Rodriguez

Noemi Rodriguez

ENG 113B

Professor Lawson

18 February 2017

Project Space: Analysis

Word count: 1,011

Griffith Park Ruins

Griffith Park has always been a place where people can enjoy picnics and hiking. The

entire area is full of trees, wildlife, and attraction that the public can come and enjoy with their

families. Children would go to the park and have fun, meet new friends while the parents wait

for them on the benches. A lot horses pass by along with their riders as they ride through the

trails. However, long gone are the days of childrens laughter and popcorn attraction shows that

their having a good time and experiencing the open spaces. Up on the hills, there was the

Griffith Park Zoo which is now turned into an abandon area where the public can explore the

deteriorated ruins and exhibits. The abandon area that was once was a zoo became something

better for the public to enjoy which they see the ruins as a new attraction to the park.

The area of the abandonment was silent, since there were not that many people coming to

this part of Griffith Park. Through the entrance of the zoo shows a sign of its history before it

was abandon. It was a city owned zoo built on the site of Griffith J. Griffith's defunct ostrich

farm which opened in 1912. The zoo had a total of fifth-teen animals, some that came from the

Eastlake Zoo. According Hadley Meares, she described the conditions from the previous zoo

before the animals were transferred: The small city zoo at Eastlake Park featured

accommodations so meager that all but the finest animals have perished miserably in the
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cramped cages"(Meares). With such a small space, these animals can barely move around since

they need wide open spaces. The option was to relocate the zoo where there is a lot of land to

preserve the animals, thats when they chose Griffith Park. Hadley Meares stated Many city

leaders, plus the editors at the Los Angeles Times, advocated moving the zoo to Griffith Park

which is an ideal location for a zoological garden, most of the animals can live under conditions

similar to their native state (Meares). These animals will have new and improved enclosures

with lots of spaces for them to move around.

The Griffith Park Zoo became successful in the beginning however some of things were

not going too well. The zoo began to have a health crisis due to some of the animals getting ill

and dying from diseases. Mike Eberts stated Several lions had to be destroyed after a

veterinarian with the Health Department diagnosed them as having glanders, a highly contagious

disease (Eberts). For some reason these lions must have gotten it from the meat that they were

given. According to Mike Eberts, horse meat was substituted for beef which the meat that was

given to the meat-eating animals lead them to receive the disease and die (Eberts). Glanders is an

infectious disease that occurs primarily in horses, mules, and donkeys which it can be contracted

by other animals, such as dogs, cats, goats even humans. The decision made by the City Council

was to remove authorization to feed beef to the zoo's meat eating animals so they will not get

sick. However, since these animals were not properly fed, the Park Department had to sell them

which they did not find any buyers. When the zoo began to renovated and expand the area, it

still fell apart. The Zoo was defined as an "inadequate, ugly, poorly designed and under financed

collection of beat-up cages. Meaning that the entire zoo was in bad condition not only the

animals. Ralph D. Cornell who panned the zoo in Griffith Park's 1939 Master Plan, recommends

that it should be either abandoned or moved to another congenial setting. Around May 1958, an
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$8-million-dollar bond was approved to build The Worlds Biggest Zoo. It is confirmed that

the Griffith Park Zoo would be closed down due to the establishment of the new upcoming zoo

(known as the L.A Zoo).

Ever since the Old Griffith Park Zoo was shut down in 1966, it became abandon. All of

the animal exhibits remained which nothing was removed or destroyed. As the years went by,

the entire area began to filled with dust, graffitis, and wild animals. However, the abandon zoo

then transformed into a picnic space where people can find a quieter and preserve place to relax.

A lot of benches were added to some of the old animal areas and was adopted into Griffith Park,

which welcomes tons of visitors each day. While people visit, they can enjoy the beautiful

nature that is surrounding the land and have access to the animal enclosures so they can

experience how these animals use to live. Also every year around Halloween, the ruins would be

used for The Los Angeles Haunted Hayride, an attraction where the public can get scared by

people dressed up in classic horror characters. The whole area would be filled with food stands,

scary decoration, creepy music, and hay. It is similar to Universals Halloween Horror Nights

but the only difference is it is more like a carnival. The Old Griffith Park zoo is an open area for

everyone to explore and have family activities, it makes them feel amazed to see a place that is

preserved by wildlife and nature.

In conclusion, the old abandon zoo was a place built to bring entertainment to the public

however it was also meant to be preserved. When people explore the ruins, it makes them

imagine how the zoo was in the past while it was still operating. They picture all of the animals

still living in their small enclosures and people enjoying the environment. The zoo may have

shut down for a reason but to some people, they still considered this abandon space as an

attraction where others can have the privilege to preserve it. To all of wildlife, they would see
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these ruins as their home and it is also our job to make sure that the ruins is in good hands

because it is part of the environment now.

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Work cited

Meares, Hadley. "A Whimpering Roar: The Old Griffith Park Zoo, Then and Now." KCET.com.

13 Apr. 2015. Web. <https://www.kcet.org/history-society/a-whimpering-roar-the-old

Griffith park-zoo-then-and-now>.

Eberts, Mike. "Two Zoos in Griffith Park. Griffith Park: Home of Beleagured Zoos. N.p., n.d. Web. 19

Feb. 2017. <http://english.glendale.cc.ca.us/zoo.html>.