Westwood Park - A Hidden Neighborhood Escape

WESTWOOD PARK A HIDDEN NEIGHBORHOOD ESCAPE

Urban Planning 279 April 16, 2013

Written By: Carla Salehian Vicente Romero Amalia Merino

INTRODUCTION:

A bustling 405 freeway, the sprawling UCLA campus, and the towering high rises in Westwood; these are all images that do not veer too far from what most would consider to be typical of Los Angeles. But located very close to all these physical spaces exists a very different type of place, one that bustles with child’s play and activities and one where the only thing that sprawls is the wide expanses of open green grass: Westwood Park. This park is located about one mile away from the UCLA campus and is on a large lot positioned just south of the Federal building and between S. Sepulveda Boulevard and Veteran Avenue (See Figure 1). It is a place that is well used and well appreciated as a place to get away from those previously mentioned features of city living. However, while it is successful in many ways, Westwood Park has several other features where it is not as successful, most particularly in terms of fragmentation, isolation, and age. The following report provides the results of three week’s worth of initial observations (during three different times of the week: a Monday from 6 to 7pm, a Tuesday from 4 to 6 pm, and a Sunday from 1 to 2 pm). Both positive and negative physical park characteristics and attributes will be explored in addition to a study of the park’s user groups and park problems and potentials.

In doing this, we hope to discover what makes this park such an interesting public place in an increasingly private introverted society as well as highlight the successes and opportunities for continued improvement.

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Figure 1: Westwood Park Periphery Map

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KEY FEATURES AND FACILITIES:

Like most other parks in the greater Los Angeles area, Westwood Park exists as a neighborhood park meant to serve the recreational needs of its nearby residents. However, there are several park features that clearly allow this park to stand out among the others. Upon arriving, a visitor is first struck by the sheer size and openness of the space. Large trees are positioned along the periphery and wide lawns stretch between playgrounds and recreational courts. This instills in the visitor a definite sense of freedom, but at the same time, the openness could also be jarring in the sense that it is, at times, disorienting; pathways can become lost to the pedestrian and a separation of spaces creates informal divisions. At its core, Westwood Park features several contrasts. It is open, yet it is also fragmented. It has pathways connecting sections to one another, yet it feels disconnected. And above all else, rather than acting as one unified park, it feels like four separate ones. Internet searches on the park further reflect this characteristic. In researching “Westwood Park” search engines would result in information on the Westwood Recreation Center, Aidan’s Place, the Westwood Tennis Center, and the Veteran’s Park playground (See Figure 2). It wasn’t until after we visited the park that we understood what these places were.

FACILITIES BASKETBALL COURTS PICNIC TABLES

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Figure 2: Westwood Park Facilities Map

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The park features a wide variety of facilities and offers a broad range of activities for its users and while this report will place a particular focus and emphasis on the general “public” spaces available to all visitors (the fields and playgrounds that can be accessed without payment of a fee or reservation), it is important to briefly describe what all of these facilities or available activities are: Westwood Recreation Center: Run by the City of Los Angeles Department of Parks and Recreation, the Westwood Recreation Center provides local residents with opportunities to enroll in classes geared toward children and adults, access to a 25 meter heated indoor pool, two gymnasiums, two racquetball courts, classrooms, kitchen facilities, tennis courts, little league baseball, and indoor basketball courts. All of these activities or features require the payment of either a membership fee or a payment for individual classes, which typically range at a cost between $70 and $80.

Aidan’s Place: Aidan’s place is another unique feature of Westwood Park that is open to the public but is recognized for being one of the few “boundless” or universally accessible playgrounds in the United States. Opened on December 5, 2002, this park was designed to accommodate the needs of all children, including those with physical disabilities. As such the playground features elevated sandboxes and other fully accessible play areas.

Figure 3: Westwood Recreation Center

Figure 4: Aidan’s Place

Westwood Tennis Center: Apart from the general tennis court rentals that are managed through the Westwood Recreation Center, the Westwood Tennis Center provides additional tennis lesson services as well as available gear and racquet stringing at their pro-shop. These lessons are usually provided in the two separate tennis courts closer to Veteran Avenue.

