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.

In the wake of the Eaton Fire, Altadena and Pasadena’s music community have really shown up to support fire survivors, especially fellow musicians who lost instruments and record collections.

That effort continues this weekend with a special donation concert at a Pasadena record store, with the aim of getting vinyl records back in the hands of survivors who lost their collections.

“You know, our name is Healing Force of the Universe, and I think that gives me a pretty clear direction… especially after the fires,” said Austin Manuel, founder of Pasadena record store, where Sunday’s show will be held.

The record donation effort is the brainchild of musician Brandon Jay, who founded the nonprofit Altadena Musicians after losing his home and almost all of his family’s instruments in the Eaton Fire. Through Altadena Musicians’s donation and registry platform, Jay said he and his partners have helped some 1,200 fire survivors get their music instruments back.

Brandon Jay.

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Robert Garrova

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LAist

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Now, that effort has fanned out to restoring vinyl record collections.

“All of that stuff evaporated for thousands of people,” Jay said. “Look at your own record collection and be like, ‘Wow, what if that whole thing disappeared?’”

You might know Jay from several bands over the years, including Lutefisk, a 1990s alt-rock band based in Los Angeles. He and his wife, Gwendolyn Sanford, composed music for TV shows, including Orange is the New Black and Weeds.

Jay plans to play some holiday tunes at Sunday's record donation show (which LAist is the media sponsor), along with fellow musician Daniel Brummel of Sanglorians. Brummel, who was also a founding member of Pasadena’s indie-rock sensation Ozma, said he was grateful to Jay for his fire recovery work and to Manuel for making Healing Force available for shows like this.

Brummel, who came close to losing his own home in the Eaton Fire, recalled a show he played at Healing Force back in March.

Ryen Slegr (left) and Daniel Brummel perform with their band, Ozma, on the 2014 Weezer Cruise.

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Even Keel Imagery

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“The trauma of the fires was still really fresh,” Brummel said. After playing a cover of Rufus Wainwright’s “Going to a Town,” that night — which includes the lyrics “I’m going to a town that has already been burnt down” — Brummel said his neighbors in the audience told him the rendition hit them hard. “It felt really powerful. And without that space, it just wouldn’t have occurred.”

Details

Healing Force of the Universe Record Donation Show
Featuring: Quasar (aka Brandon Jay), Sanglorians (Daniel Brummel) and The Acrylic.
Sunday, Dec. 14; 2 to 5 p.m.
1200 E. Walnut St., Pasadena
Tickets are $15 or you can donate 5 or more records at the door. More info here.

Topline:

The case: In September, the city settled a lawsuit brought forward by two brothers in their 70s who said they suffered serious injuries after an LAPD officer crashed into their car. Days before the $18 million settlement was reached, lawyers for the brothers said Feldstein Soto called an expert witness testifying for the plaintiffs and “attempted to ingratiate herself with him and asked him to make a contribution to her political campaign,” according to a sworn declaration to the court by the plaintiffs’ attorney, Robert Glassman.

The response: Feldstein Soto did not respond to an interview request. Her spokesperson said the settlement “had nothing to do” with the expert witness. Her campaign manager told LAist the city attorney had been making a routine fundraising call and did not know the person had a role in the case, nor that there were pending requests for her office to pay him fees.

What Jurado says: In a statement to LAist, Jurado said she wants to “make sure that the city’s legal leadership is guided by integrity and accountability, especially when their choices affect public trust, civic rights and the city’s limited resources."

What’s next: The motion needs to go through a few committees before reaching the full City Council. If it passes, the motion calls for the city attorney to “report to council in closed session within 45 days regarding the ethics breach violation and give updates to the City Council."

Every year in Santa Ana, Luis Cantabrana turns the front of his home into an elaborate altar in honor of La Virgen de Guadalupe that draws hundreds of visitors.

Along the front of the house, the multi-colored altar is filled with lights, flowers and a stained-glass tapestry behind a sculpture of the Lady of Guadalupe. Cantabrana’s roof also is lit up with the green, white and red lights that spell out “Virgen de Guadalupe” and a cross.

Visitors are welcomed with music and the smell of roses as they celebrate the saint, but this year’s gathering comes after a dark year for immigrant communities.

Luis Cantabrana stands in front of the stunning altar he built in front of his home in honor of La Virgen de Guadalupe. Every year, his display draws hundreds of visitors.

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Destiny Torres

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LAist

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Why do they celebrate? 

In 1513, the Virgin Mary appeared before St. Juan Diego between Dec. 9 and Dec. 12, asking him to build a church in her honor. Her image — a brown-skinned woman wearing a green veil with her hands together in prayer and an angel at her feet — miraculously appeared on his cloak.

To celebrate in Santa Ana, worshippers gathered late-night Wednesday and in the very early hours Dec. 12 to pray the rosary, sing hymns and celebrate the saint.

Cantabrana has hosted worshippers at his home for 27 years — 17 in Santa Ana.

The altar started out small, he said, and over the years, he added a fabric background, more lights and flowers (lots and lots of flowers).

“It started with me making a promise to la Virgen de Guadalupe that while I had life and a home to build an altar, that I would do it,” Cantabrana said. “Everything you see in photos and videos is pretty, but when you come and see it live, it's more than pretty. It's beautiful.”

The Santa Ana home's elaborate altar in honor of La Virgen de Guadalupe draws hundreds of visitors each year.

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Destiny Torres

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LAist

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Gathering in a time of turmoil 

Many also look to the Lady of Guadalupe for protection, especially at a time when federal enforcement has rattled immigrant communities.

“People don’t want to go to work, they don’t want to take their kids to school, but the love we have for our Virgen de Guadalupe,” Cantabrana said. “We see that la Virgen de Guadalupe has a lot of power, and so we know immigration [enforcement] won’t come here.”

Margarita Lopez of Garden Grove has been visiting the altar for three years with her husband. She’s been celebrating the Virgencita since she was a young girl. Honoring the saint is as important now as ever, she said.

“We ask, and she performs miracles,” Lopez said.

Claudia Tapia, a lifelong Santa Ana resident, said the Virgin Mary represents strength.

“Right now, with everything going on, a lot of our families [have] turned and prayed to the Virgen for strength during these times,” Tapia said. “She's a very strong symbol of Mexican culture, of unity, of faith and of resilience.”

See it for yourself

The shrine will stay up into the new year on the corner of Broadway and Camile Street.