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Willow Springs Park in Long Beach 131 years in the making
First four acres of green space completed
Long Beach- (Press Telegram)- 3/30/13- Willow Springs Park, the city’s largest new space since 1952, is slowly taking shape as Long Beach builds it in pieces. Willow Spring Park’s biggest advocate, Long Beach City Councilman James Johnson points out the seashells in the some of the land due to transplanting when the Long Beach marinas were built.
Many had tried over the last century to make something usable out of California Gardens, a hilltop site in Long Beach festooned with oil derricks and even more history.
Forgotten by most of the public, the 47-acre property is perhaps best known for its spring, once surrounded by a willow forest, that was used as the first water source for Long Beach in 1882. Today, those two natural features can be seen in the names of the streets that border the land to the north and south.
Over the years, developers have tried to place an auto mall, racetrack and housing development there. A decade ago, a $60 million plan to build a sports park fizzled.
The efforts ran into the same problems. Any project would most likely have to level the hills undulating across the property, account for the oil underfoot and deal with the on-site Newport-Inglewood fault, the progenitor of the 1933 Long Beach earthquake.
Considering the challenges and the long line of those who came and went before him, Councilman James Johnson could be forgiven for gloating as he recently showed off the first four acres of Willow Springs Park, the low-cost inner-city green space he has helped create from the old California Gardens.
But there was no hint of that, and Johnson displayed only the earnestness and passion for the project he has become known for since he was elected in 2010.
“Everyone when I came into office said it couldn’t be done,” Johnson said. “They told me that if it were easy it would have been done in the last 130 years. The attitude was, you’re going to talk about it like the last 30 council members, and like the last 30, you’re going to fail. ”
The councilman then enthusiastically acted as a tour guide for the park, showing a one-acre urban farm, a county detention basin that a grant application may transform into a wetland and the park’s crown jewel,
Long Beach City Councilman James Johnson points out the seashells in the some of the land due to transplanting when the Long Beach marinas were built.
Standing at Longview Point, visitors can see the region in a 50-mile radius, from Santa Catalina Island to the San Gabriel Mountains. On a clear day, the Hollywood sign is visible. The sights are marked by a 100-foot, in-ground crushed granite and glass map made by local artist Steve Elicker that was unveiled last year.
It’s a good spot on the Fourth of July – the park’s next big event this year, Johnson noted. “You can see 16 fireworks shows from here, from Torrance to Redondo Beach, to the Queen Mary, South L.A.,” he said. “The thing I like about it is they pay for them and we watch them. ”
The tenacity Johnson displayed getting Willow Springs Park off the ground – and now uses to champion its piece-by-piece expansion – has become a running joke among his fellow council members, with sly references to the earnest councilman and his pet park cropping up in meetings.
“It’s with a lot of love,” Vice Mayor Robert Garcia said of the ribbing. “He’s a great colleague and a great person to work with. ”
Garcia said the work done at Willow Springs by Johnson is impressive. “It shows how committed he’s to the community and he really believes in the potential of this park,” Garcia said.
Signal Hill Mayor Larry Forester, whose city surrounds the park and benefits from it, agreed.
“My favorite saying about James is I’m glad you he was bullheaded enough to see this through,” said Forester. “It just proves if you put your mind to it, things can be done. ” Eschewing credit, Johnson is quick thank Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe, who arranged a $250,000 grant to help the project, and Signal Hill Petroleum, which continues to operate oil pumps on the property, built fences and contributed other in-kind work. Signal Hill has also donated resources. Long Beach has spent $197,740 to date on the project.
For now, Johnson said he is happy seeing the newly-established park, Long Beach’s largest since 1952, slowly grow over time.
“It doesn’t have to happen all under my watch or anything, but if I can go ahead and move this forward so the next council member and the council member can continue to improve it, that’d be great,” said Johnson. Willow Springs Park is located at 2745 Orange Ave.
In ‘unusual’ public-private partnership, City of LB teams with SH Petroleum to open park
Willow Springs Park features 7,850-sq.-ft. map of region
Signal Hill — (Signal Tribune) — 12/07/12 — On its way to becoming the largest development of new park space in Long Beach since 1952, Willow Springs Park now boasts a 7,850-square-foot topographical map of the city as the ground covering for its plaza. The circular map is made of decomposed granite and tumbled glass, and it details the area’s watersheds and terrain, including prominent peaks and points, within 50 miles of the park.
On the morning of Oct. 31, the City of Long Beach hosted a dedication of the plaza in the park, which is located at 2745 Orange Ave. forth District Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe, Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster, 7th District Councilmember James Johnson and Signal Hill Petroleum COO/Executive Vice President David Slater were all at the unveiling, which took place the day before the park’s official grand opening for the public.
“I’m always excited to announce new parks,” Foster said. “We live in a built up, urban area, so getting this new, green space is really terrific.” The mayor briefly described the map, on which he and the other officials were standing, by saying, “It’s an integrated map of the watersheds of Southern California, and all the prominent locations are marked out with their longitude and latitude.”
Johnson thanked Foster for being supportive of the park, which is in the councilmember’s district and has been a pet project of his. “for over a hundred years, the city has had several large parks, all on the east side of town,” Johnson said. “This is the first regional park for the city west of Redondo Avenue.”
Johnson acknowledged Supervisor Knabe’s role in getting the park opened, and he also thanked Slater and Craig Barto of Signal Hill Petroleum, echoing an earlier remark of Foster’s that the park is a product of the private sector as well as government planning. “This is unusual, because it is a public-private partnership,” Johnson said. He also thanked the Arts Council of Long Beach, which sponsored the Nov. 1 jazz concert there the next day. “One thing I think this site is going to be [is a] great performance site,” Johnson said. “Right here at the highest point in the city, next to the highest tree in the city, you can come, watch the sun set, listen to great music, and see, on a clear day, the HOllywood sign, Catalina Island, the Pacific Ocean – it’s a tremendous opportunity, to see from downtown LA to downtown Long Beach.”
He then reflected on the long journey it has been to open the public space. “You know, we bought this land over 130 years ago, in 1882, and, after decades of talking about what we want to do with it, and over a century of ownership, tomorrow we’ll finally open it up for public access,” Johnson said.
“Tomorrow will be the first phase of what will eventually be Willow Springs Park, a 47-acre, regional, open-space opportunity – not just for one part of Long Beach, but for Long Beach, Signal Hill, Cerritos, Lakewood, and all our surrounding cities, and southern Los Angeles County and northern Orange County. Tomorrow, after 130 years, we’ll finally dedicate this beginning, this four acres, as a park of perpetuity. Tomorrow, we celebrate not just the opening of this highest point in the city of Long Beach, but the beginning of wetlands restoration, the beginning of access to open space for all communities in Long Beach and beyond, and the beginning of water-quality improvement, not just of this area, but the Los Angeles River and our beaches and beyond.”
Johnson explained that Willow springs Park is home to two of the historic southern California wetlands that have diminished over the years. “This entire property drains to the LA River and then to the beaches,” he said. “when we improve this property, and improve some water retention, we will clean up the LA River and our beach front.”