Figure 5: Westwood Tennis Center

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Veteran’s Park Playground: More typical of any other neighborhood playground, Westwood Park also features two additional playgrounds with traditional sandboxes on the eastern section of the park, also closer to Veteran Avenue.

Figure 7 below provides a more complete list of the sorts of facilities that are available in Westwood Park including both paid and unpaid services and programs..

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Figure 6: Veteran’s Park Playground

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DESIGN LAYOUT:

In regards to Westwood Park’s design and physical layout, there are many features that harken back to the nineteenth-century parks movement and its forerunners. Echoing back to the royal gardens and grounds of England in the eighteenth century in which there was an emergence of a more informal sprawling countryside, Westwood Park features landscaping that is also fairly informal. Apart from the large trees and expansive lawns, the park has no other significant landscape features. Instead, it exists to provide a largely natural setting with scattered pathways to remove one from a surrounding that is heavily manipulated by man. Being that the park’s emphasis is focused primarily on recreation and playgrounds, however, it can be said that Westwood Park’s most prominent forerunners are those of the Park Reform Era. Here, the park’s main emphasis is on servicing the needs of neighborhood youths. Camp counselor’s and sports coaches play the part of a twenty-first-century version of “trained play leaders” facilitating organized play. However, in this case, the emphasis is simply on promoting public health rather than socio-cultural reform as it was in early American playgrounds. (Carr et al. 2005: 63)

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Focusing back on the present, Westwood Park was designed in a way that creates both “single-minded” and “open-minded space” as defined by Michael Walzer (1986). According to him, planners or entrepreneurs who have a solitary purpose in mind design single-minded spaces.

As such, single-minded users tend to occupy these spaces. In Westwood Park, this is seen in relation to its highly regulated facilities. For example, you have to pay to rent a fenced off tennis court. As a result, this creates a space that is only occupied by tennis players. Consequently, Walzer’s (1986) concept of open-minded space was designed for a variety of uses, which includes the unforeseen and unforeseeable uses, as well. In Westwood Park, this is observed in relation to its open fields. In these spaces, nobody is told what they are expected to do here which results in a mixed slurry of life and activity. These open fields are used for flying kites, picnics (on the ground despite the availability of picnic tables), and informal games of soccer and baseball.

Another example of Westwood Park’s open-minded (and unforeseen) uses is also exhibited in the park’s more secluded periphery. Homeless park users are commonly seen here and much like any other park users, can be seen taking a nap in the shade. All in all, these park features create an atmosphere that is both flexible and adaptable, improving the possibilities of creating interesting and responsive spaces to meet user needs.

Westwood Park’s relation to its surroundings has little outward orientation and connectedness. This is most likely due to the fact that it is bookended by two major West Los Angeles roads (Veteran Avenue and S. Sepulveda Boulevard), and it is bordered by a substantially large parking lot (Federal Building) and by a fence that separates the park from another construction business parking lot. Essentially, this Figure 8: Sepulveda Blvd. creates an island-effect of a large and well-equipped park in a primarily car-oriented part of the city resulting in very little natural pedestrian flow. Most individuals arrive to the park by car, and those that do walk are usually nearby residents who use the park as a way of “cutting through.” To top it all off, pedestrian pathways within the park do little to facilitate pleasant walking paths. Most are either informal dirt paths, or larger formalized paths composed of cracked asphalt in very poor condition. These more established asphalt paths cut across the park’s middle in only one section and wrap around the outside periphery of the park. The rest of the park is accessed by walking across uneven grass making certain areas of the park more difficult to access for the elderly or disabled.

Figure 9: Unkempt Walkways

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Up until now, descriptions of Westwood Park’s physical composition and design have pointed toward its positive and negative characteristics and since the proliferation of parks began across the United States and the rest of the world, academics such as Lofland (1998) have tried to quantify the physical characteristics that make up a “successful” park, the most common of tend to center around the following five categories: comfort, relaxation, passive engagement, active engagement, and discovery.

