Elysian Park is a neighborhood in Central Los Angeles, California, United States. The city park, Elysian Park, Street and other boundaries are: the northern apex at Exit 138 of the Golden State Freeway, thence southeasterly along the freeway, southerly along the Los Angeles River, westerly along North Broadway, northwesterly along Stadium Way, Academy Road and northerly along Elysian Park Drive.

Demographics

thumb|Park entrance, with Broadway on the right, about 1900

thumb|upright|Waterfall and rock garden behind the former Police Academy, 1956

thumb|right|Los Angeles Police Academy, 2005

thumb|Dodger Stadium, 2007

The 2000 U.S. census of the Elysian Park neighborhood counted 2,530 residents in its 1.65 square miles, which includes all the city park land as well as Dodger Stadium—an average of 1,538 people per square mile, one of the lowest population densities in Los Angeles county. In 2008 the city estimated that the population had increased to 2,659. The median age for residents was 31, about average for Los Angeles; the percentage of residents aged 11 to 18 were among the county's highest.

  • Cathedral High School, private, 1253 Bishops Road. It was founded by Archbishop John Joseph Cantwell as the first Los Angeles Archdiocesan high school for boys in fall 1925. The Christian Brothers have operated the school since its opening. It was designated Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument number 281 in 1984.
  • Solano Avenue Elementary School, LAUSD, 615 Solano Avenue. In 1955, the school, which then had 230 pupils, was honored as one of the 221 schools given a California Distinguished School award.

Park

The park is one of largest in Los Angeles at . It is also the city's oldest park, founded in 1886 by the Elysian Park Enabling Ordinance. It hosted shooting as well as the shooting part of the modern pentathlon event for the 1932 Summer Olympics. In 1964, the Citizens Committee to Save Elysian Park was founded to prevent the City of Los Angeles from constructing the Municipal Convention Center on of park land.

In 1968, it hosted a hippie "Love-in".

The land that is now the site of Dodger Stadium was once known as Chavez Ravine, and was home to a large Mexican-American community. In 1949, the Los Angeles Housing Authority declared the neighborhood “under-utilized.” By 1960, residents had been removed and their homes bulldozed.

Figueroa Street Tunnels

The Figueroa Street Tunnels take northbound State Route 110 (the Pasadena Freeway) through the park.

Solano Canyon

Solano Canyon is a canyon within Elysian Park and also the name of a residential district at the southern extremity of the Elysian Park neighborhood, directly north of the Los Angeles State Historic Park. The district is bisected near its southern tip by the Arroyo Seco Parkway, and it shares a border with Chinatown.

Solano Canyon was also an old name for a ravine in the Hollywood Hills that was later named Runyon Canyon.

See also

  • Elysian Park Fault, an earthquake-producing fault named after the park
  • Ned R. Healy, L.A. City Council member (1943–44) and member of Congress (1945–47), opposed slant oil drilling under the park
  • List of districts and neighborhoods of Los Angeles
  • List of parks in Los Angeles

References

  • History of Elysian Park
  • [http://projects.latimes.com/mapping-la/neighborhoods/neighborhood/elysian-park/crime/] Elysian Park neighborhood crime map and statistics]
  • [http://www.solanocanyon.org] SolanoCanyon.org
  • [https://www.proquest.com/docview/162491561] Solano Canyon can be seen on the horizon of this 1873 photograph, labeled No. 50, as published in "The Story of Fifty Years: Where the City: In Which Southern California and the Los Angeles Times Grew Up Together," Los Angeles Times, December 4, 1931, page E-3.