Uprooting Exposition Park’s Rose Garden

So a rare prized possession of the people of Los Angeles, the Exposition Park rose garden, considered “one of the top display gardens in the country,” is going to be dug up to make room for a massive parking lot!

And a “more logical--and less expensive--site” in a largely unoccupied area south of the Natural History Museum was “rejected” because traffic might not flow as easily and “because it is a farther walk to the museums!”

Well, doesn’t that beat all?

Has it occurred to the members of the Los Angeles Coliseum Commission that they owe it to the people of Los Angeles to find a way to make the traffic flow (isn’t that what traffic experts are paid to do?) and that shuttles could be provided to take people to the museums from the “rejected” site?

To destroy one of the city’s few oases and deprive more than a million people a year of the beauty, peace and quiet of Exposition Park rose garden-- when another site is available --is a brutal, uncaring solution to the parking problems of the Coliseum and Sports Arena. We accept that there are problems to be alleviated. But why should we accept the worst alternative?

My outrage is not engendered because of any personal advantages, I don’t live close enough to the rose garden to visit it as often as I would like.

But I am one of the ever-growing number of Los Angeles residents becoming increasingly incensed at the destruction of trees and breathing spaces in this city to make room for more cars, more traffic, and ugly parking lots.

I am afraid that the promises to restore the garden are just that--promises. Unlike automobiles, roses are fragile, living things, and some of them now in the garden, we understand, never can be replaced if they do not survive the uprooting.

To think that such beauty will be lost forever--to make room for a parking lot.

THEO WILSON

Hollywood