Where did the idea for Park 101 come from?

Park 101 is the vision of a group of college students from around the world who participated in EDAW’s Intern Program in June 2008. (EDAW is one of the world's leading land and environment-based planning and design firms.) The interns were asked this question: How can we reconnect the city’s historic core north of the Hollywood Freeway with the civic, cultural and financial centers to the south? Their solution, Park 101, proposes to cap a half-mile length of this freeway with an urban park in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles. The proposal reconnects the city’s historic core at El Pueblo, north of the freeway, with the civic, cultural, and financial districts of modern Los Angeles to the south. The project provides a unique opportunity to shape a new direction for Downtown. Focused on a relatively small area straddling the 101 Freeway and situated in an existing maze of roadways, Park 101 is a new initiative to remake Los Angeles into a more sustainable and livable city. Communities most benefiting from Park 101 are the densely urbanized and park-poor communities of inner Los Angeles. The proposal seeks to provide these communities and the greater Los Angeles with long term benefits by stitching together the urban fabric, strengthening the transportation system and extending the possibilities for a more sustainable place of choice in which to live and work.