The Brief

It was noon at Playground Number One in Los Angeles on a crisp October day in 1905. As schoolchildren swamped L.A.’s first public playground, on Violet Street in what is now the Arts District, a reporter for the LA Times took in the joyous scene.

“The playground is overflowing now with small humanity,” he wrote. “Swings are going, seesaws are elevating shrieking little girls to dizzy heights, small boys and big boys are almost bursting their throats with the pent-up glee they have been saving all morning, and innumerable kindergarteners and smaller babies are falling into the fishponds and tumbling about in the sand.”

While this is a common sight to Angelenos today, in the Edwardian era, public playgrounds were not only a novelty, they were a revolutionary act.

On Sept. 13, 1904, Los Angeles became a leader in the “playground movement,” when the city established the first municipal Playground Department in the country. “The test of whether a civilization will live or die,” proclaimed the department’s motto, “is the way it spends its leisure.”

"Americanizing" citizens

As Dominick Cavallo notes in Muscles and Morals: Organized Playgrounds and Urban Reform: 1880-1920, the very idea of “modern adolescence” was a new concept to most 19th century Americans. In a country shaped by puritan ideals, maxims like “those who play when they are young will play when they are old” held strong.

But progressive reformers in the Northeast increasingly saw childhood play as a primary part of physical and social development and as a way to produce hearty “Americanized” citizens. In the early 1890s, Nobel Prize winner, activist, and social worker Jane Addams created a small playground on the grounds of Boston’s Hull House. Other playgrounds were soon created in other Northeastern cities, usually in high-density immigrant communities.

“In the quarter-century between 1885 and 1910, Americans redefined the social and moral implications of traditional child-rearing practices,” Cavallo writes. “In a sense, they rediscovered the child during these years, for the psychological and biological characteristics of this ‘new’ child were radically different from those of his mid-nineteenth century predecessor. “

Girls enjoying a game of baseball in Echo Park playground in 1907

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Los Angeles Public Library

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Herald Examiner Collection

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These ideas quickly made their way out West. In 1897, an Angeleno named Elizabeth Walling advocated in the Los Angeles Times for the city to build an “open air gymnasium,” including a playground for the “poorer classes.”

“For this playground, large, shallow, boarded enclosures of sand are the first requisite,” she wrote. “No elaborate mechanical toy gives greater delight to the average child, rich or poor.”

Women advocates

Women took the lead in the fight for the creation of these new-fangled playgrounds across the country. As Becoming Citizens: The Emergence and Development of the California Women’s Movement notes, these activists were often middle and upper-class white women, who had the privilege and limited power to lobby for societal change.

Arabella Rodman, president of the Los Angeles Civic Association, led the charge. According to Paul R. Spitzzeri of the Homestead Museum, Rodman was a change maker in turn of the century Los Angeles, working with public schools, promoting the celebration of Arbor Day, forming a housing commission, and instituting programs to beautify the city.

Violet Street Playground boasted its Clubhouse in 1907.

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Los Angeles Public Library

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Herald Examiner Collection

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Another powerful advocate was Bessie Stoddart, a social worker who worked with immigrant communities and considered playgrounds to be crucial spaces for young Angelenos. “On the playground fair play must be constantly practiced, self-control constantly maintained,” Stoddart stated. “This is the very essence of democracy. For to know how to associate, how to co-operate with one’s fellows is the foundation of our national form of government.”

Along with other progressive allies, Rodman and Stoddart lobbied the L.A. City Council and Mayor’s offices. Newspapers, including the LA Times, began to advocate for playgrounds in the poorer sections of the city. Although their aims were ultimately altruistic, there were disturbing paternalistic, classist, and xenophobic undertones.

“Americanization can take place more rapidly and with less expense on the playground than in most other institutions,” a representative for the mayor’s office noted.

The Los Angeles Times agreed: "It will usually be found that a boy who takes interest in manly outdoor sports is not likely to fall into bad habits, such as cigarette smoking and other practices that produce physical and mental degeneration… The establishment of a public playground is a good idea, from both a moral and hygienic viewpoint, apart from the pleasure which such an indication would afford to thousands of little ones."

Playground Number One

On June 8, 1904, Rodman and Stoddart went with LA City officials, including Parks Department representatives, to scout potential sites for L.A.’s first civic playground. They toured sites in the Seventh and Eighth wards of the city, east of downtown. The teeming area had around 50,000 residents, no public parks within walking distance and poor families who could not afford trolley fare. Children, cramped in small dwellings, had no choice but to play in the streets, an often-dangerous option which reformers feared would lead to “evil habits.”

