By Sam Mulick, Correspondent
The new Charles White Park in Altadena will feature etchings in honor of its namesake artist and acorn-like structures inspired by Octavia Butler’s “Parable of the Sower.”
Los Angeles County, along with state funds and a donation from the Walt Disney Company, is rebuilding the park in northwest Altadena, which suffered significant damage from the Eaton fire.
Named after Charles White, an artist who documented African-American related subjects in paintings, drawings, lithographs and murals, and lived the last 20 years of his life in Altadena, the park was a gathering place for families to enjoy picnics, rollerskating and soccer games before it closed due to significant damage from the Eaton fire.
Los Angeles County Parks and Recreation and nonprofit Kounkuey Design Initiative shared the current design plans at the third and final community workshop on the rebuilding of Charles White Park on Sunday, May 16, at Fair Oaks Burger in Altadena.
Parents, grandparents, children and community members responded to the updated plans, while painting tiles together that will be immortalized as part of the design plans for the new park.
Messages on the tiles included, ‘rise up,’ ‘under the oak,’ ‘believe’ and ‘you are nature,’ with paintings of roses, butterflies, trees and leaves surrounding the words ‘Altadena’ and ‘Pasadena.’
The new design centers around the towering oak tree in the middle of the park, a more than 100-year-old tree that survived the Eaton fire with branches that sweep low and provide shade over park visitors. The design of the park’s reimagined play area is split into three sections, ‘The Understory,’ ‘The Woodlands’ and ‘The Arroyo,’ and features elements inspired by the work of Butler and White, said Jonathan Franklin, senior planning and design associate at KDI.
The Understory play area beneath the oak canopy pays homage to White’s studio in Altadena’s Meadows neighborhood, known for its thick tree canopy, while the Woodlands section features an acorn play structure – taken from Butler’s ‘Parable of the Sower,’ where survivors of a fire create a new community called Acorn. Children will be able to splash and play throughout water features in the surrounding Arroyo section.
Etchings on pavement and tables throughout the park will feature poems and visual art from White and artists he taught throughout his life. The designers worked with Charles White’s son, Ian White, and Disney Imagineers, to bring the design to life.
The plans also include seven native oak and sycamore trees throughout the park, after hearing the community’s desire for shade. The redesign will change Charles White Park from a passive park to an active park, with the building of a 4,000-square-foot community center, featuring bathrooms and a multipurpose room for art and community programming.
Steve Syms, who has lived in Altadena for 50 years and used to exercise at the park while his four kids played soccer, said the plans for the park recognized the Altadena community by honoring Charles White.
“Anything in honor of people that grew up here and lived here is a pleasure and a joy that should be recognized,” Syms said as he used a stencil to color in leaves and branches on his tile.
Keisha Franklin, whose favorite memories at the park include her three kids and three grandkids sliding down the playground while the surrounding community came together for soccer games and movies, said she appreciated the opportunity to give feedback on the redesign as she painted the word ‘believe’ on her tile.
Siobhan Goodwell, who grew up going to the park with her parents and siblings, said she was happy to learn how the designers were implementing elements of the work of Butler, an Altadena native. Once the park is rebuilt, she looks forward to playing with her nieces there, the same way her parents brought her there while growing up, she said.
“That was our park, right around the corner from our house,” she said. “The history of the park and the community is in there as well.”
But not all residents have been happy with the design process, or how the community feedback was taken into account.
Mira Dancy, who lives next to the park and went there every day with her 10- and 14-year-old daughters, said the designers should prioritize open green space in the park rather than a community center.
My daughter – her favorite thing to do was backflips, and running around, rollerskating the loop,” she said. “The park is small, and this sort of satellite area around it is where all the families hang out, and now there’s a giant building where people with families would actually have space for picnics. They keep saying that there are different picnic areas, but we need all of them.”
Dancy also said she believes there’s been a lack of transparency from the county on the community center and that the space where it is being built was previously designated for a new garden before more funding came in for the park after the Eaton fire.
She added that many of her neighbors were unable to give feedback on the design since they had to temporarily relocate outside Altadena after losing their homes in the fire.
Evan, who lives next to the park with his 5- and 9-year-old daughters and did not provide his last name, said he believes the county has been increasing the size of the community center with each new design draft and has not meaningfully taken into account community feedback. He added that the plans do not include adequate parking for the community center and could attract more homeless individuals.
“That modular building is blocking the mountain view of neighbors that have been here for 50 years, who live on Mountain View [Street],” he said. “We feel like the county’s being cagey about what it is, and they’re just trying to sneak it in under the guise of all this other Disney stuff.”
The building of the community center with bathrooms has been a priority for the park since 2010 when then-Congressman Adam Schiff, D-Pasadena, secured federal funds to revitalize the park, said Norma E. Garcia-Gonzalez, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation.
Garcia-Gonzalez stressed that community members have advocated for a community room for years since funding was made available for the park redesign, and the planned building is “rather small” for a community center. Funding for Charles White Park comes from an allocation from the state of California, Los Angeles County Measure A funds and a $5.5 million matching grant from Disney, Garcia-Gonzalez said.
In addition to the three workshops, representatives from the county appeared at four different pop-up events to seek feedback from the community on the plans and engaged with more than 600 community members, Franklin added.
The county first reopened Loma Alta Park in Altadena, home to the Central Altadena Little League, since it sustained the least amount of damage in the Eaton fire, Garcia-Gonzalez said. Focus then shifted to refurbishing Charles White Park.
After Charles White Park, the county will work toward raising funds for the rebuilding of the Altadena Golf Course, the Eaton Canyon Nature Center and Charles Farnsworth Park, Garcia-Gonzalez said.
The first phase of the Charles White Park rebuild is scheduled to begin construction in August, which will include pickleball courts, an adjacent patio with picnic tables, the northeast park entrance, accessible pathways and landscaping.
Phases two and three, which include the play area and community room, will continue to be revised with community input before going through the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works approval process.
Sam Mulick is a correspondent with the Southern California News Group.