Update: Larchmont Central Park(let) — the discussion continues…

| July 25, 2024 | 0 Comments

POSSIBLE Larchmont Central Park(let) as seen in an aerial concept rendering.

So what is happening with the concept being discussed by the Larchmont Boulevard Association (LBA) for improving the Boulevard with some permanent, generally available outdoor meeting and dining space — a Larchmont Central Park(let)?

The concept has been under discussion since the beginning of the year. It initially was detailed publicly in March in the Larchmont Buzz and in a Larchmont Chronicle story available at tinyurl.com/y2uy6u2h.

This idea — if it has community interest and support — is a multi-year undertaking, for sure. Discussion continues. LBA board members spoke about the matter again at their meeting in early July. The LBA seeks to stimulate public discussion of both the parklet idea and the conceptual preliminary design approaches that might be used. Accompanying this brief update are some of the images that have been circulated in the past. Readers are encouraged to share their thoughts with the LBA, care of its Beautification Committee chair, Romi Cortier, at romicortier@me.com.

PARKLET concept shown in a sidewalk view of the city’s central surface parking lot.

Comments pro

As has been reported previously, there have been enthusiastic comments expressing support, often with helpful caveats, such as when Nora Houndalas, Windsor Square resident and former Boulevard proprietor of Le Petit Greek for decades (and now running Greek Eats LA on Third Street), wrote:

“I’ve always thought it would be a great idea to have a parklet. I love the drawings. Biggest difficulties will be in keeping it clean (maybe local school kids for community service rotate washing it down and picking up litter weekly) and, sadly, how will you keep homeless from camping there? But I absolutely love it.

“The trend for lunch over the past 15 years has been more grab and go — but let’s get people out of their offices or work-from-home life and under the open sky and trees — listen to the birds in those beautiful trees. Imagine board game days there and Rubik’s Cube or old-fashioned Yoyo contests and lessons. Mahjong summer nights or chess day in the parklet. A quartet evening. Meet your neighbors coffee hour. The list is endless. It’s a great idea! And it’ll leave al fresco for restaurants and not take-out places.”

Movie nights?

Recently, Larchmont Village Neighborhood resident Nina Gregory wrote to the Chronicle about another community programming idea that could relate to the parking lot: “I’d like to offer an idea of the Boulevard reviving movie-going as a neighborhood activity and the LBA sponsoring a movie night where people can come, sit together and watch a film relevant to the time and place. Could be for Halloween and we watch Halloween 3, which has scenes filmed on Larchmont Boulevard. Maybe we could even invite director John Carpenter!”

SUNDAY Farmers’ Market and the possible Central Park(let).  Renderings by JMS Design Associate

Certainly, the large blank wall on the Rhodes School of Music building on the surface parking lot’s north side could serve as a temporary movie screen, just as the asphalt parking area doubled successfully as courts for a pickleball tournament in August of last year.

Comments con

There also have been additional concerns expressed about a possible Larchmont Central Park(let). Reader Chris Black wrote to Romi Cortier recently with this observation:

“As a lifelong resident of the area… I grew up on Keniston Avenue and currently reside on South St. Andrews Place… I have seen the many transitions the Blvd. has gone through from the late 1960s to the present. I will forever mourn the demise of Jurgensen’s, revel in the closure of Safeway… the worst grocery store in history… and feel pride in the community coming together to throw The Bungalow off the street!

“Larchmont is such a wonderful resource for the entire community and has become a destination for many from elsewhere; it is diverse, interesting and crowded all the time. So the idea of adding a parklet, which will remove some parking, impede the sellers at the farmers market and, inevitably, become an encampment for one or several homeless, is just not an idea I can support.

“Adding community space is a great concept, but in its current configuration, I do not think it a wise one. I would love Larchmont to become a walk street, but the issue of parking is, I believe, just too big of a problem to solve. Massive underground or above-ground parking lots just do not seem viable. Little by little, parking spaces have been eliminated to allow for more outside seating at the restaurants (which I greatly support), and to lose even one more space in favor of building this parklet, which comes with so many other negatives, is an idea which should be scrapped. Count my vote firmly as a ‘no.’”

REAL-LIFE EXAMPLE of reclaiming bits of the street for public seating and dining comes from the town of Healdsburg in the Sonoma County wine country.

Responses

A possible park(let) would remove far fewer parking spaces (probably only three) than the 27 spaces (22.5 percent of the 120 spaces on the street) still lost because of the dining platforms or traffic barriers placed in the street during the COVID-19 lockdowns. (And, of course, a number of those dining platforms are only utilized during certain hours of the day, whereas the platforms claim the parking spaces all day and night.) The possible park(let) project will not proceed, according to its advocates, unless the farmers’ market managers deem it complementary, and not an impediment, to the sellers there. Finally, neither the LBA nor anyone who has opined to date will be supportive without a security component to prevent this possible community improvement being taken over by vagrants.

Again, the LBA seeks comments submitted care of: romicortier@me.com.

Writer Dinah Yorkin, who will be a senior at Marlborough School this year, contributed to this article.

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