Griffith Park Zoo

Griffith Park Zoo, referred to today as the Old Los Angeles Zoo, was a city-owned zoo in Los Angeles, California that opened in 1912 and closed in 1966 with the opening of the new Los Angeles Zoo. The abandoned site of the Griffith Park Zoo, complete with the ruins of animal enclosures, is now a picnic area featuring multiple hiking trails in Griffith Park.[1]

Griffith Park Zoo
Zoo circa 1940
34.1337°N 118.2888°W / 34.1337; -118.2888
Date opened1912
Date closedAugust 1966
LocationLos Angeles, California

History

The first zoo in Los Angeles was the Eastlake Zoo in East Los Angeles, which opened in 1885.[2]: 37  The Griffith Park Zoo opened in 1912 with a grand total of 15 animals. The new zoo was built on the site of Griffith J. Griffith's defunct ostrich farm.[2]: 35  In the mid 1920s, film producer William Nicholas Selig donated many of the animals from his studios, which he had attempted to convert into an animal theme park, to the new zoo.[3]

It was expanded in the 1930s by work crews from the Works Progress Administration.[2]: 35  Most of the enclosures were built in the caves-with-iron-bars style which was then standard for zoos.[4]

As Los Angeles grew, the small Griffith Park Zoo was increasingly criticized as an "inadequate, ugly, poorly designed and under-financed collection of beat-up cages",[5] despite drawing more than two million visitors a year.[6] In 1958 the city passed an $8 million bond measure to create a brand new zoo.[2]: 35  Griffith Park Zoo closed in August 1966 and its animals were transferred to the new Los Angeles Zoo two miles away, which opened in November 1966.[7] The animal enclosures, with the bars removed, were left as ruins; picnic benches or tables were installed in some of them for park visitors.[8]

  • The ruins of unused cages and animal housing remaining in Griffith Park

References
  1. "Old Zoo Picnic Area in Griffith Park". Hikespeak. Retrieved 7 December 2012.
  2. E. j. Stephens; Marc Wanamaker (November 2011). Griffith Park. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7385-8883-4. Retrieved 28 May 2013.
  3. Andrew A. Erish (2012). Colonel William N. Selig, the Man Who Invented Hollywood. University of Texas Press. p. 131. ISBN 978-0-292-74269-7. Retrieved 28 May 2013.
  4. "The Old Griffith Park Zoo | Photo books of the Old Zoo". Modern Day Ruins. Retrieved 7 December 2012.
  5. "Old Griffith Park Zoo is 'Amazing Abandonment'". LA Curbed. December 19, 2007. Retrieved 7 December 2012.
  6. Eberts, Mike (1996). Griffith Park: A Centennial History. Historical Society of Southern California. p. 303. ISBN 9780914421191.
  7. "Zoo history: early years". Los Angeles Zoo. Retrieved 7 December 2012.
  8. "Griffith Park activities". Department of Recreation and Parks. City of Los Angeles. Retrieved 7 December 2012.
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