Figure 10: Five Attributes/Characteristics of a Successful Park According to Lofland (1988)

Much as it was described above, Westwood Park’s relationship to these categories is good overall, but mixed in certain categories. In terms of comfort, Westwood Park’s trees and shading structure in one of the playgrounds provide shade from the sun. Drinking fountains are located throughout the area (although they are quite dated) and benches and picnic tables scattered across the park provide users with a place to rest or gather. In terms of relaxation, the park does provide a respite from congested surroundings and does so by providing opportunities for both passive and active engagement. Passive engagement tends to occur on the eastern, more quiet, sections of the park where there are opportunities for people and (though it is a little more of a stretch) nature watching. There is a large public art piece in this section of the park by Helen Walter Gerson that was installed in 1977, but it is fenced off. Ironically, it is titled “Touch and Experience. A Functional Sculpture for Exploration of the Senses” Active engagement, on the other hand, tends to occur on the western part of the park near Aidan’s Park (clearly the favorite among children compared to the more empty Veteran’s Park Playground) and the Westwood Recreation Center. Here, there are a lot more opportunities for social interaction, 6

play, and games. The center section of the park with the large open fields and the tennis and basketball courts also provides the opportunity for much active engagement in the form of sporting activities (Recreational user group types will be explored further in the next section of this report.) Lastly, in terms of discovery, the boundless playground provides one of the few opportunities in Westwood Park (albeit an artificial one) for exploration and play. In other sections of the park, the vistas tend to be more static, which is furthered by the presence of large, open patches of grass. In the end, all these elements combine to create an atmosphere that is beautiful and meets local resident needs, but also lacking of significance.

USER AND ACTIVITY ANALYSIS:

After a thorough study of Westwood Park, we have discovered a richly diverse group of users of different ethnic backgrounds (White, Hispanic, Middle-Eastern, and African American, just to name a few) and based off of observations on the cars in the parking lots, these user groups also seem to constitute a broad range of income levels. Being so, it can be said that Westwood Park is representative of the greater Los Angeles region. However, we felt a classification of users based on activity would be more informative on Westwood Park and would be much more telling of how user groups make use of this piece of the city. This next section of the report will provide thorough description of all the groups by preponderance of use.

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Figure 11: Westwood Park User Group Map

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Basketball Players: They are numerous at every time of the day/week. Both basketball courts are always populated and well-attended. Usually, one of them provides a space for a group of young people to play a game, while the other provides a space for practicing. In the latter case, we have found fathers teaching or playing basketball with their sons or a smaller group of young people practicing shots.

As a result, basketball players occupy their space in a very intense way. We were happily surprised to find socially mixed groups at each visit. In the basketball court, race or age do not matter: the teams were composed by White, Black, Asian, and Latino people, of ages ranging from 20 to 30 years old. Even the younger groups were racially mixed.

Soccer Players: Organized youth soccer games were observed to take place over the weekend.

Players were between eight and ten years of age and constituted both female and male players.

During the time of our field study, parents were arriving with their children as coaches and trainers were setting up cones for their practice session.

Tennis Players: Being that users have to pay to rent out the tennis courts, these spaces were much less crowded than basketball courts, but were still used significantly with courts being much emptier on weekdays compared to weekends when almost every court was in use. Users are usually White and Latino, the majority were men, but we could also observed couples and groups of women occupy the courts. There is also a differentiation of use between the two eastern courts and the western six. The former are the closest to the tennis offices and are the ones used mainly for teaching. In this sense, they are always in use, usually by the student (or the students) in one side of the court and the teacher (or teachers) in the other side. The six courts to the west, on the other hand, are usually used by adult

Figure 12: Basketball Players

Figure 13: Soccer Players

Figure 14: Tennis Players

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tennis players to play matches, and are therefore less crowded and under-used.

Walkers: Also numerous in the park (men and women, usually in pairs, and racially diverse), but as they use a much dispersed space (the pathways) always seem to be fewer in number. There is a differentiation in use: sandy pathways are used by young runners and walkers (women in their majority), while the asphalt pathway is also used by young runners and walkers, and by the elder walkers too. In general, the asphalt pathway is much more used than the sandy ones. We have also observed a handful of people walking from Sepulveda along path dressed in street clothes, which could represent people just passing through park to a destination.

In addition, some of the walkers had their dogs on a leash; the majority of these dogwalkers used the western part of the park since it is a much less crowded area.

