Grand plans for Grand Park

Election night in Grand Park, the first in a series of "Park Your Politics" events.

“All politics is local,” or so goes the saying coined by the late House Speaker Tip O’Neill.

This Monday, January 21, the newly-minted Grand Park will embody that maxim at “Hail to the Chiefs,” a community celebration of Martin Luther King Day and President Obama’s inauguration. The program will feature musicians including hip-hop artist Mathai, who’ll incorporate King’s “I Have A Dream” speech into his act. DJ Anthony Valadez of public radio station KCRW will drop clips of Obama’s inauguration into his typically eclectic set. Attendees will be invited to write their thoughts in a “Letter to the Prez,” a large scroll that will be delivered to the White House.

“Hail to the Chiefs” will mark the second installment of the “Park Your Politics” series, which was launched on election night last year. It’s one of a number of evolving programs aimed at attracting diverse audiences to the park, which fully opened last October.

“The idea of coming together to celebrate those moments that are memorable, that’s the thing we want to create in the park,” said Lucas Rivera, the park’s director. “We want to be the place that, when you are older and reminiscing, you’re telling the kids about your time in Grand Park.”

So far, the park has hosted 23 events, attracting an estimated 30,000 visitors, in addition to those who’ve been participating in a number of ongoing programs in the park, such as noontime yoga.

The biggest draw so far was the National Dance Day Celebration, which kicked off the park’s grand opening and featured “So You Think You Can Dance’s” Nigel Lythgoe. The audience-participation event attracted about 5,000 dancers and onlookers. The election night party, meanwhile, drew about 2,000 celebrants and coverage on CNN. Some events that organizers predicted would have modest turnouts have performed better than expected. They anticipated, for example, that about 20 dogs and their owners would show up for a “Pooch Party” but ended up with more than 100.

Julia Diamond, Grand Park’s programming director, said the park’s most immediate beneficiaries have been its “captive audience,” the people who work, play and do business in the surrounding buildings, like the courthouse, Hall of Administration, Music Center and City Hall.

Music Center staff members, who handle programming for the park, pride themselves on reaching a wide audience with diverse entertainment and activities. In the end, though, it’s all about growing a sense of community at downtown L.A.’s largest outdoor public venue.

“The park should always be fun and multi-sensory—great music, great food and playing with the dog you’re going to bring,” Diamond said. “The way we design our events, we let people have a hand in how they design their experience.”

For the future, Rivera and Diamond envision literacy programs for children, events for seniors, arts and crafts festivals and programming featuring the interactive Arthur J. Will Memorial Fountain. The park also has begun the process of getting its own farmers market. As for the “Park Your Politics” series, plans are in the works for live debates with local high school and university students and a speaker series based on whatever’s “hot” in politics at the time.

Larger offerings also are on the horizon, including events on the 4^th of July and New Year’s Eve, which Diamond said wasn’t done this year because the park was just getting its staff in place.

“When we do New Year’s Eve,” Diamond said, “we want to do it really well.…Every event we get to know our audience a little better; every event we get to know our space a little better. What Grand Park is to me is a gathering place, and our city really doesn’t have another natural spot to gather.”

Posted 1/17/13