is a good example of a bad park/open space. It’s all part of that failed downtown urban design (from the 1960s-1980s) of sunken open space. Time to get rid of it. ….it’s awful. They can even use land just to the south next to City Hall East. This area is surrounded by civic uses and is next to a freeway…perfect. Do cops really care about urban design anyway?

The land that currently houses the Parker Center can then be turned into an amazing mixed-use development with a street level food court.

Thsi way we can keep a park on the old Caltrans site and everyone is happy. Why couldn’t anyone at the city think about this option?

By the way, the acreages of the old Caltrans site and Bowron Square are about the same.

Be careful what you wish for.

The open space where the old state building once stood, north of the LA Times, eventually became a trash-strewn pit, attracting mostly homeless people, and has never been an asset to the community. If the block where Caltrans was formerly located on is converted to a version of that site or even a formal space like Pershing Square, it probably will end up not much better than either one, meaning one more no-man’s land or underutilized spot in the city.

But is Pershing Square really any better? OK, yea, it too has lots of unappealing concrete surfaces and areas, but even if it were one full square block of nothing but rolling grass and trees, I bet it still wouldn’t be much better or more utilized than it is today.

There IS a reason the Grand Hope Park at 8th and Hope Street has been surrounded by a security gate since its completion several years ago. And to believe there will be less need for that type of caution in the future, even if a ton of effort is put into cleaning up Skid Row, is unrealistic.

Have HQ underneath a greenbelt. LAPD goes underground.

Pershing Square? Awful design from the 80s, I think. The problem with this square is tht it lacks defensible space, as coined by Oscar Newman. Why would anyone want to walk through it at night when folks can’t even see into it from the surrounding sidewalks.. You can get mugged and no one would know about it. For all intents and purposes, it’s almost as a bad as a sunken square - there is no connection to the street. This is what happens when you leave the design od parks to architects (Legorreta).

One really should be able to see across from the Biltmore to Hill Street. And what is up with that 4’ sidewalk on the 5th Street side?

Some of the stuff I write about is elementary urban design. The city has just gotten it wrong

I do think that dealing with the homeless problem in downtown would also help so that parks are not just a loitering space for them, making others feel uncomfortable.

The old Caltrans site can be an extension of the park on the south side of City Hall and just add some room for street vendors and seats like Bryant Park in New York. This way, folks can order from restaurants like those in the Higgins Building, the new Caltrans cafeteria or the food court idea (Parker Center site) and eat at the park.

Sounds simple enough to me.

The idea of the site as an extension of City Halls’ southern park is exactly the first thought I had when I was taking photos of it from the Higgins Bldg a month ago.

Let’s add to this idea of the greenbelt extended and designed to be functional, not treated as public art environment that will be rendered obsolete. Some sidewalk pattern that reflects the lines of City Hall and the Times Bldg. Even the Church (soon to be cafe) at the corner adds to the site lines. Speculating that parking underneath is improbable for short term - DASH can still be provided with a pedestrian pickup area off street for the multiple lines crossing there. A circle in a square. If any temporary form of public art is installed, have it reflect history.

As some of us are residents that attempt to use local resources for day to day living and working, these ideas are valid.

Yes, as this is a virtual site speaking of a virtual site, a temporary space where people gather, blogdowntown square is shaping up nicely.

(BTW - Anyone know the story on that last standing building? The small lotto store at the corner?)

{{{an extension of the park on the south side of City Hall}}}

It’s interesting that you mention another area that has functioned as an informal park in the immediate area. And unlike Pershing Square, the City Hall “park” at least isn’t stuck with all the design shortcomings that you list. But has that made it necessarily any more popular or ideal than either the site of the old state building (before it was fenced off) or, for that matter, Pershing Square?

I know one reason the decorative fountain in City Hall’s informal park was allowed to rust away until not too many years ago (before City Hall in general finally was renovated) was because of problems with homeless people using and falling into it.

Never discount the “frisbee factor.”