Susan's Cabinet: Abandoned Zoo

When you think of sightseeing in Los Angeles, 100-year-old ruins might not be at the top of the list, but these ruins should be! This was one of the first places I took my daughter on our recent trip. It turns out she is interested in abandoned places too, so we had a lot of fun exploring the Old Los Angeles Zoo in Griffith Park.

The “No Graffitti” sign is apparently ignored but, oddly enough, there is no graffiti on the sign.

The zoo opened in 1912 with just 15 animals, and it was expanded by the WPA in the 1930’s. It was built on the former site of Colonel Griffith J. Griffith’s ostrich farm attraction, which was very popular in the 1880’s. There was even a narrow gauge Ostrich Farm Railway built to carry visitors from downtown Los Angeles to the site on Griffith’s Rancho Los Feliz (and past the housing lots he was selling from his rancho during the housing boom at that time.)

In the late 1950’s the public became concerned about the adequacy of the housing for the animals in the small zoo, and the city made plans for a new zoo. The old zoo closed in 1966 with the opening of the new zoo a couple miles away. I wonder if my parents took me to this zoo before it was closed. I’d like to think so, but I would have been too young to remember. All my zoo memories are from the San Diego Zoo and school field trips to the current LA Zoo (and also Marineland whose ruins are now gone).

In what I consider a stroke of a genius, the city removed some of the bars in the old zoo, added picnic tables, and left the structures for public exploration. Fifty-one years later people are still enjoying the site! And it has been used in numerous films and TV shows.