Friends of the Hollywood Cap Park

FHCP has been an inspiration since its inception. Hollywood was literally torn apart in the early 1950's with the building of the 101 freeway and the Hollywood Cap park will reunify the neighborhoods torn apart, will create green space in an area of Los Angeles severely lacking in outdoor space for low-income communities and will improve the air quality and livability for all the citizens of Hollywood. The involvement from the beginning of the school children in supporting the Park through letters, ideas and volunteering has been an inspiration to me. There aren't a lot of projects that are joyful, but the Hollywood Cap Park is certainly that for me.

Having the Hollywood Central Park available to the community has so many obvious benefits, but none more important than what it will do for the quality of life for the kids in our community. I can’t image what my life would have been like without “outdoor play”. Just being able to run and jump and PLAY. I know having a space like the HCP, would make the boys and girls of Hollywood healthier, smarter, more optimistic and just plain happier. . . and all of us who work and live in Hollywood would benefit.

I can't think of a more mission-driven and dedicated nonprofit organization than the Friends of the Hollywood Central Park. They're doing what many people said was impossible: putting a 38 acre public park on top of the Hollywood Freeway. The organization is financially efficient. It's management is top-notch. I would recommend to anyone that they support this organization, and I am fortunate to have the opportunity as a member of the Board of such an important nonprofit.

As a Hollywood resident since 1993, I am starving for the option to exercise and meet friends in a green space without first polluting (by getting into my car to go elsewhere). Hollywood is the pulse of LA, and yet our community lacks a heart — somewhere all residents can come together. Hollywood Central Park will beautify and unite our freeway-divided neighborhoods, help detoxify our smog-stained air, and provide an alternative to concrete for children (and adults!) to play, unwind, congregate and thrive... all while generating over 4,500 jobs. This is that rare project through which EVERYBODY wins: the current and future residents of Hollywood, tourists, local businesses, the environment here and in surrounding areas, and the local economy. Hollywood deserves this park, and Friends of Hollywood Cap Park deserves our help making it a reality.

This is an important and much needed project for so many reasons...the fact that jobs will be created that will benefit all of Los Angeles is only one aspect of why the green roof that will support the Hollywood Cap Park is something I support fully!

A large park in central Hollywood will serve those most in need! Capping the 101 Freeway is a great way to achieve this and it will provide direct access to the most densely, under served population in Hollywood and East Hollywood. I cannot think of another single, better public works endeavor for all of Los Angeles than this! Mitch O'Farrell

Hollywood Cap Park is the best idea since the Hollywood sign! I am president of the Hollywood Dell Civic Association. A nieghborhood of about 1000 homes in the hills above Hollywood. We have a baby boom & kid explsion going on. These kids NEED a place to play. There is nothing in the neighborhood for them at all. This is a fabulous and MUCH NEEDED idea. We just GOTTA build it - and I KNOW "they will come!". Patti Negri, Hollywood Resident, Hollywood Buisness Owner.

Hollywood Cap Park - an awesome, visionary idea whose time has come here in Los Angeles !!

Cannot recommend this enough, and am so excited to see it come to reality in the years to come.

Los Angeles desperately needs more parks, but yet - we have no space to do this. This is not only the best idea, but the only idea that is feasible, practical, and will make this great city - even greater.

Greg

Friends of the Hollywood Cap Park is a wonderful organization dedicated to the ambitious project of bringing a true "Central Park" to downtown Hollywood. It is aimed at creating much-needed open space in a park-poor, economically-disadvantaged community and in the process promises to serve local families. It is a wonderful mission that will benefit residents and businesses alike.

40,000 children live within one mile of the proposed 44 acre Hollywood Freeway Cap Park. This park will not only give these children a safe place to play, but benefit Hollywood as a whole through increased tourism and economic stimulus for investment in the surrounding areas. This park will serve as a model for all communities in Los Angeles and the nation.

The idea is genius. We create a park from airspace to serve the community. We couldn't find 44 acres of continguous space/land anywhere else in Hollywood.

I've supported the idea of the park since I first heard about it. As a Board member of the Park, and Board Member/President of Central Hollywood Neighborhood Council, I'm honored to advocate for the park.

This project will bring jobs to our local economy, provide open space for our community, and beautify the area not only above the freeway, but around the freeway -- soon to be parkland -- as well.

I would be a prouder Angelino to have a cap park over one of the busiest freeways in California. It's an innovative, aesthetically-appealing solution to too much concrete and too few open gathering places in Los Angeles.

Hollywood needs this park! The dearth of greenspace in this dense urban area makes this project even more important to the health and welfare of the Hollywood Community.