Children: Like other user groups, children in Westwood Park are also extremely diverse (with a diverse caregiver group). These children primarily populate Aidan’s playground, and even form queues to use certain swings. Out of the four separate themed play areas that compose this playground, the least popular seems to be “Emily & Kevin’s City”. It features swings for older children and the height of it may act as a deterrent to children and caregivers. It was mentioned before that this park was designed to also accommodate for the needs of disabled children, however, it was also noticed that the ramps and other adaptations were helpful for caregivers and parents with young children as well.

As previously mentioned, Veteran’s Park Playground is much more under-used. This could be due to the fact that swings seem similar (or more “boring”) to those that people can find in any other park and the structures lack the creativity and novelty.

Figure 15: Walkers

Figure 16: Children and Caretakers

Figure 17: Picnickers

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Caregivers: As mentioned, caregivers are also racially and agedly diverse: White, Asian, or Latino families, fathers and mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers can be seen taking care of their children (girls, boys; toddlers – age 8). As mentioned by Lyle (1970) the age group scheme described in his piece is also noticed here: children are in the center of the playground, adults are close to them, and elderly people are at the periphery, usually seated on a bench. Some fathers ride a bike or play frisbee with their son/daughter, but are always close to the playground. We have also observed mothers and fathers having a walk (alone or in couples of men-woman or woman-woman) with strollers. Lastly, some were birthday party guests surrounding picnic tables.

Picnickers: People make use of the park to have lunches and dinners, especially during the weekend. The lawn is more used by Caucasians, while the tables and benches are more used

by Hispanics. In this case, they use the barbecue area at the eastern part of the park to even celebrate birthdays.

Bicyclists: Bicyclists are the minority user group in Westwood Park. Some of them were biking informally; others (all men) were dressed as if they were commuting home to work and use the park as a short cut. In this way, they only make use of the asphalt pathway.

Transients: Transients with their belongings were relaxing, socializing, and taking in the sun along the embankment with a railing that divides the southwestern section from the large field to the right of the tennis courts (facing north). Transients have also been noticed lying on the grass in the western parking area because it is a quiet area.

In terms of its users, Westwood Park is a public space of integration; it is a successful open space when it comes to gathering people of different races and different ages. We have not noticed inner spatial boundaries created by racially diverse user groups (Low 2000). Our observations also included high, medium, and low-income users. Most importantly, all of these user groups enjoyed the park together in mixed groups. Regarding Rivlin (2006) and his concept of “found spaces”, we have observed some of these spaces in the picnic tables that were used for birthday parties and an empty street hockey rink used for group aerobic exercises.

The attractiveness of the park is more powerful where other people are to be found, namely Aidan’s Place and the basketball and tennis courts. As Lyle (1970) (and Whyte 1988) points out, “human activity acts as a strong attractor of people”. In contrast, the places that were generally empty were usually distanced from the main peripheral circulation routes, which makes reference to the Lyle’s “edge effect”: “people cluster about the edge of a spatial unit”.

In this park, large groups, small groups, and single individuals seem to make use of the park at

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the same degree. We have observed large groups developing group activities like basketball, soccer, or football; but we have also seen a lot of small groups, couples or individuals developing activities like picnicking, playing frisbee, taking their dogs on a walk, conversing, reading, or simply watching other people.

PARK’S PROBLEM’S AND POTENTIALS

Upon observing user groups (or lack thereof) engaged in various forms of recreation in Westwood Park and upon examining its facilities and park layout we have identified several opportunities that the park could address in order to reach its potential.

Park as Public Space – Quality, Functional Diversity, Urban Form, Fit to Needs

Westwood Park supports different uses and functions. Formally it offers facilities geared to specific active recreational uses such basketball, tennis courts, and playgrounds. It also offers formal passive recreational opportunities such as picnic tables that may be converted into larger birthday party and other hubs of celebration. Informal space, such as the expansive plush grassy areas and well-used worn down athletic fields can be transformed for the specific needs of users. For instance, sun bathers, picnickers and Figure 18: Sunbathing Transient transients turn the grassy area into a spot for passive recreation and lounge under the planted mature trees Figure 18). Various pick up sports games alter the use of the two large athletic fields to fit their needs. The central southern field was observed to house softball practice and an informal soccer game – sometimes concurrently. The sports fields are also used for passive recreation and as paths. The large central field to the east of the Recreation Center was observed to be used by visitors gathering to socialize, crossing from the parking lot to eastern facilities, and watching their dogs run around. In addition, a space meant for a Figure 19: Western Pedestrian Entrance. No specific active recreation (the hard top skating area) signage of park facilities or view of eastern side of the park. was observed to be converted for other needs, such as a boot camp-like exercise.

