Griffith Park, a Place of and Apart From Los Angeles

Like Its Namesake, Griffith J. Griffith, This Huge Urban Space Is a Story of Contradictions

Griffith Park is one of the wildest and largest urban parks in the United States. And yet it sits smack in the middle of the country’s second-largest city, a place that invented and exported urban-suburban sprawl, the auto-centric strip mall, and the four-level stack freeway interchange.

In its own contradictory ways, Griffith Park is a reflection of Los Angeles itself. The park gets more annual visitors than Yosemite or the Grand Canyon, and millions of people have seen the park in films and television, but you’ll still find long-time Los Angeles …