On July 28, 1904, the finance committee of the L.A. City Council approved the purchase of fourteen lots at the intersection of Violet and Mateo Streets for $12,000. “The Violet street playground was put down in the midst of the storm center of juvenile offense against the law,” the Los Angeles Times reported. “The rough, rowdy youths of the neighborhood left nothing undone which their febrile brains could devise to cause trouble to others and their own undoing.”

Plans for the first L.A. City Playground were now underway. There was more progress on September 13, 1904, when the L.A. City Council passed an ordinance creating the country’s first major Playground Commission. Both Stoddart and Rodman were placed on the commission. The committee would oversee not only the Violet Street playgrounds, but all future public playgrounds in the city.

Using public funds and supported by many local organizations including the Chamber of Commerce, Playground Number One was built remarkably quickly for a public work. It featured a handsome bungalow for an on-site superintendent and his wife, and separate sections for girls and boys. The girls’ section included two giant sandboxes, several seesaws, a fishing pond teeming with goldfish, a summer house for tea parties, a garden, and a May Pole where young girls could fly “around madly in a joyous circle.”

On the boys’ side was an open-air gymnasium (which girls could use on certain days) with equipment including a trapeze, punching bags, showers, and parallel bars. There were also handball courts, seesaws, swings, and basketball courts, as well as other fields for games like softball and football.

Opening ceremony

On June 10, 1905, the first L.A. public playground opened with a rousing ceremony attended by Stoddart, Rodman, Mayor Owen McAleer, and playground superintendent C.B. Raitt. After the customary speeches, hundreds of local children participated in basketball games, handball, a gymnastics competition, and a jiu jitsu exhibition by the Central Japanese Club.

Unlike most playgrounds today, play was often highly structured and organized by male and female attendants in charge of the children. It quickly became a vital community center for children in the area and beyond, with the LA Evening Express claiming that an estimated 32,000 children had visited during its first six months.

Children and teenagers of all ages made the park their own. A clubhouse with a library was soon added, and the playground buzzed with activity. Teen girls formed a club where they met to play games like charades and sew. Others planted gardens, taking the fruit and vegetables they grew home. Christmas celebrations included a huge tree and performances by a local children’s choir.

In a cruel segregated age, the playground was open to all races and nationalities at all times. On July 4, 1906, the Los Angeles Herald listed the number of different nationalities who had children participating in the track and field events.

“In the evening the children took their fireworks to the playground and set them off,” the Herald reported. “Several hundred children residing in the neighborhood of the Violet playground spent the entire day yesterday enjoying the innocent amusements provided. No one among their number was hurt or burned and everyone had, as one of them expressed it, ‘just a dandy time.’”

Playground Number Two

In 1907, Playground Number Two opened in Echo Park (one of the few early LA playgrounds to still exist). At the dedication, one speaker said: “Playgrounds stand for good citizens. They are little republics, and the training a child receives in them is effective throughout life.” Soon integrated girls’ and boys’ teams from these two playgrounds were competing against each other in basketball games covered enthusiastically by the Los Angeles Herald.

According to Survey LA, other city playgrounds soon followed, including the Solano Canyon playground, Slauson Playground in Southeast LA, and Hazard Playground between Boyle and Lincoln Heights.

These accomplishments led the LA Times to brag that Los Angeles led all the West in playground development. By 1920, there were 22 playgrounds, not including Playground Number One, which closed that year due to increased industrialization in the area. But the movement continued to grow. By 1942, there were 52 playgrounds in LA.

Today there are hundreds of playgrounds throughout Los Angeles. Quite a difference from 120 years ago, when a space where kids could just be kids was still a novel dream.

Topline:

Why now: Making, Keeping, and Losing Friends author McCabe joined LAist’s AirTalk with Larry Mantle to share her friend-making advice with listeners, and we heard from listeners on how they make friends.

The local angle: With geography, jobs and traffic all making the act of “hanging out” a challenge, listeners shared their friend-catching tips.

Matt in Eagle Rock said, “It takes two people to make that friendship work; you have to put the effort into it. That is the harder part as you get older. I started in an adult dodgeball league, which I had never done in my life. Now I’ve been doing comedy, it's really about getting to know the people.”