I joined the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council specifically to get involved with getting more parks into the area. Once elected, and to my delight, I was more than pleased to discover the Friends of the Hollywood Cap Park organization was working so diligently on procuring 44 acres of green space that far exceeded my dreams.

As someone that has just recently become engaged in this project, I can say that this charity is represented by all facets of the Hollywood neighborhood and business community. It is great to see these diverse interests become aligned for this much needed park in Hollywood. The park would create skilled labor jobs and bring beautification to an area that currently realizes significant blight,. It would improve the environment by eliminating significant vehicle driving to far away parks by local residents and creating significant green space where concrete and asphalt now exist. It would likely promote busines investment in immediately surrounding areas where there is now neglect. Perhaps most importantly, it would create a sense of place by ceating a venue where children can play, adults can socialize and families can spend time together in a serene environment.

I came to Los Angeles seeking the utopia of the marriage of the urban form to the suburban environment. It was a place with promise and creativity that was most represented in Hollywood. However, as many others have before me, I realized that this utopian experiment had come with substantioal costs. The splitting of communities by human arterial ways, the loss of connection to neighborhoods and the evaporation of true public open space. The idea of this park is to take the physical liabilities offered by the freeway system and return them to the splendor of thier original intent: that of providing much needed transportation connectors within a dense urban area without the loss of community. In fact, a park on top of the 101 freeway offers this opportunity by reconnecting the adjacent neighborhoods, providing one of the largest areas of flat public open space in the City Los Angeles and giving Hollywood a jewel of creative engineering worthy of the most fantastic sets of the legendary moviemakers who gave Hollywood its worldwide renown.

Capping the 101 Freeway to address decades of environmental and social justice impacts is an idea which deserves attention. "Friends of the Hollywood Cap Park" has been working diligently to raise awareness of the amazing possiblities and deserves your support.

The cap park is a visionary proposal to physically re-connect the community that had been cleaved in the 1950s with construciton of the 101 freeway with badly needed green space. Can't wait.

Friends of the Hollywood CAP Park have the energy and vision to make this project become a reality. Many of the neighborhoods lack parks for families and children to enjoy. My greatest memories as a child were at a park playing until the sun went down. I look forward to seeing this happen so that children living in Hollywood and East Hollywood can share in that same experience.

I think it is a great idea. Not only do we need to bury our freeways for noise, pollution, blight and the like, but most importantly to reconnect our communitites. The freeways of the past literally decimated entire neighborhoods. Parks, cap parks in particular, are a great way to recconect them. Plus, they can create new development opportunities that could potentially pay for the parks itself, and ultimately improve the quality of life for all residents; local and regional...

Hollywood is in desperate need of a safe place for kids to play. The other day my friend came over with her over active 5 year old. There was no place for the kid to go to blow off steam. Literally none. Hollywood needs this park.

I live in the Hollywood area in a building with lots of children. We have a small backyard out back, fills with pit holes, mud patches, a splintering wood fence, and weeds, but since our area has so little green space, lots of the kids from the area come to play here. Many games of freeze tag are played in our small backyard. And although I'm thankful for the space, the children's excitement over our small patch of scraggly grass shows me how much Hollywood needs more park space with areas for kids to play that are easily accessible for families. I'm excited for what Hollywood Cap Park is doing and want to see this park come to fruition in Hollywood.

The Hollywood Central Park will reinvigorate Hollywood and usher in a new "green" era for Los Angeles like so many other cap parks have for fortunate cities across the country. From Seatle to Boston, cap parks have revolutionized urban communities with critical open space, recreational and arts space and new civic centers. Further, Hollywood is one of the most park-starved communities in the countries. In addition to providing critical open space for all the diverse ethnicities living in Hollywood, the cap park would close the physical fizzure through the heart of Hollywood that was created when the freeway was built. In that sense the park is also a tool for healing. Beyond its local impacts, the park will be a world-class destination for the region. Builting it today will provide the kind of job- and economic infusion that California badly needs.

Hollywood has one of the lowest park per capita ratios of any City in California. This Park will provide recreational access across a large swathe of Hollywood for children from low-income households. The Park will provide an extra playing field next to the new Helen Bernstein High School and improve the air quality by capping off the freeway as it cuts through Hollywood and by the adjacent High School. The Park will heal and connect the division in Hollywood that was created when the freeway was built and the Park will help our economy by providing over 45,000 jobs while it is being built and many permanent jobs afterwards. I have felt honored to be on the Board for this great project that will be green in every sense of the word.
Susan Polifronio

There are so many reasons to support this nonprofit. It is working to add 44 acres of new green space to a park-poor area of Los Angeles. The park will help filter traffic noise and air pollution from the 101 Freeway. It will reconnect two sides of Hollywood, now cut in half by the road. It will create thousands of living wage jobs. It will provide a place for children and families, tourists and locals to relax, play, read, sit, stroll, and explore. It is an incredibly exciting and optimistic project that will improve the lives of thousands.

