Ruins - The Abandoned Old Los Angeles Zoo
Whether industries that have shut down buildings that people have just left to rot, Mother Nature has taken its course in a lot of places. Now, I find this place particularly interesting because the original Los Angeles Zoo was built in twelve and existed until the opening of the new Zoo in 1966. Now, the old Zoo was heavily criticized because a lot of the exhibits were far too small for some of the animals that they contained
I just shared a photo, actually of you saw it was like a sort of little stairwell. And this is actually a photo at the top of that stairwell. You could see just how long it was and steep. But also graffiti artists have taken to the inside just completely. And I have to say it's a little eerie. I'm not going to lie. I imagine there's there have been some interesting things that have transpired in this part of the park over the years
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
One of the more interesting things I think is that there are particular areas of the enclosures that were not supposed to be accessible by the public that have become these central focal points of the graffiti art. And rather than sort of completely deface the exterior of these enclosures, like the initial Photo I posted, the artists are really doing more of the work in areas that are not immediately visible right on the trail
Alright. So I feel like I'm speaking too soon as if I'm some sort of expert in graffiti art. And I keep stumbling upon more and more of these sections that are just absolutely covered. And there's a lot of variety here. There's definitely some art that seems to have a gang affiliation, others that are just making political statements, some professing their love for people. It's a really interesting sort of mix. And you just got to imagine the photo that I'm posting
And it turns out that the Zoo, the original Lazoo, was heavily heavily criticized for how small these particular enclosures were. And it's my understanding that that's kind of one of those things that led to them revisiting the idea of a Los Angeles Zoo and moving it down the road, making it much larger. And certainly anybody that's been there within the last 2030 years gets a sense of how much more room they have at that Zoo
And here's another enclosure. What you'll notice is that there's like a sort of almost like a trough type thing at the at the front. It looks like it might have held enough water for whatever animal that lived in that enclosure to actually bathed there. I don't think it was necessarily for drinking, although I'm sure that they did probably both in the same water
As I'm doing a little bit more reading about the Zoo and the many problems that it had. It looks like World War I really, really set them back a lot financial reasons, obviously, it it was being reported that they were not able to feed the animals beef, so they had to resort to feeding some of them horse meat, which resulted in a lot of sicknesses. The grounds were just falling apart to begin with
I mean, fully abandoned is just a relic of history. But also, I don't quite understand who designed some of it or what they were thinking, because a lot of it just feels off. It feels like they were thinking in a much smaller scale than they should have. And I don't know. It does not surprise me that it had such a troubled history, even though there were millions of people that pass through its gates every year
Yeah. I hope everybody enjoyed this. I really love history, and I really love exploring. And I think that given what's happening in the world right now, one of the things I can do is travel to to some of these historic landmarks, some really cool places with fascinating history. And at least look around. This is definitely something that I would recommend people check out if they're ever in Southern California, it's very much to something you will not forget
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 1:16
That was a cool audio tour. Thank you. I've never imagined to sort of walk around an abandoned space like that and just narrate it all the way through. It was wonderful. And the photos were great. I think sort of the two takeaways I have the first 1st is one that kind of disturbed you. And I understand which is the space issue, but I think times have changed, and for the better, we really have way more awareness of the needs of animals
Hey, Irish and Deborah, thank you for your kind responses. I have to say, I really enjoyed myself. I think there's something to be said about exploring places like this or any place that really has a deep history to it. The more time that you spend there, the more you explore, the more you find
Georgie Dee
@GeorgieDee · 2:05
It was closed down in 1996 because of other other larger Markr ocean Mark that opened in Hong Kong. Probably a good thing for the animals now. It's flat. People live there. They've redeveloped it. But, yeah, thank you for taking me back to a time with another Zoo
Mark Francis Rahaman
@MarkR · 4:32
Somehow it was like an out of body experience of lights, cameras and wires. It was like I walked on into a set. And, yeah, it was like stepping back in time. I love that. It's all still there. They filmed so many. And also as a kid, my dad has got an album, which I've bought on vinyl since an old version of Hot August 9 Neil Diamond and he loved this album. Young Neil Diamond singing at the Greek Theatre August night