Taylor Yard History

Taylor Yard is located on the eastern boundary of the Los Angeles River within a reach of the river known as the "Narrows", between the San Fernando Valley and the Los Angeles Coastal Plain. The Narrows portion of the river is a steep-sided valley approximately 5 miles in length, located on the southeast portion of the San Fernando Valley, between the Elysian Hills and Santa Monica Mountains to the west and the Repetto Hills to the east.

Taylor Yard 1925 (full page)

Early History
Taylor Yard is uniquely connected to the early history of Los Angeles. Home for centuries to the Tongva Indians, it is, by most accounts, where Los Angeles was dubbed "Los Angeles." It is the site described in the first recorded written words about Los Angeles, the very site where the Portola expedition spent the night August 2, 1769, after crossing he Arroyo Seco. Father Crespi, the expedition's diarist rhapsodized for more than a thousand words that day about this "green, lush valley," its "very full flowing, wide river", the "riot of color" in the hills. The place defined abundance - native grapevines, wild roses & sage growing in rich soils, grizzly, antelope, quail and steelhead trout for the taking. The first two days of August marked the annual feast of Our Lady of the Angels of Porciuncula - so they named the river and the valley through which it flowed in its honor: "El Rio y Valle de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de la Porciuncula", later shortened to Rio de Los Angeles.

In 1781, the Pueblo was established just downstream, on the river's west bank. The alignment now known as San Fernando Road provided the major access route between the Pueblo of Los Angeles and the Mission San Fernando.

The area was part of the one of the first and largest original land grants made to the Mexican and Spanish settlers to establish the pueblo of Los Angeles. Known as Rancho San Raphael, the 36,000-acre land grant was made to Jose Maria Verdugo on October 20, 1784 by Governor Gages. California was admitted to the Union in 1850. In 1871, the US Land Commission confirmed the Rancho of San Rafael to the Verdugo family.

The land was subdivided in 1881 and sold to Andrew Glassell, Alexis Jeffries, Harriet Atwater Paramour, and others. Early development in the area consisted of agriculture, a few homes along Figueroa Street and summer cottages in the hills overlooking the Arroyo Seco. Mount Washington began attracting artists in the 1890's.

Starting in the late 1890’s, the site was owned by J. Hartley Taylor. Mr. Taylor was a prolific entrepreneur who owned the Taylor Grocery and the Taylor Milling Company, a commercial feed manufacturer on San Fernando Road. Taylor raised oats, barley, hogs and pigeons on the riverfront land.

Most of the homes in the Taylor Yard area were not constructed until the housing boom of the 1920's. The banks of the Los Angeles River were encased in concrete in the late 1930's.

The Railroad
Taylor Yard became a railyard in the 1920’s, when Southern Pacific Railroad outgrew its Midway Yard facility. Major development on the Taylor Yard site occurred in the early 30's with construction of the south turntable, machine shops and other related buildings. Its primary purpose was a freight-switching facility where freight cars were combined and re-routed to different destinations. For a time, some estimate that Southern Pacific RR employed nearly 75% of the workforce in the surrounding communities.

The intense use and activity at Taylor Yard began to change in the 1960's as Southern Pacific re-routed its north-south trains through the Cajon Pass instead of through downtown Los Angeles. With the completion of the West Colton Yard in 1973, the necessity for Taylor Yard operations also changed. In 1985, Taylor Yard closed its long-standing purpose as a freight switching facility. This change also caused a loss of several hundred jobs to residents of the local communities.

As the need for operating space diminished, the Southern Pacific Railroad decided to sell roughly 3/4 of the site. They relocated the rail line away from its alignment along San Fernando Road and towards the LA River. Then they proceeded to parcel out the land for sale. Working with the Dept. of Toxic Substance Control, (under Cal-EPA) they undertook an extensive analysis of the contaminated soils and developed an action plan for remediation. Clean up was completed on the sale parcels in 1997 and the DTSC certified that the land required no development restrictions.

A Metrolink Maintenance Facility was the first new use developed on 29 acres at the southernmost end of Taylor Yard. The project moved forward without public review and the community voiced their outrage. A lawsuit was filed which resulted in the Los Angeles County Transportation Authority agreeing to fund several mitigations to the project: the large mural on the side of the building, the plantings along San Fernando Road and the public art project located along the access road. An agreement was also reached for the agency to fund a future pedestrian bridge over the river.

Emerging Plans & Visions
The communities surrounding Taylor Yard (Cypress Park, Glassell Park, Elysian Valley, Atwater Village, Mount Washington & Lincoln Heights) began to demand a master planning process for Taylor Yard that would take their input into consideration.

The first Taylor Yard Area Planning and Urban Design Workshop was held over a weekend in October 1992. More than 200 people participated during 3 days of intensive public commentary about the future of Taylor Yard and the surrounding communities. Participants included area residents, representatives of community and environmental groups, businesspersons, educators, landowners, agency and elected officials and other area stakeholders. A follow-up meeting was held to summarize community input on November 14. These efforts, including team recommendations for the area, were documented in the Dec. 1992 report Taylor Yard, A Catalyst for Community Change. The workshop team was co-sponsored by the American Institute of Architects, Los Angeles chapter (AIA/LA), the American Planning Association (APA), the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), the Urban Design Advisory Council (UDAC), the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design, and the Architectural Foundation of Los Angeles (AFLA).

