L.A.'S BACK YARD : STARS, ZOO ANIMALS AND KIDS OF ALL AGES COME TOGETHER AT GRIFFITH PARK.

Byline: Carol Bidwell Daily News Staff Writer

A squirrel darts across the road and scampers up a tree. A deer ventures into a clearing. The only sound is the clop-clop of horses' hooves as riders saunter along a wooded trail.

It's hard to believe you're in the middle of Los Angeles, in the nation's largest city park, yards from some of Southern California's busiest freeways.

Griffith Park - donated to the city 100 years ago - is a refuge from the bustle of urban life, the pressures of work. Children ride the ponies and the trains, foursomes play golf, tennis players rally on the courts, music lovers come for concerts and people who just need a break bring a book and a bag lunch for a few minutes of quiet before heading back to the office.

Often called Los Angeles' back yard, Griffith Park is busy every day of the year with locals and tourists; 9.3 million people visited in 1995.

It's exactly what Col. Griffith J. Griffith envisioned when he handed 3,015 acres of his Rancho Los Feliz to the city of Los Angeles. He said he wanted the park that would bear his name to be ``a resort for the rank and file of the plain people.''

``Public parks are a safety valve of great cities and should be made accessible and attractive, where neither race, creed nor color should be excluded,'' he wrote. ``I have but one request: that the public - the whole public - should enjoy with me this beautiful spot.''

Linda Barth, who supervises the park's Travel Town, feels the same way.

``Griffith Park is a resource for everybody,'' Barth said. ``In the heart of the city, there's a place you can go that's not a freeway, it's not people arguing on their cell phones. It's trees and dirt and a merry-go-round.''

Since Griffith's original land donation, the park has grown to 4,253.82 acres - five times the size of New York City's Central Park).

It is not immune to the stresses and problems of the world that surrounds it. There are periodic complaints of gang activity after dark; periodically, there are thefts and vandalism.

The outside world intruded tragically in 1992, when Stanley Diamond, the engineer of Travel Town's children's train, was shot to death during a cash-box robbery.

Park officials keep a close eye on potential problems and enlist the Los Angeles Police Department's help to keep them at bay, Barth said.

But it's mostly a peaceful oasis in the midst of modern-day chaos for many, such as Diana Jimenez, a Tijuana resident who recently was visiting her father-in-law, and brought her 3-year-old son, Carlos, to ride the park's ponies. It dampened the outing only a little when Carlos refused to climb aboard.

``He's afraid,'' his mother said with a smile. ``But we're enjoying the day. The park is quite lovely.''

``It's real calm, peaceful,'' agreed her father-in-law, Carlos Jimenez of South Gate.

Rafael Alcaraz, engineer on the Griffith Park & Southern Railroad, said the trains are among the park's most popular attractions.

``The kids are so excited. They really love it. And a lot of the seniors really get a kick out of it, too. We've got old customers from 20 years ago, they come twice a week.''

Tales from the past

The land that now houses the park was once a Mexican land grant. Col. Griffith (colonel was a rank he held in the National Guard) acquired 4,071 acres of the rancho in 1882.

He leased land out for an ostrich farm in 1885, and in 1896 - after a disastrous flood washed away much of the land - offered the land to the city for a park.

Later, Griffith tried to give the city money to build an observatory and a theater, but city officials turned the money down. The park's benefactor, described by one writer as ``pompous, eccentric and vain,'' had married a woman 14 years younger than himself and in a fit of jealousy and suspicion, shot out his wife's eye in a Santa Monica hotel room in 1903. She dove out a window to escape further gunfire. Griffith pleaded temporary insanity, but was convicted and served two years in San Quentin, emerging with his reputation permanently damaged.

He died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1919, and left the city $750,000 to built a theater and observatory in the park he loved. The city built the Greek Theatre in 1930 and the Griffith Observatory in 1935.

Despite Griffith's wishes, parkland has not always been reserved for recreation. In 1924, the Griffith Park Airfield opened where the Autry Museum and the zoo parking lot now stand; it also served as a National Guard airstrip, which was closed after World War II. The site and some airfield hangar buildings were used for a large government housing project known as Roger Young Village, a city of Quonset huts for returning veterans and their families until the early 1950s.

