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

(

Los Angeles Public Library

/

Herald Examiner Collection

)

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.

(

Los Angeles Public Library

/

Herald Examiner Collection

)

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.

Some government funding streams for L.A. County’s public health system are drying up, and officials are turning to private philanthropy to fill the gap.

A new privately funded foundation launched Thursday to strengthen public health services after $50 million in federal, state and local funding cuts to the county’s Department of Public Health since early last year.

“It is really a hard day for our community when we have to ask for private donations to fund a public good, but unfortunately, we've lost too much money to not take this important step,” said Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer.

In February, the county’s Public Health Department closed seven clinics, with six remaining open. About half of the patients seen in those clinics are uninsured, according to county officials. The department also cut hundreds of staff positions.

Ferrer is on the board of the new foundation, The Fund for Advancing Public Health LA, which held its first meeting Thursday.

She said the fund will help the county maintain its basic public health infrastructure, including disease prevention, health promotion, environmental health, and emergency response efforts.

Other board members include several health insurance executives, as well as actors Sean Penn and Danny Trejo. Board member Saree Kayne of the R&S Kayne Foundation pledged $150,000 to the fund Thursday. Kayne said she hopes the donation encourages others to give.

The foundation aims to raise $2 million this year.

More cuts expected

L.A. County Supervisor Holly Mitchell said it’s crucial to have an alternative funding stream to protect services for the county's most vulnerable residents.

“We are saving public health,” Mitchell said. “This fund represents a new approach, one that brings together government philanthropy in the private sector to invest in community-based solutions, protect vulnerable populations, and strengthen our public health infrastructure.”

Officials say more public health cuts are coming, through the federal budget law known as the "Big Beautiful Bill," which slashes funding for Medi-Cal.

The county Department of Public Health anticipates losing up to $300 million in revenue over the next three years because of the federal budget bill and other potential funding freezes. Federal funding accounts for almost 50% of the public health budget, according to county officials.

Mitchell also led an effort to put a half-percent county sales tax increase to fund public health on the June ballot.

If approved by voters, that proposal, known as Measure ER, is expected to raise about $1 billion a year for county safety net health services, including about $100 million for the public health department.

Board members

The Fund for Advancing Public Health LA announced its founding board of directors, which includes:

• Dr. Barbara Ferrer, LA County Department of Public Health director
• Debbie I. Chang, Blue Shield of California Foundation CEO
• Sean Penn, actor and co-founder of Community Organized Relief Effort (CORE)
• Martha Santana-Chin, LA Care Health Plan CEO
• Saree Kayne, R&S Kayne Foundation CEO
• Danny Trejo, actor and restaurateur
• Jarrett Barrios, an executive at the American Red Cross
• Dr. Deborah Prothrow-Stith, Charles R. Drew University College of Medicine Dean
• Kristin McCowan, an executive at the Los Angeles Dodgers

The Rose Bowl in Pasadena may be a centenarian, but it’s holding up pretty well as it continues to host events on its way to a starring role in the LA28 Olympics.

But before it can host the soccer final, it needs fixes, especially to the infrastructure serving the bathrooms and drinking fountains. Fears of a toilet backup while in the world’s spotlight led Rep. Laura Friedman to seek federal funds for upgrades. On Thursday she announced she secured just over $1 million.

“Two years from now, athletes around the world are going to compete for gold right where we are standing. This is not the time to find out whether or not these pipes are up to the task,” Friedman said.

The planned work, she added, will lead to improved water flow capacity and water drainage, eliminating the risk of backups and emergency maintenance.

The funds came from the House of Representatives Interior and Environment subcommittee. The fixes, an official said, will be completed by the LA28 Olympics.

The funds, however, are a drop in the bucket when it comes to what’s needed to make needed improvements to the Pasadena venue.

Officials, including (left to right) Rose Bowl Legacy Foundation President Dedan Brozino, Deputy Fire Chief of the City of Pasadena Tim Sell, Congresswoman Laura Friedman, and Rose Bowl Stadium CEO Jens Weiden announced infrastructure funding for the 103-year old Rose Bowl.

(

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez/LAist

)

“Over the  next 20 years there's about $200 million that we need to put in and that's everything from updating light fixtures to updating gas, water, wastewater lines, etc.,” said Dedan Brozino,  president of the Rose Bowl Legacy Foundation, the nonprofit that supports the Rose Bowl stadium's preservation and enhancement.

Getting venues ready will be expensive

The money is a much-needed win at a time when elected officials in city, county, state and federal offices have been struggling to find the funds to get L.A.-area venues ready for the global Olympic stage in two years.

The entrance to a men's bathroom at the Rose Bowl.

(

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez/LAist

)

A $360 million proposal to spruce up asphalt in parking lots around Exposition Park won’t be done in time for the Olympics, as originally planned. Meanwhile, just up the street, there’s concern that a $2.6 billion expansion of the L.A. Convention Center, which is hosting Olympic wrestling, fencing and judo in 2028 won’t be ready for the Olympics.

Additionally, to save money, LA28 organizers moved Olympic diving to the Rose Bowl complex last year because it has two Olympic-sized pools, while the Exposition Park complex doesn't and would need expensive upgrades.