In 1993, The MTA sponsored the Taylor Yard Transit Development Study, conducted by HNTB Corp. in association w/ Economic Research Associates & Barrio Planners, Inc. Their Land Use Analysis Workbook of May 22, 1993, was developed to summarize information from the Army Corps' Reconnaissance Study and the Taylor Yard Urban Design Workshop in an effort to solicit more community input and feedback. A team of planners, architects and other professionals then summarized and published the volumes of comments and concerns and translated them into master plan designs. (Taylor Yard Development Study 10/25/93.)

In that study, 5 teams - 2 from the American Institute of Architects, 1 from the MTA, 1 from the Southern Pacific Railroad, and 1 from the LA County Dept. of Public Works - proposed different mixed-use proposals based on community input. These plans called for public open space/recreation areas ranging from 65 - 189 acres with the remainder of the site balanced between industrial, commercial and residential uses.

The LACDPW Conceptual Plan was further refined in 1993. It provided alternatives that proposed a range of commercial/industrial areas from approx. 60 - 100 of the total acres, with the rest of the site as recreation/flood detention.

The 1998 River through Downtown conference, co-sponsored by FoLAR, the Sierra Club and the AIA also convened a series of community workshops to gather information to produce a mixed-use plan for the site.

In 1999, the City of Los Angeles adopted the Northeast Community Plan. In order to prevent continued piecemeal development at the site, the plan’s local advisory committee had advocated for language recommending that a master plan be developed for the Taylor Yard area. The adopted plan includes the following objective: A master plan should be prepared for the Taylor Yard area to include protection for public open space/recreational activity areas near the Los Angeles River.

espite this recommendation, to date the City has yet to undertake development of such a plan.
Over the next few years, numerous Universities held design studios to formulate visions for the future of Taylor Yard, including UCLA, UC Berkeley, USC, SciArc and Harvard.

Development
In 1997, a Federal Express facility was constructed on 8 acres in the middle of the site. The following year, Nelson Nameplate, a local business, constructed an expanded facility on roughly 9 acres at the northwest tip of the site.

When Legacy Partners proposed a 49-acre business park - the LA Media Tech Center - at the site’s northern end in 1998, the community welcomed their proposal for the jobs it might bring. We had some concerns about the project’s environmental impacts, so the LA City Planning Dept. conditioned Legacy to work with us to develop and incorporate cutting edge stormwater Best Management Practices before approving project. Legacy Partners listened to concerns regarding impacts to the community and the River, and made substantial changes in their design to accomplish an environmentally sound design.

In 1999, Lennar Partners, a Florida based developer proposed a 2/3 industrial 1/3 retail development for Parcel D. The proposed development included 650,000 sq ft. of industrial warehouses in an area immediately adjacent to residential neighborhoods and schools, posing numerous environmental impacts to the community. We worked with them for many months in an attempt to achieve basic environmental goals as we had successfully done with Legacy. Although their Mitigated Negative Declaration (MND) was seriously flawed, the City approved the project and the City Council approved $4.37 Million in public subsidy funds to offset the developer's costs.

The Community Organizes
The passage of Prop 12, the statewide parks bond co-authored by Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa in the spring of 2000 provided the potential means to realize a green vision of Taylor Yard. At The River Project’s urging, in June 2000, the Governor and the State Legislature approved $45 Million to acquire lands at Taylor Yard to create the first new State Park in Los Angeles in a generation, the first major piece of the Los Angeles River Parkway. Nevertheless, the Lennar project was moving forward.

Unable to reach any agreement with Lennar, The River Project filed an opposition to the project's MND. In order to further challenge the project, we organized the Coalition for a State Park at Taylor Yard – an alliance of 36 community, business, faith-based, environmental and social justice organizations. We set up a website for outreach, enlisted support through numerous community meetings, held events to bring the issues to the attention of the media and engaged local schools and the public in letter-writing campaigns to both the project’s proponents and our legislators.

In January 2001, the Coalition for a State Park at Taylor Yard filed suit against Lennar, the Union Pacific Railroad and the City of LA, to challenge the City’s approval, citing clear violations of CEQA in the areas of air quality, water quality and traffic, among others. The firm Jan Chatten-Brown and Associates, with the NRDC acting as co-counsel represented the Coalition. The suit was heard in Los Angeles Superior Court on July 20, 2001. In a major victory for the petitioners, the Court ruled in our favor on issues of air quality, water quality and bike paths. The successful suit sent the project back to the City of LA and required Lennar to prepare a full Environmental Impact Report (EIR). Lennar chose not to develop their project, providing State Parks the opportunity to acquire the property.

The California Department of Parks and Recreation acquired the 40 acres of Parcel D at Taylor Yard in December 2001. After protracted negotiations, the City of Los Angeles agreed to lease half the site for $1 a year and manage the active recreational areas. This established a unique cooperative partnership between the two agencies that allowed the state to create a seamless park that met the community’s needs.

The park envisioned by the Coalition was developed with funding from State park bonds. It opens on Earth Day, 2007.