Liberty Park is one of the only places in Koreatown where residents can literally touch grass. It’s also private property.
The lawn and a grove of Canary Island pines sit just off Wilshire Boulevard, surrounded by office towers, apartments and traffic. People walk their dogs there, do yoga or sit and people-watch. But a sign at the edge of the lawn reads, “This property is closed to the public.”
Liberty Park isn’t a city park. It has no playground, no restrooms and no posted hours. And while residents use it daily, the property owner ultimately controls how the space is used.
In a neighborhood with very little green space, that uncertainty looms large.
“There is not enough green space or parks. Trust me, I should know,” said Richard Armendariz, who lives on the border of Koreatown and Westlake. “When I go to McDonald’s or have to go to AT&T, I’ll stop right here before I go home. Because of the trees and stuff.”
Liberty Park is often the only green space he encounters during his day.
“But even here, it benefits dogs more than humans,” he said. “It’s just the front lawn for the business building. It’s not really a park, but it’s the only option.”
Cars move constantly along Wilshire. The sound carries into the space.
“If you look out, it’s just the busy road,” Armendariz said. “There are cars passing by. You can hear the cars, see the cars. Kids don’t really have much to do here. There’s no playground.”
And yet, people keep coming. Kids come to kick around a soccer ball or ride their skateboards. Neighbors come to walk their dogs. Street fairs and World Cup viewing parties have also happened on the lawn.
Liberty Park is privately owned by Jamison Properties, the largest landlord in Koreatown. The company declined to comment about the signage posted at the park and whether the company has made any commitments to keep the space green.
For Mark Palmer, who moved to Koreatown in the early 1980s, the lack of places to stop and linger stood out almost immediately. Palmer, who rallied to keep development out of Liberty Park in 2018, said that growing up on the Westside, parks were woven into his daily life and access to green space felt like a given.
“When I moved down to Koreatown, that was my first time living in the urban center of LA,” Palmer said. “And it was striking.”
Palmer, who now lives in Joshua Tree, said Koreatown’s density and pedestrian life make green spaces especially important for social life.
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Liberty Park stands out as one of the only visible patches of green in the neighborhood.
“It’s a major equity issue,” said Adriane Hoff, a parks advocate and longtime Koreatown resident. “It’s a major quality of life factor — having a place where you don’t have cars going through, polluting it and worrying if you’re going to get hit by a car, or a place where you can just relax, enjoy a book, enjoy a picnic with friends. And in Koreatown, we don’t have anything like that.”
Hoff said the park became especially important to her during the pandemic.
“I live a few blocks away from there,” she said. “For those moments where I literally needed to touch grass for my mental health while cooped up in my studio apartment, it at least offered an opportunity to do that.”
At the same time, Hoff believes private ownership affects how people use the space.
“I also felt like I couldn’t linger,” she said. “I couldn’t truly do what I needed to do to be a part of nature because it was private property. At any moment, a security officer could come along and tell me to keep it moving.”
Liberty Park, which has a replica of the Liberty Bell, was developed in 1967 as part of the Beneficial Standard Life Insurance Company’s headquarters. While it sits on private property, its open design made it accessible to the public from the start. According to a 2017 city report, Beneficial and its founders saw how little green space existed around Wilshire office buildings and wanted to keep the Wilshire Center from turning into what they called “another high-rise asphalt jungle.”
“It was unique when it was built and still is today,” said Adrian Fine, president and CEO of the Los Angeles Conservancy. At the time, he said, it was uncommon for a private developer to include a green space that functioned as a public amenity, and that approach remains rare.
Fine said the intent behind the design was to provide a shared outdoor space alongside the office complex, and over time, it has become an important place for people living and working in the community.
The 2017 report notes that the president and CEO of Beneficial said it was “much more realistic and useful to strengthen the central city, to beautify it,” and to make it “the center of culture as well as of business.” He was later recognized by the city and the U.S. Treasury Department for contributing to community open space.
Matthew Rudnick, assistant general manager and chief sustainability officer for the city’s Department of Recreation and Parks, said high park pressure, like exists in Koreatown, means more people sharing fewer spaces. That leads to crowding, faster wear on amenities and fewer opportunities for unprogrammed use, like sitting under a tree or spending time outdoors without an organized activity.
A city assessment released in December found that overcrowding, safety concerns and limited staffing can make it harder for residents across LA to fully use nearby parks, even when they are accessible.
Because acquiring land for new parks is especially difficult in neighborhoods like Koreatown, Rudnick said the city is focused on prioritizing maintenance and improvements at the most heavily used sites, as well as identifying smaller or nontraditional spaces — including publicly owned land and school campuses — that could expand access to green space.
But nontraditional park spaces can bring unique challenges. In 2018, Jamison Properties proposed a 36-story tower at Liberty Park, prompting fears that one of the few green spaces in the heart of Koreatown could be eliminated. Residents organized under the name Save Liberty Park to gather public support and push the city to recognize the park’s significance.
That year, the Los Angeles City Council designated Liberty Park and the adjacent Beneficial Plaza building as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument.
That designation means proposed changes, including development, alterations to the plaza or removal of trees, must go through a design review process. It does not change ownership, day-to-day management or the space’s use, Fine said.
For some residents, that distinction isn’t always clear.
Steve Vivell, who lives nearby and often walks his friend’s dog at the park, said he wasn’t sure if he was even allowed to be there.
“This is a park with a no-trespassing sign,” Vivell said. “But I see people hanging out here all the time. I didn’t even know this was a park.”
Vivell said the condition of the space changes throughout the year. There is sometimes trash, he said, and the grass thins out during the summer.
Still, he said, the park matters.
“It’s great that it’s protected,” Vivell said. “This community needs it.”