The L.A. Conservancy's occasional day-long driving tour events always offer new and interesting insights into lesser-known parts of the city. (Read our recap of the organization's event around downtown's 7th Street here, and "It's a Mod, Mod, Mod City" event here.)
In the case of this Saturday's "We Heart Garden Apartments!" – a one-day tour of three "villages in the city" -- it's a chance to get up close to some of the mid-century garden apartments that you may have seen from the outside, but not much more than that.
Details:
Imagine living in a garden oasis in the middle of America’s second-largest city. Thousands of people do, and it’s a unique and endangered way of life in development-prone L.A. Here’s a chance to see what life is like in historic garden apartments, “villages in the city” that could never be built today.
Los Angeles has one of the largest collections of garden apartments in the nation, with nearly forty built between the late 1930s and the mid-1950s. Why are these communities so special?
· They put people first, connecting people to each other and to nature
· They are forward-thinking, blending housing needs with innovative architecture, landscape design, and city planning
· They’re still great places to live today
Ironically, part of what makes garden apartments so special – their low density and vast open space – makes them increasingly vulnerable to demolition and redevelopment.
The tour will provide rare public access to Village Green in Baldwin Hills (1941), Chase Knolls in Sherman Oaks (1948), and Lincoln Place in Venice (1951). Guests will also learn about the L.A. Conservancy’s efforts to preserve Wyvernwood in Boyle Heights (1939), L.A.’s first large-scale garden apartment community.
Saturday, November 1
10 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
$35 general public, $25 L.A. Conservancy members and tour site residents, $15 students, $10 kids 12 and under
Go to www.laconservancy.org/gardentour for tickets.
