Woodley Park is a recreation area managed by the

City of Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

and located along Woodley Avenue between Victory and Burbank Boulevards in the

Lake Balboa Lake Balboa is a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles, California. The area was previously part of Van Nuys. Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. The area is located within the large

Sepulveda Basin Recreation Area The Sepulveda Dam is a project of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers designed to withhold winter flood waters along the Los Angeles River. Completed in 1941, at a cost of $6,650,561 (), it is located south of center in the San Fernando Valley, appr ...

in the central

San Fernando Valley The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, California. Located to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it contains a large portion of the City of Los Angeles, as well as unincorporated ar ...

. The

Tillman Water Reclamation Plant The Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant is a water reclamation plant located in Van Nuys, Los Angeles, California, United States. The plant was conceived of, designed and constructed by the City of Los Angeles' Bureau of Engineering. The A ...

is adjacent to the park and surrounded by

The Japanese Garden The Japanese Garden is a public Japanese garden in Los Angeles, located in the Lake Balboa district in the central San Fernando Valley, adjacent to the Van Nuys and Encino neighborhoods. It is specifically on the grounds of the Tillman Wate ...

, a large

Japanese garden are traditional gardens whose designs are accompanied by Japanese aesthetics and philosophical ideas, avoid artificial ornamentation, and highlight the natural landscape. Plants and worn, aged materials are generally used by Japanese garden desig ...

open to the public. Woodley park picnic area

Recreation

* Picnic areas *

Archery Archery is the sport, practice, or skill of using a bow to shoot arrows.Paterson ''Encyclopaedia of Archery'' p. 17 The word comes from the Latin ''arcus'', meaning bow. Historically, archery has been used for hunting and combat. In m ...

club and archer training grounds, some who have become world and Olympic champions in the late 1990s and early 2000s

Cricket

Woodley Park has five

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

grounds in the

Leo Magnus Cricket Complex The Leo Magnus Cricket Complex (LMCC) is a group of four cricket grounds located in the Van Nuys neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States. The facility is also called Woodley Cricket Field(s) or Woodley Cricket Complex due to its l ...

, and draws many of the best cricket players in the Los Angeles area. On many weekends, Woodley Park hosts a number of games of cricket being played by

expats An expatriate (often shortened to expat) is a person who resides outside their native country. In common usage, the term often refers to educated professionals, skilled workers, or artists taking positions outside their home country, either ...

of Britain and Commonwealth counties, and British influenced countries, including India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the Caribbean. The 1995 and 2002 U.S. national cricket championships were held at the park.

Events

Events in Woodley Park can/have included: *

Classic car A classic car is an older car, typically 25 years or older, though definitions vary.While other languages, such as German and Dutch, may refer to classic cars as "oldtimers", this usage is unknown in English, where "old-timer" refers to an elder ...

shows. *

Bagpiping Bagpipes are a woodwind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The Great Highland bagpipes are well known, but people have played bagpipes for centuries throughout large parts of Europe, Nor ...

troupe weekly practice, in the late 1980s. *

Boy Scout Jamboree In Scouting, a jamboree is a large gathering of Scouts who rally at a national or international level. History The 1st World Scout Jamboree was held in 1920, and was hosted by the United Kingdom. Since then, there have been twenty-three other W ...

for the western

Los Angeles County Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles, and sometimes abbreviated as L.A. County, is the most populous county in the United States and in the U.S. state of California, with 9,861,224 residents estimated as of 2022. It is the ...

Boy Scout Council in 1999 *In approximately the mid 1970s Bonnie Raitt did free anti nuclear power plant concerts. ;Crime Woodley Park was a scene of major drug dealing in the mid-1980s, a drug "supermarket" that was one of the most notorious areas in the

for open drug sales. Increased police patrols, undercover operations, and surveillance by civilian volunteers curtailed the scene. *A stabbing death occurred in 1986 * the murder of a homeless man kicked to death by two dozen men after an argument in 1988, and shootings at two public events in mid-1992, including at a reggae festival and, fatally, at an African-American college Greek organization event.

Dog park

Approximately of the park were set aside in the late 1980s as a

dog park A dog park is a park for dogs to exercise and play off-leash in a controlled environment under the supervision of their owners. Description Dog parks have varying features, although they typically offer a 4' to 6' fence, separate double-gated ...

area. The city did not allocate funds until the 1990s for the construction of a fence needed for safer use by dogs and people.

References

{{Parks in Los Angeles Parks in the San Fernando Valley Parks in Los Angeles Lake Balboa, Los Angeles Van Nuys, Los Angeles