Priyanka in Orange chimed in, "As I have grown older and moved from college in training for so-called adult life, it’s become harder to find friends that you find relatable and who are as invested in the friendship as you yourself are. The new thing I have discovered is Bumble for friends… and so far it's been a good experience.”

Sydney in Koreatown said, “Transitioning from a gay male to a transwoman, I have lost some friends from transitioning, but I have also gained some deeper friendships. It has been a profound and absolutely amazing experience finding common ground, and finding other gay males that support my transition, and finding other trans women that I have a deepening relationship with too.”

Raul in Long Beach also weighed in, saying, “You don't need social media. No matter what anyone says, it really is not necessary to meet new people. When you’re not on it, it motivates you to talk to people in person, it commits your attention to them face to face.”

Listen to the full segment to hear McCabe’s advice on finding and maintaining friends.

Laura Terry dreamed of having kids — a family she could call her own. But there was one challenge: She wasn't interested in dating, marriage, or partnering up.

So, she came up with an idea for an unusual present to give herself.

"For my 39th birthday, I bought a vial of donor sperm," says Terry, who lives in Nashville, Tenn., and works at a top management consulting firm.

She started the process of having a baby via in vitro fertilization, or IVF, soon after. This path hadn't occurred to her initially, even though she has a Ph.D. in cell and developmental biology. There just wasn't anyone in her orbit who had done it. Her epiphany came from a book in which the author described her own journey with IVF.

"I had never heard of being a single mom by choice before that," says Terry, who is now 44. "It was like a light bulb went off."

That light bulb is going off for a lot of single women. Today, 44% of women in America are unpartnered; finding someone and settling down has become less of a priority when they're in their 20s or even 30s. And when some of them are ready to have kids, they aren't letting singlehood deter them.

Who gets to be a parent is being reshaped by increased access to IVF

The nation's first IVF baby was born in 1981, when the process was such a novelty that she was referred to as a "test tube baby." Since then, its use has surged in the United States, and today, IVF accounts for almost 100,000 births each year. That's up 50% from 10 years ago.

With IVF, which accounts for around 2% of births in America, a woman's eggs are retrieved from her body and fertilized with sperm in a lab. The resulting embryo is then implanted in her uterus, with the hope it will lead to a pregnancy.

This process has opened the door for many people who couldn't otherwise conceive children and reshaped who gets to be a parent, including more LGBTQ+ couples.

It has also become a big driver in the number of older single mothers in the U.S. at a time when the country's overall birth rate is declining. The number of unmarried women in their 40s who are having babies has grown by 250% in the last 30 years, according to data from the government. A portion of these women have partners, but many don't.

There are many reasons for this rise, says Rosanna Hertz, author of the book Single By Chance, Mothers by Choice. Increasingly, she says, young women are pursuing higher education, focusing on their careers, or fulfilling personal goals such as traveling around the world or buying homes.

And when they're ready to partner up in their mid-30s, "there's no one to settle down with," says Hertz, a sociologist with a focus on gender and family at Wellesley College. "So, am I going to spend my time waiting for somebody to come along?"

Hertz says her research shows most women who want a family would rather do it with a partner. For them, IVF is Plan B. But as their reproductive windows narrow with age, some decide to move forward by themselves.

A framed photo of Laura Terry with her mother, Jo, holding baby Eleanor.

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Jessica Ingram

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Becoming a mother is a marker of adulthood for them, Hertz says.

"There is a sense that I'm now ready to do something that is selfless, that involves the care and nurture of another human being and be part of a broader community," she says. "What a child does is tie you into a community."

Do I really want to have a baby? How do I choose a donor?

Terry saw that care and community in her own sister's family, when it drew her to Nashville to spend time with her nephews.

Once she knew she wanted to be a mom, she started mapping out her path through the language she understood, which is spreadsheets and PowerPoints.

"I made a decision tree," she says.

The root of that tree was a fundamental question: Did she really want a child? It branched from there to examine how she would become a mother and which path would give her the best chance of having a baby. It led her to IVF.

Soon enough, she was faced with another decision: choosing a sperm donor. Faced with an array of choices, she resorted to another spreadsheet "that was like 30 rows long and 30 columns wide."

In it, she started by listing factors like race, height, ethnicity and education. Then she narrowed it down to a few that really mattered to her: "I cared about some physical attributes to look like me. And I cared about family health history."

