Residents’ Uproar Forces Reappraisal of Gym Plan

A city plan to tear down the old Silver Lake Recreation Center and replace it with a new gymnasium bitterly divided 200 area residents at a public meeting this week.

After the meeting Monday, city officials said they would re-evaluate the plan.

The Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department has proposed building a facility that would be more than twice as large as the existing 4,000-square-foot structure, which has a community room that is sometimes used for basketball and offices. The proposed gym would include several meeting rooms, a kitchen and a full-size basketball court.

With a new building, the tiny recreation center park could offer a wide range of activities for senior citizens and older children, Frank Catania, director of parks planning, said at a meeting at the center called by the Parks Department and City Councilman Michael Woo.

But leaders of the Silver Lake Residents Assn. and many people at the meeting said the new building would be ugly, would consume valuable green space, would lead to increased noise and traffic and would be a magnet for gang members from neighboring areas.

The entire recreation center, at the southern tip of the Silver Lake Reservoir, is 3.9 acres. Less than one acre belongs to the Parks Department; the rest is loaned by the Department of Water and Power, which owns the reservoir.

In addition to the building, the site includes a sandbox and playground equipment, an outdoor basketball court and lawn space.

Jim Bonar, president of the residents association, said he feared the gymnasium would attract unruly teen-agers from outside the neighborhood, who would intimidate the mothers and young children now using the park.

“It is our belief that if a gymnasium is built on this severely limited site, it will push the younger kids off the site,” he said. “We are trading valuable open space for an out-of-scale building.”

Kathleen Reddington, a member of the residents association, presented Woo with a petition she said was signed by 450 people who would rather restore the old building. She said the old, wood-frame building with long eaves and wide porch “complements the rich architectural heritage of the Silver Lake area.”

But a vocal minority at the meeting said the new center would offer important recreational opportunities for older children, who must now go to other areas to participate in organized sports.

“We’re talking about aesthetics versus need,” resident Rodger Shimatsu said. “Our kids need more room. Our senior citizens need more programs. We have to schlep our kids all over the place once they turn 8.”

Lisa Sarno, who said she grew up in the low-income, predominantly Latino flatlands south of the recreation center, said, “the facility in its current state is not providing what the community needs.”

Sarno said those at the meeting did not represent all of the Silver Lake community. “There’s only people from the hillsides here,” Sarno said. She and other proponents of the expansion said they planned to organize a rally in support of the gymnasium.

Michael Hannon, a resident of Silver Lake since 1936, said he was concerned about an undercurrent of racism in the debate.

Hannon said he had no position on the center and had come to the meeting to listen. But he said he was “appalled by that nasty undertone.

“It’s in the things that people are saying under their breath, it’s in the buzzwords like ‘outside the neighborhood’ and ‘gangs,’ ” he said. “They don’t want people of the other ethnic groups using the facility.”

Woo and park officials said they were not surprised by the opposition to the center. But they said they still plan to try to expand recreational opportunities at the park, while taking into account the opponents’ concerns.

“It’s clear that there is no consensus of what the community wants,” Catania said. “We think it’s needed, and we think it would be a benefit to the community, but we would not go ahead in a circumstance where there was so much opposition.”