Monday, March 21, 2011

Bone-In

I was scrutinizing a map which related a trip I was to take from my home neighborhood of North Hollywood to the distant outpost of Glendale. Taking public transportation as I habitually do, I am used to what would appear to be less than efficient routes. No one can travel around the city as the crow flies, but I cannot go even as the crow walks, if it should ever do such a thing (to be frank I cannot say I've ever seen it do anything in particular except mark my admissions of being in the wrong). So it was in this case, but for an understandable reason. Standing in the way of my speedy trip like a tree stump in the yard is that glittering jewel in the crown of LA's parks, Griffith Park.

Named after industrialist and philanthropist Griffith J. Griffith (who evidently believed fervently that misery loves company), the park is a worthy rival to Central Park of New York and Grant Park of Chicago (to the latter of which must now be added Millenium Park). That is unquestionably so in my book, possessing as it does such landmarks as the Batcave and other historical chapters of note, not to mention actual natural beauty and splendor. Griffith Park may not have the incidents of civil unrest that other cities' greatest parks do (ceded as those were to MacArthur Park), but it is a great park.

In the same breath, I say that it is great at getting in the way. This piece is so named because as I looked at the map, the park looked just like the bone in some cut of meat (I don't know whether I mean a steak or pork chop or what; I am not a butcher or a chef). That bone adds half an hour to most trips which it affects, or so I figure while my temper is flaring. It's an unfortunate necessity, I'm sure you will say, as we must live with nature and cannot survive by obliterating it.

Must we live with it, though? Now, don't reject this without giving it a fair hearing. I submit that the park would be every bit as beautiful (or as near as could be) with a grand eight or ten lane thoroughfare cutting through the middle. We could paint the thing green, and you would then in effect have two parks and not merely one! It would even give the opportunity for one more industrialist to try and clean his name up a bit by putting it on something that will be there when he is dead, as Griffith himself did. What did Griffith do wrong? I can't say I've done any research that would permit me to go into specifics, but have we not all got Original Sin? The point is, the park's in the way.

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