Terry was extremely lucky with her IVF process: She got pregnant on her first try. She gave birth to Eleanor in 2021 and Margaret came two years later.

"I should be quite grateful for what my process was," Terry says. "The results were beyond what you statistically expect."

Terry actively tries to find ways to engage her kids. Sometimes she buys a "decoy cucumber" so that when she's prepping dinner, 4-year-old Eleanor can peel it and feel helpful. Terry says, "It's a great use of 75 cents for an extra cucumber."

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Jessica Ingram

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She's right: The odds of conceiving a child with just one try of IVF are below 50% after a woman turns 35. And the chances drop rapidly each year after that. Many women try multiple cycles of IVF with no guarantee that they'll get pregnant.

Pregnancies at an older age can also carry health risks for both mom and child, with a high chance of miscarriage. All of this can take a huge physical and emotional toll.

Women with higher education are the top users of IVF

When Kate Snyder, who lives in northern New Jersey, was ready to have a kid, she looked for the right guy. "And, you know," she says, "it didn't happen."

Snyder was already in her 40s when she started thinking of IVF.

Kate Snyder and her 2-year-old daughter get ready for day care at their home in northern New Jersey. An interior designer and artist, Snyder made the decision to undergo IVF when she was in her 40s.

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Thalia Juarez

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"Once I came to terms with the fact that the father of my child doesn't have to be the person I end up with, and you separate the two, it's very freeing," she says. "And it just took the pressure off."

Now 48, she is the mother of a 2-year-old daughter, who loves to talk and fills their home with chatter. "She comes home from day care with gossip," says Snyder, who is an interior designer and artist. "She's telling me who pooped their pants and how the teacher had a lollipop today and this person got out of her cot."

Snyder says Google, her former employer, covered a small portion of the cost of freezing her eggs. But she paid for the IVF process herself.

Each time a woman tries to get pregnant via IVF, the cost can range from $15,000 to over $30,000. It's why IVF is out of reach for many.

Snyder wasn't prepared in her mid-40s for the amount of carrying her baby needed in the first two years, whether it was up and down the stairs or getting her in and out of the car.

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Thalia Juarez

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It's gotten the attention of President Trump. In October, he announced proposals to help reduce the cost of the drugs necessary for IVF. He also encouraged employers to offer broader infertility coverage directly to workers.

Some people go into debt, while others like Snyder use up their savings. Some women, like Terry, have theirs covered by insurance. Even that is not common — only 1 in 4 companies with more than 200 employees pays for a part of the process.

Women with higher education — especially master's degrees, doctorates or professional degrees — are more likely to use IVF than those with less education, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

These women, on average, have higher incomes. All that gives them the agency to start and support their own family.

"My knees hurt"

Both Terry and Snyder were financially comfortable enough to step off the career treadmill and create time and space for their new families. Snyder now works four days a week. Terry took a pay cut for a different role that was less intense — it allowed her to work from home and requires less travel. Neither has qualms about it.

"It's so physical being a mom. I don't think I expected that," says Snyder.

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Thalia Juarez

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Still, parenting in your 40s is hard.

"It's so physical being a mom. I don't think I expected that," says Snyder, thinking back to her first two years of motherhood and carrying her daughter up and down the stairs or getting her in and out the car. "Motherhood in your 40s, you know, my knees hurt and there are things that are starting to fall apart."

For Terry, one of the hardest parts of being a single mom is not being able to take a break. "If I'm tired or had a rough day at work or I'm frustrated, I'm feeling overwhelmed and I want to step away from my kids, I often can't," she says. "I have to meet their needs first and meet my needs later. And that's hard."

And then there is the weight of decision-making. She discusses her choices with her friends and family, "but ultimately all of that rests on me and that feels really heavy," she says.

Saturday mornings are music class days. Being silly with her kids has helped Terry loosen up and relate to them in a different way. They sing all the time. Her kids make up nursery rhymes on their way to day care or bath time or even while brushing their teeth.

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Jessica Ingram

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NPR

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"Was he sorry I didn't have a husband?"

Even though there are more families like Terry's and Snyder's today, they're still rare. And society hasn't quite caught up with them.

Like when Terry moved to her new home in Nashville, she introduced herself and the girls to a neighbor, who asked what her husband did for work. Terry explained that they were a "mom and kids family" with two cats. The response took her aback.

