| Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area | |
| Map: | USA California#USA |
| Location: | Los Angeles County, California, United States |
| Nearest City: | Los Angeles, California |
| Coordinates: | 34.0086°N -118.3653°W |
| Area: | 401acres |
| Established: | 1984 |
| Governing Body: | California Department of Parks and Recreation |
Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area, or Kenneth Hahn Park, is a state park unit of California in the Baldwin Hills Mountains of Los Angeles. The park is managed by the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation.[1] As one of the largest urban parks and regional open spaces in the Greater Los Angeles Area, many have called it "L.A.'s Central Park".[2] The 401sp=usNaNsp=us park was established in 1984.[3] The land was previously the Baldwin Hills Reservoir, which failed catastrophically in the 1963 Baldwin Hills Dam disaster.
In 1988, four years after it opened, the Los Angeles Times noted that:
Hahn Park offers walking and hiking trails with some of the area's best scenic vistas.[4]
The park is a destination for picnics and family gatherings, having 100 picnic tables in various picnic grounds around the park. The park also has four playgrounds, a half basketball court, a multi-purpose field, and a sand volleyball court. Garden areas include a Japanese garden with a lotus pond and waterfall. In 2017, a 9-hole disc golf course was added along the north bowl.
There are six sets of bathrooms for visitors. Restrooms are locked at 5:30 p.m. daily.
There is a lake for fishing, stocked monthly with trout or catfish, depending on the weather season.[5]
Since 2004, the park, primarily the bowl, has been the site of the Southern California USATF Cross Country Championships.[6]
There are at least of walking paths through the park. LA County Trails app for Android and iPhone has detailed maps and route guides.[7]
Admission is charged for cars entering the park on weekends and holidays only (weekdays free). Transferable annual passes are available.[8]
While there may be a fee for entry by vehicle, there is no charge to visitors using transit or hikers and cyclists entering the park. The county operates a circuit bus that visits the park every half hour on weekends and holidays,[9] and a map of nearby bus routes and bike paths is available.[10]
Kenneth Hahn SRA is one of the few California State Parks that does not accept the “annual day use pass.”
The park is home to urban coyotes, California ground squirrel, elusive gray foxes, raccoons, striped skunk, desert cottontail rabbits, opossums, and California quail, among other animals.
“Hummingbirds, hawks, northern mockingbirds and blue scrub-jays flock to Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area,” and the park is a nexus for the Black Birders movement.[11] The Baldwin Hills area is the nesting grounds for 41 species of birds, and the Audubon Society offers monthly birdwatching walks.[12]
The park is immediately adjacent to the 1000sp=usNaNsp=us Inglewood Oil Field, which, when combined with the parkland, provides an unusually large habit range for Los Angeles urban wildlife. Kenneth Hahn and adjacent Baldwin Hills parks host four species of snakes: gopher snake, California kingsnake, ring-necked snake and red coachwhip. Warning signs to the contrary, rattlesnakes “don’t fare well in urban areas” and there are no rattlesnakes in the Baldwin Hills at this time.[13]
The park's native habitat is the Coastal sage scrub plant community, with oak woodlands in northern arroyos and bunch grass grasslands on the southwestern windy and exposed terrain. Native plants present in the park include California sagebrush, coyote brush and prickly pear. Invasive species in the park include black mustard, castor bean, milk thistle, agave, ice plant, nasturtium, and lantana.
“The native plant community has been greatly altered by the hand of man, so much so that botanists describe Baldwin Hills flora as being in a condition called disclimax,” reported the L.A. Times in 1988.
The Olympic Forest includes “sea hibiscus from Seychelles, oleander from Algeria, sweet bay from Greece, Cajeput from Papua New Guinea…the paper mulberry from Toga, the carob from Cyprus, the date palm from Egypt.”
The Baldwin Hills were part of the homeland of the Tongva people, inhabited by them for over 8,000 years.[15] In the 19th century the area was part of the Spanish and Mexican Ranchos of California era, with the Rancho Rincon de los Bueyes and Rancho La Cienega o Paso de la Tijera in and around the present day park.[16] As Los Angeles quickly grew during the 20th century, only the rugged terrain of this section of the Baldwin Hills protected it from being developed.
In 1932 the area east of the park was used as the site of the first Olympic Village ever built, for the 1932 Summer Olympics in the 10th Olympiad, which Los Angeles hosted.[17]
In the late 1940s the city transportation master plan included building a new north-south freeway, the Laurel Canyon Freeway-SR-170, that would have bisected the Baldwin Hills and park site where La Cienega Boulevard currently crosses the hills.
Between 1947 and 1951, the Baldwin Hills Reservoir was built here. In the 1963 Baldwin Hills Dam disaster, the reservoir's dam suffered a catastrophic collapse, washing away residences in the canyon, flooding the landmark Baldwin Hills Village (now Village Green), and killing five residents who had not evacuated. The news coverage of the disaster was the first time aerial footage was televised live.[18] Before the county demolished the ruined reservoir bowl and converted the land into parking and picnic areas circa 1990s, “Fennel, chamise and dandelion pushed through the cracked cement bottom of the reservoir” and it was overlooked by a “observation tower” that resembled “a castle from the Middle Ages.”
The bowl of the reservoir (now called Janice’s Green Valley) has been planted with grass and trees but remains visible and is the site of a popular jogging track.[19]
Los Angeles County Supervisors began negotiations to acquire the site of the Baldwin Hills Dam disaster in 1976. It opened in 1983 as the '''Baldwin Hills State Recreational Area''', and was renamed in 1988 to honor Supervisor Hahn and his preservation efforts there.[20]
At the time the area was also a very popular spot for the then-new sport of motocross, locals calling it “Motorcycle Hill.” An abandoned oil well at the top of the hill was decorated with sparkle lights during the holiday season and looked like a giant Christmas tree at night. [21]
The park is named after Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors member Kenneth Hahn, also the father of James Hahn, former Los Angeles mayor, and Janice Hahn, former U.S. Representative and now one of the five County Supervisors.
The park is home to the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Tree Grove.[22]
The park, which is part of the greater Ballona Creek watershed, is now connected to nearby open spaces across La Cienega Blvd. via the Park to Playa Bridge. Hahn Park is a keystone segment of the Park to Playa Trail, completed 2020.[23]