Green Spaces: Los Angeles

Despite easy access to the beach, Los Angeles always conjures up images of tall glass buildings and interminable traffic. As it turns out there are many hidden gems – green spaces and parks- throughout the city. Whether you work or live in Los Angeles or are just visiting, here are a few overlooked and lovely green places to consider.

• Biddy Mason Park: a quiet little courtyard downtown named for a former slave who became a prominent figure and one of the first black landowners in 19th century Los Angeles.
• Paul’s Urban Garden: The members of the Ecclesia church created this garden out of a weedy lot on Hollywood Boulevard. It’s named for Paul DeLongpre, a painter who planted Hollywood with gardens around the turn of the century.
• Amir’s Garden: After a fire in the seventies, Iranian immigrant Amir Dialameh took it upon himself to replant a hillside in Griffith Park–today it’s nearly five acres of “pine and jacaranda trees along with rose bushes, geraniums, oleander, and yucca.”
• Japanese America Cultural& Community Center: Don’t miss the impressive 170 foot long stream that flows down a waterfall and around the entire garden.
• Union Station: best known for its gardens and courtyards, but blogger The World on Wheels dug up this little gem on the far east side of the property, behind the Metro building–it has gardens, benches, fountains, and waterfalls.

Do you live in Los Angeles, or visit there? What’s your favorite green space in the city?