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The park provides its user groups with specific areas for their passive and active recreational needs.

However, those user groups are isolated from one another and may not be aware of its many functions unless the path they take to arrive to their specific location (basketball court, tennis courts, playgrounds, exercise site) passes by or through another area.

The park would benefit from internal signage at its entrances and along its paths to indicate where a visitor is relative to the other areas and functions (Figure 19). For example, a family using the older playground facility on the eastern section of the park may not be aware of the boundless playground (Aidan’s Place) located to the west. A couple playing tennis may not be aware of the soccer pickup games that their athletic teenager may be interested in joining because the field is out of sight.

Figure 20: “Touch and Experience” Sculpture.

A piece by Helen W. Gerson.

There is an opportunity to improve the existing park’s facilities and elements of interactive discovery by way of its formal use areas, infrastructure, and furniture design and quantity. The basketball court is very popular and we observed a need for additional courts. Adding a court or courts would provide waiting players a chance to play a full court game and more hoop space to practice. The smaller playground to the Figure 21: Inadequate Entrance Signage at east of the park is under-used and its space could be Veteran Entrance changed to serve another user group and transplant families to the larger and more interactive Aidan’s Place playground. One idea for a new facility in that space would be one that attracts an unobserved (missing) user group from the park tweens and teenagers – like afterschool programming. The element of discovery and interaction could be increased by unlocking the current and only public art piece (that encourages the use of touch) and erecting other interactive pieces of art (Figure 20).

Water fountains are inadequate in quantity and currently only fit standing adults. We recommend building fountains that accommodate all visitors – adults, adults in wheelchairs, children and dogs. Walking paths are not well maintained and should be resurfaced for walkers, joggers and cyclists. Trash receptacles also vary in design and while novel, there are a limited number of solar composters. There is also a lack of consistent design in benches around the park. The overall look of infrastructure is disjointed. Lastly, there is a need for additional picnic

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tables and formal seating for parents watching their children play in the playground’s sandbox.

While some families may enjoy picnicking on the grass, we sense that some are forced to do so because of the lack of tables. Parents watch their children play in the sandbox from a shaded but perhaps they would enjoy formal seating.

We have aforementioned the lack of wayfinding signage within and without the park.

It is critical to join sections of the park into one large park called Westwood Park. Presently, all materials and noticeable onsite signage we have come across focus on singular areas of the park such as the Recreation Center or Aidan’s Place. Westwood Park should be the public space’s brand, containing these facilities, not a hidden afterthought. We propose that users should know where they are and have reference points throughout the park in the form of landmarks. This is necessary for more than one person to meet up if one or both are not familiar with the large park’s layout. In addition, the park could benefit from informed park personnel to answer the public’s questions about facilities, hours, etc. We inquired with a Recreation Center staff person about Westwood Park and he was not able to answer our general questions; he had only been trained about the Center and its offerings.

CONCLUSIONS

Westwood Park is a beautiful expanse of land serving as an escape for its users in the shape of passive or active recreation. The park’s Recreation Center on its western border, the Federal Building to its north, the narrow residential Veteran Avenue to its east and the foliage covering its southern wall border all serve to create a closed-in space that serves as a harbor to the outside world. Inside the expansive park, its users are able to forget the heavy car traffic taking place on Sepulveda Boulevard and Wilshire Boulevard, the intersection of which is one of the heavily used in the City of Los Angeles. They are also able to block out visually and become immune to the sounds of the ever-present construction of the 405 expansion and ramp modifications.

