The historic Griffith Park poolBuilt in 1927 and once the largest aquatic installation in Los Angeles, it has been dry since 2020. Now, as summer is heated, residents are learning that it will not be filled again.
Instead, the city is placing plans for a $ 28 million project to demolish it and build two smaller new pools and a splash pad in its place while the house of the two -story pool is reconstructed next door. City officials say they hope to start the project in the summer of 2026 and complete it in January 2028.
But for now, the website of the Recreation Department and city parks simply lists the pool as “closed until new notice.” A spokesman for the engineering office said the city has not yet chosen a builder.
The Griffith Park pool, closed in 2020, was still dry on July 1.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
The new plan marks an abrupt turn for a site that was once scheduled to reopen in June 2022. In the period prior to that date, first the East News site reportedThe city workers discovered that the pool had a cracked base, a too severe to repair.
The spokeswoman for the Recreation and Parks Department, Rose Watson, said that the general assistant of the Cathie Santo Domingo department and a maintenance team discovered the cracks in the pool. “Every time they filled him, he didn't keep the water,” Watson said.
During the closure, the neighbors have complained and He signed a petitionregretting that working class families in the happy, Atwater, Silver Lake and East Hollywood have for a long time on that public pool for summer relief.
“I always wondered what was happening with that. I had never seen water in him,” said Christine Pérez de los Feliz, who was in a recreation courtyard near the pool on Monday with his 22 -month -old son, thousands. “I was literally thinking last week that would be great if there was a splash pad below.”
“Children need a place to go and a place to learn to swim,” said Marian Dodge, secretary of the Board and former president of Friends of Griffith Park. She said the group is “really excited to finally continue and make the necessary repairs … We have been sure that you are fully financed.”
A city engineering office report He says that the new project will include “demolition and reconstruction”, replacing the old group with a new group of competitions that measures 25 yards by 50 meters (up to 12.5 feet deep) and a splash pad of “training group” that is 25 yards for 25 meters (up to 5 feet deep), along with the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the house of the house of the site of the site of the two floors of the site of two floors and Improvements of the Spanish -style pool and shower plates and shower areas and adapt accessibility.
The new swimming pools are intended to handle the use throughout the year, incorporating UV light pool water heater and light water treatment.
It has long known as the municipal fall, the pool in Riverside Drive and the happy Boulevard measure approximately 225 feet for 48 feet. It was the largest aquatic installation in the city until the arrival of the Recreation Area of the Hansen dam, built in 1940 in the Lake View Terrace area of the San Fernando Valley.
“Do you know that the river runs just behind the pool?” Dodge said. “The water level behind the pool is so high that they could not specify the river there.” As a result, when the pool was built, “it was described as a concrete boat that floated above this sand and mud. It was a bit risky at the beginning, but they did.”
At one time, the pool capacity was placed in 562 people.
“They would have canoeing lessons and water parades,” said Dodge.
Now a neighbor for the tennis courts, a patio of recreation, a football field and the Hurse School of the Happy, the pool was open until the end of March 2020, when the city closed multiple recreation facilities in the early days of the pandemic. It is located within District 4 of the City Council, represented by Nithya Raman.
On May 21, the City Board of Public Works authorized the hiring of Perkins Eastman to do $ 2.4 million in architectural design and engineering work in the pools and the bathroom.
The idea of progress in the pool is comforting, said Dodge, given the inactive state of the Pony walks of the Park and the Tiovivo, both closed since 2022 for several reasons. The Los Angeles Zoo, also in Griffith Park, remains open but mired in a legal battle over the money between the city and the great association of the Los Angeles Zoo.
In total, the city operates 57 swimming pools (Seasonal 28, 26 throughout the year and three camp pools) and eight splash pads. As of July 2, eight of the pools were closed.
The closest city pools to Griffith Park are Echo Park, Hollywood and Glassell Park. Griffith Park also includes swimming pools at Camp Hollywoodland and Griffith Park Boys Camp.
