[Last Updated 6/19/20 12:19 PM PT--The Los Angeles Conservancy has launched a campaign to preserve as many of the 100+ buildings as possible, many of which are threatened with razing and have suffered from demolition by neglect by Los Angeles County. From the LA Conservancy website: "On June 23, 2020 the County of Los Angeles Board of Supervisors voted in full support of a plan for nearly wholesale demolition and redevelopment of Rancho Los Amigos. This will demolish nearly 60 historic buildings and destroy a nationally-significant historic district." Read more about the campaign here.]
I was excited enough to
wander around the exterior and
peek inside Linda Vista Hospital, a relatively large, abandoned medical complex in East LA. But then I heard about Rancho Los Amigos in Downey, which is practically an entire
town of abandoned hospital facilities.
The former Los Amigos is not to be confused with the currently open Rancho Los Amigos, a very much open rehabilitation center.
Just south of it, across the highway, is a huge complex of
other hospital buildings and residences, all abandoned.
They say that when it closed in the 1980s, all the workers and residents left so quickly, they just left everything behind.
They even left the lights on.
[Ed: Superintendent Harriman's house, once eligible for the National Register, burned in a 2017 arson fire and is slated for razing.]
This complex is where the old Los Angeles County Poor Farm used to be (1888-1906)—once simply called "The Farm"—where paupers of the elderly and disabled variety would be sent to rehabilitate...or not.
Renamed Rancho Los Amigos in 1932, this area also housed the Hollydale Mental Hospital...
...and an old polio ward.
It is famously haunted.
Everything is fenced up and boarded up now...
...but not too long ago, doors swung wide open. Brave souls wandered through. Many got spooked enough to go running out.
The facilities many buildings and support and maintenance structures, however, aren't entirely in disuse.
In 2006, the Marines were using the abandoned buildings as part of a military exercise (reminiscent of the firefighter training that used to happen in Governor's Island's old Coast Guard barracks)...
...when they made a gruesome discovery:
...a freezer in the morgue...
...full of mummified body parts.
[Ed: Historic water tower is eligible for National Register consideration]
Upon investigation, a pathologist explained that the severed body parts were probably from amputees...
...but who knows what else is lurking in these buildings?
power plant
The County Poor Farm opened in 1888, but it continuously expanded over the following decades...
...evoking the same Mission Revival style of the current Rancho Los Amigos Rehabilitation Center across the highway...
...and bearing modern ephemera and signage.
Because most of the structures are relatively well-protected and locked up now...
Casa Consuelo patient ward (built 1930), slated for preservation
...they have been able to keep people out of them...
Casa Consuelo patient ward (built 1930), slated for preservation
...but not nature. Trees grow where they can grow, where there are no humans to stop them.
Casa Consuelo patient ward (built 1930), slated for preservation
That being said, someone does come and trim the lawns surrounding the buildings. There was no overgrown grass to be seen lining the sidewalks and open walkways.
Casa Consuelo patient ward (built 1930), slated for preservation
Some of the areas of the old Rancho seem like they must've been quite nice, once, surrounded by palm trees...
...and balconies...
...but gazing at the broken windows on a drizzly, cloudy day...
...the silence and abandonment is enough to make you shudder.
Reportedly, feral cats have taken over many of the cottages and buildings...
...prompting neighbors and animal lovers to set out food to take care of them, a practice which is strictly verboten and prohibited by ubiquitous signage.
I wonder if the cat-feeders know they are also nourishing a giant skunk, who I spooked out of one of the shelters. (I was lucky enough not to get sprayed, but unlucky enough not to get a photo.)
With all the cats there, it's surprising that a couple of people can be spotted walking their dogs...
...but there are areas of this ghost town which are actually quite lovely and open, like by the
Art Deco auditorium with its pergola-like shelter
[Ed: slated for demolition]. I wanted to get in there.
power plant
With all the No Trespassing signs, there's nothing really keeping anyone from skulking around...
...as long as they respect the boards and fences...
...and it's kind of nice to explore a traffic-free environs in LA County.
But people did once live here...
...and parked here...
...and there are constant reminders of that.
Now, decades after closing, this expansive area remains in limbo...
...as the birds build their nests in the rain gutters...
...the paint peels...
...the locks rust...
...and the lights go out.
Update for 2018: I'd heard that accessing Rancho Los Amigos had become trickier, some intrepid explorers having been shooed away by private security officers or law enforcement. So, I thought I'd go see where things stood, five years later, with my own eyes.
Unfortunately, much of the access to the interior of the "town" has been fenced off, preventing you not only from driving through it but also exploring by foot.
Of course, many of the buildings had already been gated off before, but now you can only explore the perimeter...
...and not any of the interior pathways that lead to the auditorium, administrative housing, etc.
It seems a shame to vanquish such a sprawling property by merely neglecting it.
Considering the housing shortage and the severe homeless situation in Southern California, it's hard to believe such a sprawling property is being wasted.
[Ed: Slated for preservation]
And now, people can no longer ride their bikes or walk their dogs through it as they once were, treating it as a kind of makeshift park—in an area that's severely lacking in publicly accessible open space.
At least people could somewhat enjoy the beautiful decay of Rancho Los Amigos five years ago. But now, the people have been pushed out, padlocks locked, sheriff's patrol car stationed as a lookout. And what for?
The LA Conservancy hasn't given up yet. On
its website, encourages supporters of the preservation of Rancho Los Amigos to call Supervisor Janice Hahn at (213) 974-4444 urge her to reconsider. You can also
email Ivan Sulic in Hahn's Field Office and
cc: Adrian Scott Fine at the Conservancy.
To read a nice thorough historic account of Rancho Los Amigos, visit "Ranch of the Friends: The Extraordinary Evolution of the L.A. County Poor Farm" by my friend Hadley Meares on KCET.org.
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