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As part of a community-wide effort to explore the development of a Great Park at the Santa Monica Airport site, the Santa Monica Conservancy hosted a public listening session focusing on the century-old airport’s rich historic and cultural significance.

Funded by a City microgrant, the Oct. 30 session at the Ocean Park Library was attended by over 40 community members – mostly city residents – who heard live presentations in a hybrid format covering key elements of the history and legacy of the airport, which is set to close at the end of 2028. The majority of participants joined in person, with additional attendees contributing via Zoom. The program was divided into two parts:

Session One: Historical and Cultural Narratives

Conservancy Board President Mario Fonda-Bonardi and Executive Director Kaitlin Drisko introduced the session, followed by a land acknowledgement honoring the Gabrielino-Tongva tribe.

Angie Behrns, founder of the Gabrielino-Tongva Springs Foundation and an elder of the Gabrielino Tongva tribe, spoke passionately about the fight to preserve Kuruvungna Springs. She detailed the tribe’s ongoing efforts to protect its cultural heritage, including potential installations at the Great Park.

Learn more about Kuruvungna Springs.

Olivia White, an architectural historian and historic preservation consultant with Chattel Associates, presented a detailed history of the airport’s famed Compass Rose. She explained the artistic navigational aid painted on the airport’s tarmac was designed in 1939 by Wilma Fritschke, a member of the Los Angeles chapter of the legendary women’s flying club, The Ninety-Nines. White shared fascinating historical context about the Compass Rose and its enduring connection to the Ninety-Nines, including evidence of an earlier Compass Rose at the 1929 Women’s Air Derby in Santa Monica. White noted that in 1985, the Ninety-Nines published official guidance on painting Compass Roses at other airports – a standard still used today.

Watch Olivia’s Presentation:

Michael Brodsky, professor emeritus at Loyola Marymount University, provided a detailed historical overview of the airport land’s transformation. He traced the site’s history from the Tongva people through Spanish colonial settlement, subsequent American subdivision and eventual land transfers. In the 1920s, as Santa Monica was expanding, civic leaders saw both economic and recreational opportunities in the site and Clover Field was established. It featured a golf course and tennis courts, as well as an airport that would host one of the world’s largest aviation companies.

Watch Michael’s Presentation: 

Session Two: Site Redevelopment

 Dr. Alison Rose Jefferson provided valuable insights into early aviation history in Los Angeles, with an emphasis on the contributions of people of color and women in Southern California’s aviation industry.

Watch Alison’s Presentation:

The Conservancy then presented the City’s inventory of existing buildings and potential uses for the Great Park, along with examples of interpretive signage. This sparked a lively discussion where participants identified additional ways to present and transmit the site’s historical and cultural narratives.

The meeting concluded with robust input from community members about Great Park development. Suggestions included:

• Ensure transparency throughout the project, especially as it pertains to impact on nearby communities.
• Preserve the site’s current artist community.
• Provide equitable access for all residents.
• Recognize indigenous peoples’ culture and history.
• Utilize abandoned tarmac similar to Tempelhofer Feld in Germany.
• Recognize Clover Field Park and the start of the Santa Monica park system.
• Plan for the continued use and/or adaptive reuse of existing aviation buildings at the site.
• Explore our ecological, cultural and historical relationships to the airport land through rewilding and native plantings. This would include sustainable practices learned from the Gabrielino-Tongva at Kuruvungna Springs.
• Include spaces for farming, agriculture and mycology.
• Seek opportunities for water sustainability on the site.
• Incorporate interpretive panels at transportation hubs and other key areas of the park.
• Incorporate interpretive walks in the park.
• Consider how narrative history might be integrated throughout the Great Park, as opposed to isolating it in a small parcel.
• Illustrate airport history with markers on the ground, including outlines of previous aviation facilities such as the Douglas Aircraft complex.
• Recognize the contributions of Donald Douglas and the DC line of airplanes produced in Santa Monica.
• Expand detail on aviation history at the Museum of Flying.
• Consider how alternative transportation might be used on the site to reduce dependence on cars.

Continuing the Outreach

There was also discussion at the meeting about how the City and Conservancy might continue and expand its airport outreach campaign to collect as broad a base of input as possible about park development. Suggestions included:

• Ask grade schoolers what they’d like to see at the Great Park.
• Incorporate curriculum about park planning in schools.
• Collect comment from original participants like inhabitants, Douglas employees, private pilots, golfers, etc.
• Repeat a listening session when more park study and planning information is available from the City.
• Consider including the City in future listening sessions as a non-participatory observer so they can answer questions.

Summary

In alignment with Phase 2 of the City’s multi-stage airport redevelopment project, our Oct. 30 session focused specifically on preserving historical perspectives. It was one component of a broader community engagement strategy that includes public events and pop-ups, online surveys, virtual education sessions, and updates to the project engagement website. It will build on Phase 1’s analysis and assessments to generate an existing conditions summary and identify project opportunities and constraints, while exploring financial considerations and funding strategies.

The Conservancy submitted the results of our listening session to the City on Nov. 4. These findings, along with other community input, will help shape the draft guiding principles that will steer planning and design decisions throughout the project.

The City will share the comprehensive survey results at a community event on Dec. 7 at Memorial Park Gym, before moving into Phase 3. That stage will involve presenting and utilizing community feedback on preferred scenarios at the airport site.

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