Tom LaBonge honored with a native plant forest
Atop Mt. Hollywood in Griffith Park
FORMER Mayor Eric Garcetti at the hike for Tom LaBonge.
Photos by Gary Leonard
Four score, or more, hikers headed from Griffith Observatory up to the top of Mt. Hollywood on Jan. 7 to dedicate the Tom LaBonge Memorial Forest. Family and friends including former Mayor Eric Garcetti saluted the late, revered councilman of the former Fourth District. It was the second anniversary of his unexpected death in 2021. Installed as a project of the nonprofit Los Angeles Parks Foundation, the planting area consists of native shrubs and trees that have been added to the space where LaBonge is said to have personally carried and sown baby California live oak trees.
DEDICATION of the Tom LaBonge Memorial Forest at the top of Griffith Park involved many, including former Mayor Eric Garcetti, center left, with — to his left — Parks Foundation Executive Director Carolyn Ramsay and (holding scissors) LaBonge’s widow Brigid and daughter Mary-Catherine, with the LaBonges’ son Charles between them.
The location, with spectacular views of the city that LaBonge loved so much, is an easy hike of a bit more than a mile from the Observatory parking lot.
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