I have spent the past three years working in Hollywood and without a doubt Hollywood Central Park is the most exciting project I have had the pleasure to be a part of. When I learned of the initiative to build a 44-acre park above the 101 as it went through Hollywood, I knew that I needed to be a part of the team that was going to make it happen. The park will transform Hollywood into a place where locals and international visitors alike will revel in its creative natural environs. I love the Park!!!!!

Please join our effort to bring the park dream into reality!

The reality is that this part of Hollywood has less than 3% of the City Standard for neighborhood parkland of 4 acres/1000 residents. The surrounding neighborhoods are predominantly poor and minority and are completely built out. These air rights already belong to the people of California. I understand the park will clean the air from the two tunnels which will improve the health of the local residents and visitors.

This is a well organized, hard working effective group. As an Architect and Landscape Architect, as a Board Member of the local Neighborhood Council, and as a nearby resident, I strongly support the construction of this street level mile long park over this already depressed section of the Hollywood Freeway.

This effort, quite simply, represents the healing of a community literally cut in half by a freeway decades ago. It benefits: in enhancing public health and safety by buffering neighborhoods from traffic; in creating habitat by bringing nature back to the city; in making common ground for civic life; and in giving space for engagement of the imagination, are incalculable, especially for the many thousands of children whose lives will be profoundly changed by the presence of this park. This park is an investment in the future of this community and beyond.

I have been involved with the Hollywood Cap Park for several years prior to the Friends of the Hollywood Cap Park, Inc. being organized. I am a resident of Hollywood and have been involved with revitalizing this community for over 30 years. One thing we lack is sufficient park space. This is one reason I have been so passionate about creating this innovative cap park over the 101 Freeway. I love urban parks and the Hollywood Cap Park would not only be a wonderful addition to our community, but it would also improve the freeway and street infrastructure in the area. It would also be a major contributor to the continued redevelopment of this wonderful neighorhood.

I have been involved with the Hollywood Cap Park since its inception. Parks over freeways have been popular for many years in other parts of the US and Europe. The concept is not a 'wild' idea; one of the the Los Angeles airport runways is over the Sepulveda 8 lane highway...no different than covering a portion of the 101!

As a recent transplant to Hollywood, I have come to love many things about Hollywood - the history, the architecture, the restaurants, the Walk of Fame and the people. What's been challenging has been the lack of open green space to relax, think and take a break from urban Hollywood. When I learned of the initiative to build a 44-acre park above the 101 as it went through Hollywood, I knew that I needed to be a part of the team that was going to make it happen. The park will transform Hollywood into a place where locals and international visitors alike will revel in its creative natural environs. Stay posted, contribute, volunteer -- give your support!

What a fantastic idea to create park space over thin air. This is an amazingly creative AND safe way to create much needed parkland in a notoriously park starved community. Good Luck!

What a fantastic idea to put a 44 acre park over an existing below grade freeway. This park will reconnect a city previously split when the freeway was built and provide a wonderful place for kids and adults to enjoy a beautiful park. We hope that a portion of the park will include a soccer field across from a new high school, an amphitheatre for entertainment, walking trails, vistas to downtown Los Angeles and the ocean, and a green oasis in an otherwise dense, urban city with no park in sight for miles!

Two years of active participation by the Board and support from many public and private companies around Hollywood have seen this project develop into more than just a dream. We are excited to work on something so important to this community.

This charity seeks to create a beautiful and much needed park in east Hollywood. The park would help the environment by allowing people to walk across spaces they now need to drive around. It would help the economy by bringing jobs to the area. It would help the neighborhood by bringing people together in a park where children can play, adults can socialize and all can admire the beauty. It's a win win win.

I have never been around a group of people so professional and dedicated to do so much good for the Hollywood community and the entire City of Los Angeles.

I was introduced to the charity by a friend who is on the board. The charity is designed to create badly needed green space in Hollywood, CA. The people involved are totally committed to creating an area that will give this community a beautiful place to go with their friends and families. They are building an amazing dream and should be supported.

Not only will this park create 44 acres of green space in a city known for its lack of green space but it will create 45,000 jobs in an economy struggling to to find enough jobs to support its people. I support this project 110%.