"He said, 'Oh, I'm so sorry,'" she recalls. "Was he sorry I didn't have a husband? I still don't know to this day. But there is very much like a moment of feeling other and different — and that's often an uncomfortable feeling."

Terry worries about how her daughters will handle such questions. She prepares her oldest child by role-playing with her. But even then, sometimes it doesn't quite play out the way they've practiced.

Recently, she recalls, one of her daughter's classmates said, "'Hey, Eleanor, is that your mom?' And she said, 'Yes.' And they said, 'Well, where's your dad?' And Eleanor just froze in that moment."

But more often than not, the tenderness of motherhood triumphs over such unsettling interactions. Terry treasures the sweet moments she shares with her kids, like when they climb onto her bed in the morning to wake her or when they sit next to each other on the couch to read before bedtime.

"I love moments where they say, 'Mama, I need a snuggle.' Just holding them for a minute or two and seeing how that calms them is really, really powerful."
Copyright 2026 NPR

Terry reads to her daughters as they snuggle with her on the couch.

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Jessica Ingram for NPR

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Over his nearly 50-year career, Burbank-based attorney Dennis Block has built a reputation as a fierce advocate for Southern California landlords seeking to evict their tenants.

But disciplinary charges filed against him last month by the California State Bar raise questions about his treatment of clients.

Block faces charges involving a series of clients over a span of years. According to the 10 counts against him, Block allegedly collected payments wrongly described as “non-refundable,” failed to account for his fees and didn’t return a client’s property in a timely manner following termination of his employment.

In one case, Block allegedly failed to pay court sanctions on time. In another, he allegedly created a conflict of interest by representing both a tenant and her landlord.

When LAist asked Block how he responded to the charges, he told us to reach out to his defense attorney Erin Joyce. In a statement, Joyce said, “While we cannot comment on the specifics of the case, we believe the matter will be resolved in Mr. Block’s favor prior to trial at the settlement conference.”

The ultimate penalty in California State Bar Court is disbarment, which would prevent Block from continuing to practice law. Lesser punishments could involve a brief suspension or an order to complete an ethics exam.

Should fees have been ‘non-refundable’?

This isn’t the first time Block has faced repercussions for alleged ethical lapses in recent years.

In 2023, LAist reported on a filing Block’s firm submitted in an eviction case that contained multiple references to fake case law. Legal experts told us the filing, which led to court sanctions, was likely produced through misuse of AI.

Legal ethics experts said the new charges against Block are serious.

“The worst thing a lawyer can do is steal a client's money,” said Scott Cummings, a law professor at UCLA. “This is effectively what the bar is saying Mr. Block has done here in roughly half a dozen cases.”

Many counts involve Block allegedly charging up-front fees described by his firm as “non-refundable.” Bar rules state such fees must constitute a “true retainer,” meaning money paid to reserve an attorney’s availability for a specific case or period of time.

LAist previously reported that former clients have complained about poor communication and a lack of availability from Block and his associates.

Richard Zitrin, an emeritus lecturer with UC Law San Francisco, said the rules may sound esoteric, but the bar takes violations seriously.

“When you get right down to what's going on under the surface, it looks like the accusations are that this guy could not do the work for these various clients,” Zitrin said. “If it's one time, it could just be an honest mistake. But if he's doing it repeatedly, serially, of course that's of more concern.”

Representing both sides?

In one case, Block’s firm is accused of taking on a tenant who was in a dispute with her roommate. A few months later, while still representing the tenant, Block’s firm allegedly took on the tenant’s landlord. Block’s firm then sent a letter threatening to evict his own client, according to the charges.

“Lawyers cannot represent opposite sides of a particular case because they owe their duty of loyalty and confidentiality to each client,” said Laurie Levenson, a law professor at Loyola Law School. “It's very likely that one side or the other will feel that the lawyer sold out to the other client.”

Despite the severity and the number of allegations, UCLA’s Cummings said Block’s disciplinary record — which shows no infractions so far — could help him avoid disbarment.

“Suspension seems like — if these facts were all proven to be true — definitely an appropriate sanction in this particular case,” Cummings said.

It’s not yet clear what the charges could mean for Block’s firm, which prides itself on handling a high volume of cases at any given time. Block once reportedly described himself as “a man who has evicted more tenants than any other human being on the planet Earth.”

A status conference in Block’s case is set for Feb. 9.