Topline:

About the chick: The chick hatched March 14. The zoo opened its Cape vulture enclosure in February 2025 after years of planning to encourage the birds to roost and nest, welcoming a new breeding pair that year. When it grows to be an adult, it’ll have a wingspan of 8 1/2 feet.

About the enclosure: The L.A. Zoo said it spent years developing the vulture habitat, which was designed to mimic the vultures’ natural environment in South Africa and nearby countries. Dominick Dorsa II, the zoo’s director of animal care, said in a statement the successful hatching is “a testament to the design and construction” of the habitat.

How to see the chick: You can’t for the time being. Zoo officials are keeping it away from visitors until the chick matures, though you can still see adult Cape vultures at the zoo’s enclosure.

Though visitors will have to wait until the chick matures to see it in the enclosure, you can still take in the impressive eight and a half foot wingspan of the adult Cape vultures.

(

Courtesy Jamie Pham/L.A. Zoo

)

What zoo officials are saying: “Welcoming a Cape vulture chick is a thrilling moment for our team and a beacon of hope for African vultures,” the L.A. Zoo’s curator of birds Rose Legato said in a statement. “Vultures are one of nature's most misunderstood marvels, and I cannot wait for our guests to eventually watch this chick grow and learn just how vital they are to our ecosystems.”

About the species: Cape vultures are listed as a vulnerable species due to human activities and encroachment. According to the L.A. Zoo, African vultures are more closely related to eagles and hawks than vultures native to the Americas, like the zoo's California condors that hatched last year.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

What should have been a celebration for formerly incarcerated youth completing a reentry program at the Boyle Heights Arts Conservatory (BHAC) last week instead ended with seven students and two staff members detained by the Los Angeles Police Department, according to witnesses. 

Now, nearly a week later, BHAC staff and city officials are demanding answers from the LAPD, with some accusing officers of racial profiling. 

According to the LAPD, officers observed a large group gathered on the corner of Cesar E. Chavez Avenue and Mott Street around 4:16 p.m. on March 26. Authorities then requested backup for what they described as “a large group surrounding officers,” LAPD Public Information Officer Tony Im said. 

The group, classified by police as an “aggressive gang group,” consisted of seven 18-year-old students from the BHAC’s Bridge Academy Movement (BAM) program and two BHAC staff members.

The BAM program pays formerly incarcerated youth to complete 200-250 hours in media and visual arts training to prepare them for creative careers. That day, students were set to showcase their work at the BAM program graduation for families and community members. 

Rene Weber, a teaching artist at the BHAC, had been with the students setting up for the ceremony minutes before the incident occurred. 

According to Weber, the students had gone to coffee across the street at Milpa Kitchen as they often did, when staff were alerted that they were being detained. 

Weber said he arrived to find students and a staff member pressed against the wall in handcuffs. 

Video from the scene, taken by a staff member at the BHAC, shows multiple officers surrounding the group. At one point, an officer orders a person to “get on the wall” and displays a stun gun.  

“No, none of that, these are kids right here,” the staff member replies.

Another staff member, Teotl Veliz, recorded a large police response.  

“I counted 12 cop cars, that’s at least 25 cops, and they had a helicopter,” Veliz said. “It was just so comedic, tragically comedic, that it was on their graduation day too.”

Officers established a perimeter with yellow tape along the side of Ashley’s Beauty Salon as local business owners and witnesses gathered around the students. 

“I was just incredibly disappointed in LAPD… because it became so apparent to everybody, all at the same time, that it was racial profiling and nothing else,” Veliz said.

Weber said officers gave shifting explanations for the stop at the scene, including blocking the sidewalk and possible underage vaping. After Weber told the officers that all of the students were 18, they said they would investigate whether the group had any gang affiliation. 

Police have not responded to questions about what led officers to believe that the group was gang-affiliated. 

Weber recalled pleading with the officers to let the group go and explaining to them that they worked across the street. Community members and local business owners also stepped in to vouch for the students. 

“Our job is to help them gain a new perspective on life,” Weber said. “They’re coming out of juvenile detention and they’re turning their lives around. We can do our part in keeping them off the streets and keeping them doing better but what does it mean if they’re going to be profiled and treated exactly the same way?” 

In total, seven 18-year-old students and two staff members were detained. BHAC staff said one student and one staff member were taken to Hollenbeck Community Police Station and released less than two hours later after advocacy from community members and Councilmember Ysabel Jurado.

The incident ultimately resulted in an infraction for smoking a cannabis e-vape on a public sidewalk, according to a photo of the infraction shared with the Beat. LAPD did not provide details about the people taken to Hollenbeck Station or the infraction. 

The graduation ceremony was cancelled that night and is expected to be rescheduled in April. 

“Graduation should be a moment of pride and possibility — not fear,” Jurado said in a statement. “I’m seeking answers about what occurred, and this underscores the need for stronger relationships between law enforcement and community organizations so moments like these are protected, not disrupted.”

Carmelita Ramirez‑Sanchez, the conservatory’s executive director, said she was grateful to the community and Jurado for advocating for the students’ release. Jurado met her at Hollenbeck Station within 20 minutes of being alerted to the incident, she said. 

“They had store owners, señoras, barbers, that ran out and were trying to explain to the police who our kids were,” Ramirez‑Sanchez said. 

Still, she said the incident tarnished what should have been a joyous celebration.

“I imagine that what this does is derail this entire idea that you can be an active participant in your own restorative growth,” she said.