Uprooting Exposition Park’s Rose Garden
The Exposition Park rose garden, targeted for destruction by the Coliseum Commission, is far more than a place for “picnics, weddings, and quiet reflection.” It is a unique historical collection and research and testing ground. Even if some effort is made to save some of the bushes, in the interests of public relations, the 40- and 50-year-old plants, many of them no longer grown, are the ones that will not survive.
This garden is as valuable and irreplaceable as was the UCLA experimental citrus grove, also destroyed to make way for a parking lot. At UCLA the resultant lot has long since been deemed inadequate, and more and worse parking structures have ravaged the campus.
The more parking that is built, the more will be found to be needed, forever and ever. As for safety, it is difficult to imagine anything more unsafe than a multi-level underground parking structure late at night.
Save the garden; take the bus.
ALICE McGAUGHEY
Los Angeles
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