L.A. Neighborhood Gives Gang a New Role: Park Design Consultant

When residents of a neighborhood near USC decided to build a park, they enlisted the help of school architects, the city Department of Recreation and Parks--and the local street gang.

To avoid creating a park only to have it taken over by gang violence, residents in the West Adams district went to the Harpys gang’s hangouts, homes and friends’ homes, pleading with members to plan the park together.

“If you exclude the gangbangers, it’s defeating the purpose. The main reason we want the park is to have a place for children and the youths to play,” said Jennifer Charnofsky, a teacher and grandmother who helped begin the park campaign four years ago.

The inclusion of gang members is the most distinctive feature of a grass-roots effort that will finally lead to groundbreaking next month. Residents have won a city park grant, raised tens of thousands of dollars and persuaded the owners of a vacant one-third-acre lot to donate it.

“It’s a whole bunch of ordinary folks who are saying, ‘OK, we need a park. We’re not gonna just go to the city; we’re going to do something about it,’ ” said Melanie Stephens, director of community development at Esperanza Community Housing, a nonprofit, neighborhood-based development organization. But, she said, “if we knew it was going to be that long and hard, we never would have done it.”

Trying to coordinate volunteers’ time with gang members’ whims and schedules was a headache. The group’s one organized meeting at a church took more than a year to arrange, because different invited gang members kept returning to jail.

Some of the park’s features will be as novel as the planning process. It will be circled by an 8-foot-tall iron fence with a gate that a neighbor will unlock every morning and lock at dusk. It will be dedicated by a pastor, and eventually become part of the city parks network.

“I think it’s a good idea,” said Jose Martinez, 22, a former gang member who attended the church meeting last year. “This way gang members can see what good things you can do for the community.”

The idea of a park took shape when concerned West Adams property owners wanted to clear a deserted lot, set among large Craftsman and Victorian homes mixed with worn apartments. Some residents suggested planting flowers. Others pointed out the dearth of parks in the neighborhood.

The lot is in Los Angeles City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas’ district, which has the fourth-lowest number of parks among the city’s 15 council districts. Some children have to walk eight blocks, crossing two major streets, to find a patch of grass to play on.

Using that argument, neighborhood organizers talked the owners of the vacant lot, who had moved out of the area, into donating it.

Then they turned to deal with the prospect that gang activity, which has curbed community use of many inner-city parks for decades, might ruin their dream. Organizers reasoned that if gang leaders were given a stake in the planning, they might not try to dominate the park when it was completed.

Residents got in touch with Gaby Padilla, a local gang counselor, who talked to some members of the Harpys about participating.

Finally, an unlikely group including gang members, community activists, a police officer and a pastor congregated at St. Agnes Catholic School on a Saturday afternoon last year to plan the park.

After listening to gang members’ initial complaints about police harassment, the group found unity in money: Several artists commissioned by park planners offered a few gang members paid positions to help paint a mural at the back of the park.

Gang members started speaking up: How about an eagle on the mural? Or the name of the gang? They butted heads with the neighbors, but the seed of interest had been planted.

In the weeks after the meeting, several gang members approached Padilla, asking when a follow-up meeting would be. They’re still waiting; organizers say they want to wait until the rest of the park is built before discussing the mural.

“The park is something good for us too,” said Aristidez Flores, a gang member who has two young children. “We’d like to have a handball court over there to play on.”

Planners say the park, whose construction is being financed by a $253,000 grant from a voter-approved property tax assessment, will include a basketball court, a gazebo and picnic tables.

The owners of the vacant lot at 2700 S. Budlong Ave. were Elinor Richardson and her brother-in-law, Don Richardson, both retired administrators for the Los Angeles Unified School District. After they moved out of the neighborhood, their house fell into disrepair and was eventually removed.

The family, which had turned down offers to sell the lot, was persuaded by community members to donate it--a gesture that was worth about $100,000 and will result in the park being named Richardson Family Park.

“We know that there was a need for children to play, and so we thought the park was an ideal situation,” said Elinor Richardson, 84, who now lives in Pasadena.

Other groups, including USC students, have donated their time and skills in designing the park. USC faculty members have contributed nearly $35,000 to supplement construction.