Readers React: It’s time to rethink downtown’s Pershing Square. Again

To the editor: I read your front-page article about Pershing Square with interest. (“French landscape firm wins Pershing Square competition with call for ‘radical flatness,’” May 12)

The idea of not allowing landscape architects who might think “outside the box” to participate was a mistake. The A-listers essentially came up with similar ideas that appear popular today but may not be in vogue tomorrow.

In light of our drought, using grass, as the winning Agence Ter design does, is a blunder. It sends an offensive message to homeowners, who obey regulations and consequently have dead lawns at their homes.

As for the block-long shade canopy, can there be a better invitation to the homeless? Considering the traffic in the area, reducing the number of lanes on adjacent Olive Street is one more misstep. This has to be thought through more diligently.

Over these many years, we have watched multiple transformations of Pershing Square. Let’s make this one work.

Sylvia Fogelman, Beverly Hills

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To the editor: The original remodel of grassy and tree covered Pershing Square has been explained as a result of the need to build an underground parking garage, but there was no attempt to explain the last remodel, which was due to homeless people having taken over the park.

The park as it is, with less grass and more concrete, makes it less inviting to the homeless and better available to people who work in the area during the week and families on weekends. Homelessness is now even more of a problem than in prior years.

In the process of solicitation of ideas from the public for Pershing Square, there were lots of images submitted of happy families with kids playing on grass and going to concerts in the park. Absent a plan to address homelessness or at least eliminate homeless people from the park (push those people elsewhere and then let them be someone else’s problem), the new grassy Pershing Square will find us back where we were before: a scary place that people avoid and engenders no civic pride.

Dan Persoff, Los Angeles

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To the editor: How sad that our city chose a French landscape architecture firm for this project. It’s hard to believe there is not a firm in Los Angeles or for that matter in the United States that would be qualified for this project.

Vickie Casas, Los Angeles

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