As a stakeholder and advocate for the East Hollywood Community, I give my unqualified support for the Friends of the Hollywood Cap Park. I can think of no other project in the entire country more worthy of support than the effort to build a park over the 101 Freeway in the heart of Hollywood. As President of the East Hollywood Neighborhood Council, I represent the more than 53,000 residents of East Hollywood who live without a park within walking distance of their homes. This lack of parks and open space is a crisis in this community, and Friends of the Hollywood Cap Park are tireless in their efforts to bring this desperately-needed open space to the people of Hollywood. There, literally, is no time to waste. In ten years, an overweight seven-year-old in East Hollywood will be a diabetic, facing a lifetime of health problems. The Hollywood Cap Park would not only bring necessary open space to one of the most densely-populated neighborhoods in the country, it would alleviate the serious health issues faced by children growing in close proximity to the freeway. Studies have shown that children who live within 1,000 feet of a freeway suffer significantly higher incidences of diseases like autism and asthma. The Friends of the Hollywood Cap Park will not rest until this dream is a reality. They need all the support they can get.

How about a 44 acre park to be built over the 101 Freeway in Hollywood, one of the most green space deprived areas in the country? How about the creation of approx. 4500 jobs for local workers right here in Los Angeles to help stimulate our anemic economy? How about improving our air quality, reducing Global Warming & providing a place where people who live here & millions of visitors from all over the world can destress & enjoy nature? Sounds like a high priority project to me.... :)

Brian Folb.

It's a fantastic organization. Topping off the freeway with a park in an area that is desolate of green space is brilliant. It combines stuff for kids and exercisers with an arts presence and just the facility to sit and "take the air" for us geezers. It will be absolutely perfect for this community which needs it desperately.

I worked on helping raise money for it and we actually did!

From an idea incubated by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, to the founding of Friends of the Hollywood Cap Park, the notion of capping the Hollywood Freeway with a 44-acre urban street level park has motivated our community.

Imagine Progress is what Friends of the Hollywood Central Park is about.

We imagine the Park as landmark infrastructure project that will create 45,000 direct and indirect jobs over 10 years, provide economic stimulus and long term economic security, provide healthy communities and provide children with open green space in which to grow and thrive.

We imagine the Park as an investment in our children, our community and our future. We imagine the Park transforming Hollywood’s disadvantaged communities into thriving economic engines.

The Park began as an idea more than 27 years ago. And in 2006, progressed from a Hollywood Chamber of Commerce initiative to a Hollywood Community coalition, with unwavering support from Council President Eric Garcetti and CRA/LA and finally to creation of the nonprofit organization, Friends of the Hollywood Central Park, dedicated to creating the Hollywood Central Park.

Our progress takes comes in many forms. In Washington, D.C. we made great progress by advocating with Congressional leaders. Congressman Becerra submitted a FY 2011 appropriations request on our behalf. Although the request did not make it to the final budget, it was nevertheless a major achievement to begin our second year.

Our Technical Committee made outstanding progress with its EIR pre-development documents and design competition and RFP.

We made progress within the planning and architectural communities when we received recognition and awards from American Planning Association, Westside Urban Forum, Urban Land Institute and American Society of Landscape Architects.

We have an impressive agenda for 2011 as we aim to re-think and re-imagine our physical environment through the creation of open green space which will feed our hearts, nourish our souls and re-define our relationships to each other. FHCP is dedicated to the noble, worthy and socially significant cause of building the Hollywood Central Park.

FHCP is honored to begin its third year with your friendship and encouragement. We hope we have succeeded in stirring your imagination and inspiring you to join us in our ambitious undertaking. With the energy generated from our common vision there is no doubt WE CAN and WE WILL build the Hollywood Central Park.

Imagine Progress.

I remember hearing about the dream of a park over the 101 freeway in Hollywood at a Hollywood Chamber meeting years ago. To see what great progress has been made is nothing short of inspiring. The Hollywood Cap Park will offer true green space in a urban landscape and reconnect two halves of one of the most famous neighborhoods in the world!

The idea of having a park being built on top of the 101 freeway is just amazing. A place where kids can come and play and families can spend time with each other just sounds like a great idea.

It will allow a community to come together, new jobs will be formed and it will be a great addition to what Hollywood stands for.

When I was first introduced to the idea for the Hollywood Central Park I was amazed at the concept and excited by the vision. Imagine a gloriously green park that sits on top of a freeway and reunites neighborhoods where many children have no place to play. 44 acres of green space would help to bring jobs as well as a grand location for people to reunite. Outdoor space is so needed for our children to get out and play and breathe! It's a great idea that is positive on so many levels.