Changing the Face of Downtown Los Angeles

The Cornfield is a 32-acre strip of open land bounded by North Broadway and North Spring Street in downtown LA between Chinatown and the Los Angeles River.  It's across the 101 Freeway from Elysian Park.  It never was really a cornfield at all, but when it was a railroad yard, cornstalks sprouted from seeds that spilled from boxcars.  After the railroads moved out, there were protests against turning it into an industrial site, and the state parks department bought the property five years ago.  It's now an "interim park," with an amphitheater and four acres of open turf, awaiting the results of an international design competition. Tomorrow, State Parks Director Ruth Coleman will announce which of three landscape architectural competitors will be asked to draw final plans for a new state park.