Since its creation in 1866, Pershing Square in downtown Los Angeles has had many names and taken many forms. In the early 1950s, the whole thing was dug up so that a 5-level underground parking structure could be built. This photo was taken in 1968 by which time the grass and trees planted in the thin layer of top soil had had a chance to take root, but oh dear, the whole thing looks rather forlorn, doesn’t it?
This is how Pershing Square looked in May 2022. Not much better, is it?
Ever since John Parkinson’s design was uprooted in 1951, over 80 years ago, no one has been pleased with anything that’s replaced it. Ever hear anyone say “Let’s go spend some time at Pershing Square!”
It’s been at least ten years since they had a design competition that’s amounted to nothing.
There’s a website: The Pershing Square Restoration Society that advocates to “Restore Pershing Square Not Redesign It.”
Paraphrasing an essay I read once:
“It is not too late for Pershing Square to again be a great public space, but it’s going to require great courage by our civic leaders to reject false and alarming narratives of “decadent” misbehavior and harm to phantom businesses, and to stand up for the precepts on which America was founded. Fear is no way to design a city. And it will require that our people involve themselves in a space that defies involvement, and demand something better for themselves and for people not at all like them.
Let the beautiful and powerful images of Pershing Square past, sent across the early decades of the 20th century, give us all a star to steer by. Let’s not be afraid of one another or of how our fellow citizens “might” behave. Let us instead make a fine place in which to be fine people, and see what surprises await us there.
___
Amen.