At the same time, because the park is insulated, Angelenos and visitors may be oblivious to its presence or unaware of the myriad of facilities and people using them. The park appears to be well-known and used by those who know about it: those living in the neighborhood, those who have heard about it by word-of-mouth, or perhaps have become aware of it through attending classes at the park’s Recreation Center.

Westwood Park has the potential to become a destination and known outside its current users through proper wayfinding and welcoming signage placed at the upcoming extension of the Metro Purple Line, which will stop at Veteran Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard; adult programming/facilities marketed to the VA, a large employer in the area; improved presence on the internet, currently the City of Los Angeles park site only provides bare minimum information 13

about the Rec Center and Aidanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Place (billed online as one of two boundless playgrounds in the western US); larger entrance signage on Veteran Avenue and Sepulveda Boulevard; and wayfinding information about the various facilities and their locations within the park. We are not suggesting that the park needs to be inundated by a large influx of users that could possibly change its pacific charm. However, open green spaces with ample facilities are limited in this section of western Los Angeles and others could surely benefit from its passive and active recreational opportunities. These recommendations would help the established wellused neighborhood park to reach its full potential for current users and for passive and active recreational users seeking a green space in the westside of Los Angeles.

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REFERENCES

Carr, S., Francis, M., Rivlin, L.G., and Stone, A.M. (1992): Public Space. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 400 pp.

Lofland, L.H. (1998): “Uses of the Public Realm”, in Lofland, L.H.: The Public Realm: exploring the city’s quintessential social territory, pp. 229-245. Hawthorne, N.Y.: Aldine de Gruyter.

Low, S.M. (2000): Contructing Difference. The Social and Spatial Boundaries of Everyday Life, in Low, S.M.: On The Plaza: The Politics of Public Space and Culture, pp. 154-179. University of Texas Press, Austin.

Lyle, J.T. (1970): People-Watching in Parks. A report from France and California. Landscape Architecture 61:31, pp. 50-52 Rivlin, L.G. (2006). Found spaces: Freedom of choice in public life. In Franck, K.A., Stevens, Q. (Eds.). Loose Space: Diversity and Possibility in Urban Life, pp. 38-53. New York: Routledge.

Taplin, D.H., Scheld, S., and Low, S.M. (2002): Rapid Ethnographic Assessment in Urban Parks: a case study of Independence National Historical Park. Human Organization, 61:1, pp. 80-93.

Walzer, M. (1986): Pleasures & Costs of Urbanity. Dissent, 33:4, pp. 470-475.

Whyte, William H. (1988): The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces - The Street Corner on Vimeo.

Accessible on http://vimeo.com/6821934 (4/12/2013).

ONLINE RESOURCES City of Los Angeles - Department of Recreation and Parks (2013): Westwood Recreation Center. Accessible on http://www.laparks.org/dos/reccenter/facility/westwoodRC.htm (4/12/2013).

Los Angeles Parks Foundation (2013): Westwood Recreation Complex. Accessible on: http:// www.laparksfoundation.org/ES/park/528-westwood_recreation_complex.html (4/12/2013).

City of Los Angeles - Department of Recreation and Parks (2013): Aidan’s Place at Westwood Recreation Center. Accessible on http://www.laparks.org/dos/playground/facility/ westwoodUAPRC.htm (4/12/2013).

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Los Angeles Parks Foundation (2013): Aidanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Place. Accessible on: http://www. laparksfoundation.org/EN/park/47-aidan_s_place.html (4/12/2013).

City of Los Angeles - Department of Recreation and Parks (2013): WESTWOOD POOL. Accessible on http://www.laparks.org/dos/aquatic/facility/westwoodPool.htm (4/12/2013).

Los Angeles Parks Foundation (2013): Westwood Pool. Accessible on: http://www. laparksfoundation.org/EN/park/404-westwood_pool.html (4/12/2013).

City of Los Angeles - Department of Recreation and Parks (2013): WESTWOOD TENNIS COURTS. Accessible on http://www.laparks.org/dos/sports/tennis/facility/westwoodTC.htm (4/12/2013).

Los Angeles Parks Foundation (2013): Westwood Tennis Courts. Accessible on: http://www. laparksfoundation.org/EN/park/419-westwood_tennis_courts.html (4/12/2013).

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