Ferndell Fans Hope Funds Restore It to Former Glory

In the early 1950s, when Earnest Yancy was growing up in Hollywood, he couldn’t wait for the summer afternoons when he and his brother would be driven to the Ferndell section of Griffith Park.

There the boys would romp along the paths through the lush foliage. When they tired of chasing squirrels and playing tag, they would sit on a bridge and listen to the stream beneath them.

“It was just like being on a tropical island, and I can’t even describe how beautiful it was,” Yancy said. “I would just let my imagination run wild. I could be in a tropical rain forest in South America or in a jungle in Hawaii. It was heaven.”

However, Ferndell has changed a lot over the years. After its glory days in the 1940s and 1950s, it went into a steep decline and has stayed there. But now it may be about to enjoy a revival because of public pressure and state funding.

Special Significance

The new attention given to Ferndell has special significance for Yancy.

Unlike youngsters who wanted to become movies stars or great athletes, he had dreamed as a boy of becoming the chief gardener of Ferndell. In 1977 he was hired by the city, and six years ago his dream came true. He passed the civil service exam and was transferred to the dell as chief gardener.

Then he found daily proof of how far Ferndell, once a favorite of lovers, naturalists and movie makers seeking a tranquil setting, had fallen into disrepair, a victim of budget cuts and vandalism.

Today most of the dell’s ponds and streams are dry. Its bridges no longer have railings. Its ornate rock work is chipped and scarred with graffiti. And most of the ferns have been stolen or trampled.

‘Losing Battle’

The maintenance staff, or what’s left of it in the wake of Proposition 13, tries to keep the dell presentable, “but it’s a losing battle,” said Yancy, 40.

At one point the gardeners tried turning the sprinklers on at night to keep vandals out, and they have bought fish and plants with their own money. None of it has worked. Half of a shipment of 3,000 ferns received late last year is gone, either stolen or trampled.

“People who used to come here when they were young run up to me these days and ask what has happened to Ferndell,” Yancy said. “All I can do is shake my head. . . . It just hurts my heart to see this happening.”

Ferndell, on the western edge of Griffith Park just off Los Feliz Boulevard, was built in 1914 by two brothers from New Zealand who were hired by Los Angeles because of their skills in building rock gardens. In 1930 workers from the Civilian Conservation Corps extended the dell through the canyon that leads to the Griffith Park Observatory.

Plants Trampled

Bill Eckert, the chief gardener for Ferndell from 1949 to 1959, said the dell began to deteriorate in the 1960s after park users began disobeying warning signs that told them to stay on the paths and not trample the plants. The city also began hiring some gardeners unqualified to care for the ferns, Eckert said.

But this week, Sheldon Jensen, assistant general manager of the Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department, said the city has been told it will receive $500,000 from the state to make improvements in Ferndell, primarily for plants and for watering and lighting systems.

The money came through a request from Los Angeles Councilwoman Peggy Stevenson, who for a year has been working with the Friends of Ferndell, a group that organized in 1983 to see what could be done to save the dell.

But how and when the money will be spent has been questioned by the Friends of Ferndell.

Laurie Smith, spokeswoman for the group, said that, because vandalism is the main reason for the dell’s decline, the money should not be spent until the Griffith Park staff is better equipped to ward off the criminals.

Jensen said much of the money will be used to buy a new automated sprinkler system to replace a 50-year-old manual one. He said that his staff is taking steps to improve park security but that the state money can be used only for capital improvements, not guards.

He noted that a City Council committee is studying a plan that would double the number of park rangers and give them the right to carry guns.

Hector Rivera, senior gardener in charge of the park’s Western Avenue region, said he fears that any more park rangers would be assigned to other city parks that are affected by violent crime not often found in Ferndell.

Lighting System

Dick Ginevan, chief park maintenance supervisor, said that, even without more rangers, Ferndell will be better protected because of a new lighting system that will be purchased with the money.

The Friends of Ferndell are “not too keen” about that idea either, Smith said.

“They’ve already got the dell fenced in, and if they put lights up it’ll hardly look like a park anymore,” Smith said. “What we need is a regular patrol. . . .”

Yancy has another suggestion.

He explained that, after the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, the city attempted to cut costs, first by cutting Ferndell’s gardening staff from seven to three, and then by eliminating the gardeners’ brown uniforms from the budget.

Wants Uniform

“Let’s say I catch someone ripping a plant out or spray painting a wall,” Yancy said. “I go up to them and tell them to cut it out, and they just say something like, ‘What’s it to you?’ If we had our khakis, they would know we have a right to meddle in their business. People respect uniforms, and you can bet they’d pay attention to us.”

Jensen said that would be expensive, because the city’s other 500 park gardeners would have to be given uniforms too.