Not Yet at Rest : NEXT L.A. / A Look at issues, people and ideas helping to shape the emerging metropolis : A nonprofit group is fighting development plans while seeking to expnd Los Angeles National Cemetery, on the crowded Westside, into an ‘Arlington of the West.’

Hidden behind a chain-link fence overgrown with juniper in Westwood is a shrine that is rich with American history and the final resting place of more than 81,000 veterans from the Civil War through Vietnam.

Many drivers passing by on Wilshire Boulevard probably don’t know the Los Angeles National Cemetery exists, but under a plan drafted by a group of veterans and neighbors, the area around the cemetery would become a memorial parkway as well as an oasis of open space on the crowded Westside.

The cemetery is on part of 546 acres of federal land divided in one direction by Wilshire Boulevard and in the other by the San Diego Freeway. Elsewhere on the land are the Westwood federal building, the West Los Angeles Veterans Medical Center, the Wadsworth Theater and Jackie Robinson Memorial Stadium, home to the UCLA baseball team.

The federal reservation also includes the remnants of a turn-of-the-century national soldiers’ home and the old Wadsworth VA hospital, a nine-hole golf course, stands of old eucalyptus trees and arroyos that roll down from the Santa Monica Mountains.

As the largest remaining public open space in West Los Angeles, the land has been the target of repeated attempts at commercial development despite a deed restriction--placed on the land by the families that donated it in 1888--that the land be dedicated as “a home for disabled volunteer soldiers.”

When the federal government declared 109 acres surplus in 1986 and arranged to sell it to Orange County developer Donald Bren for a shopping mall, Brentwood, Bel-Air and Westwood residents succeeded in getting legislation passed to stop the sale.

After another close call when Marriott Hotels sought a lease on the land, the kitchen table protest evolved into a well-organized nonprofit group--Veterans Park--with a mission of protecting the open space and serving the 680,000 veterans of Los Angeles County, the largest population of veterans in the country.

With the cooperation of three federal agencies along with Caltrans, Los Angeles County and the city of Los Angeles, the group hopes to transform the area into a memorial of national significance, an “Arlington of the West,” according to Sue Young, executive director of Veterans Park.

The cemetery, which lies east of the freeway along Sepulveda Boulevard and is now full, would expand onto at least 45 acres west of the freeway, near the Constitution Avenue underpass. A half-mile section of Wilshire would become “Veterans Parkway,” a pedestrian-friendly boulevard with double rows of magnolia trees.

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Views of the cemetery would be opened from the parkway, and an eternal flame and memorial gateways would be installed. All along Wilshire, there would be better access to the cemetery and the new Veterans Park, where a 19th-Century chapel and a rose garden would be restored.

Walking paths would lead into the natural landscape of the land’s northern park preserve, which extends almost to Sunset Boulevard and the Brentwood Village commercial district.

Designs for the project have been prepared by Robert S. Harris, dean of the USC School of Architecture, and by noted landscape architects Emmet L. Wemple and Laurie Olin. An $80,000 gift from the Getty Trust is helping to finance the work.

But proponents are understandably edgy. A group formed to bring a National Football League franchise to Los Angeles has expressed some interest in erecting a major stadium on the land with the hopes that it would be used by UCLA. The homeowner groups backing the park concept recently sent 6,000 letters to residents asking for money to establish a war chest to oppose any stadium plans.

A stadium, Harris says, “would be like dropping a bomb of some kind on a picnic. On any weekend when games were played the noise would destroy the tranquillity of the cemetery, and the traffic and parking would be horrendous.”

Also, with federal agencies looking to use valuable surplus assets to make up for shrinking budgets, some residents fear the land will be sold or leased for private development.

According to Harry Cole of the Veterans Health Administration in West Los Angeles, the Department of Veterans Affairs is consolidating many programs on the portion of land south of Wilshire Boulevard and looking at ways to increase income from the property north of Wilshire. But Cole said local VA officials support the Veterans Park.

“It’s not our money so we’re all for it,” Cole said. “It’s a real benefit for us.”

The Veterans Park group is seeking definitive congressional action to prohibit use of the West Los Angeles property for commercial development and reserve the potential stadium site beside the San Diego Freeway for cemetery expansion.

Veterans Park plans to raise all the funds for the project privately, Young said. The group’s board of directors includes top officials from the J. Paul Getty Trust, the Jules and Doris Stein Foundation, the Reagan Foundation, the Jewish Federation Council and Blue Ribbon, as well as civic leaders and veterans from World War II through Vietnam.

“The National Cemetery ought to be a revered place,” Harris said. “A connection will be made to a new speakers plaza at the federal building across the street, which has become the primary place for public demonstrations on every kind of subject. Presumably, part of why veterans have served was to preserve the right of free speech.”

Expansion of the cemetery would allow burials to resume in West Los Angeles. Veterans are now buried in Riverside, the closest national cemetery with available space.

“It’s a gut issue,” said Bill Belding, a Vietnam veteran who heads the Veterans Park cemetery committee. “Anybody who has given up a significant portion of their life for our basic freedoms should have a place where they are remembered and have the right to eventually be buried.

“Go out and look at the streets. Homeless, alcoholics, drug addicts, people suffering from delayed stress syndrome--many are veterans. This is the least we can do for those guys.”

The new park, he said, would be an apt tribute. “I didn’t lose an arm or a leg but I lost a lot of friends. Many veterans have. They would benefit from having this park set aside and reopening the cemetery. And maybe by driving past a place of national meaning more of us will appreciate Veterans Day and remember that Memorial Day is more than just the first decent day at the beach.”

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More than 20,000 visitors come to the cemetery annually, especially on holidays such as Veterans Day (which is Saturday). Some want to see the grave of Abner Prather, a veteran of the Spanish-American War who was the first to be buried there in 1889, said Lucy Devenney, the director of the cemetery.

Other people are curious about Blackout, a K9 Corps dog who was wounded in the Pacific in World War II and buried with full military honors.

But, she said, “most people come to visit the graves of loved ones. People need to grieve. A lot of people come to the graveside and talk to their loved ones. They certainly aren’t going to get any answers, but it’s going to make them feel better and that’s why we’re here, to serve the veterans and their families.”

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Arlington of the West?

Plans for 546 acres of federal land near Westwood include expansion of the now-full Los Angeles National Cemetery, transformation of Wilshire Boulevard into a Veterans Parkway and the protection of natural open space at the north end of the preserve.

Landmarks such as the Wadsworth Theater, the UCLA baseball stadium and the VA Medical Center south of Wilshire would remain.