Between 1910 and 1920, the Travel Town Museum site was a city prison farm, a camp for wayward youth (1920s) and, during World War II, a camp that housed Japanese and German war prisoners. It also served as a way station for Polish emigres on their way to Mexico.

The Pacific Electric Railway quarried rock in Bronson Canyon; the excavations leaving caves that often are featured in movies.

During the Depression, the park housed a Civilian Conservation Corps camp, which built many of the park roads, rock walls and other features.

The Toyon Landfill has operated for two decades in a park canyon; closed last year, it is being covered with layers of soil and will be landscaped for use as a picnic and play area.

Finding your way around

Some of the hilltop roads that connect the Greek Theatre and the Griffith Observatory with the rest of the park have been closed to motor vehicles to reduce fire danger, and visitors must travel city streets outside the park to reach some attractions.

For park maps and guides to the 53 miles of hiking trails, visit the ranger station on Crystal Springs Drive in Park Center, near the merry-go-round. The station is open 24 hours to provide free information and aid to visitors. Information: [phone].

City officials are considering a system of shuttle buses to take park visitors from parking areas to attractions and back. Shuttle buses have been used on a trial basis at some special events this year and have worked well, said Tom LaBonge, director of field operations for the mayor's office and chairman of the Griffith Park Resource Board.

``I think it will happen on weekends and holidays,'' LaBonge said.

Getting to the park will become easier next month, when the Los Angeles River Bikeway - connecting Victory Boulevard at Riverside Drive with Los Feliz Boulevard - opens. More such trails may be in the offing.

Autry Museum of Western Heritage

Singing movie cowboy Gene Autry has turned his private collection into one of the largest museums in the country dedicated to the history of the American West.

But the Autry Museum, just across the parking lot from the zoo, is no vanity spot. Other than a bronze statue of Autry (he made 82 films from 1934 to 1954 and wrote more than 250 songs) in the museum's outdoor courtyard and a display of his costumes, guns and saddles alongside relics of other movie cowboy heroes, there's nary a mention of Autry in the facility that includes fine artworks, historic exhibits, movie memorabilia, a theater and a research library.

``Gene never wanted it to be about him,'' said museum spokesman Justin K. Aldrich. ``Gene has always been a collector of western history. It had always been a dream of his to have a museum.''

The tri-level, 148,000-square-foot museum has grown ever since its opening on an 11-acre site in November 1988, with more than 85,000 items now in its collection.

The Wells Fargo Theater seats 215 people for special shows and films, and the Mary Pickford Education Center includes two classrooms, used to teach school kids about western history on periodic field trips. The Research Center is open to scholars and researchers by appointment. A gift shop offers western memorabilia, books, toys and other items, and the Golden Spur Cafe (open 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.) offers snacks and light meals.

The Greek Theatre

The Greek Theatre, where some of the country's finest entertainers have performed, was built with Griffith's donated funds.

The Greek honors its legends with the Wall of Fame - handprints and signatures in cement of the stars who have sold more than 100,000 tickets there; represented so far are Johnny Mathis, Harry Belafonte and Santana.

Today's theater, at 2700 N. Vermont Ave., seats 6,165 people and has a newly completed snack bar, Zeus' Bar & Grill. In 1992, theater grounds got a $750,000 face lift that included a year-round picnic area, fresh landscaping and new restroom facilities.

Griffith Observatory

Benefactor Griffith loved to look at the heavens, and after peering through the giant telescope at Mount Wilson, he decided the park should have a similar facility where people could scan the skies with a higher purpose than astronomy in mind.

``He thought that seeing distant worlds might make people feel closer together on Earth,'' said observatory program director John Mosley. ``He was an immigrant himself, and with the opening of the Panama Canal and the Port of Los Angeles, he knew many people from other countries would be coming here. One of his concerns was how the immigrants would get along. He thought seeing distant worlds would make our problems seem small.''

Griffith left money in his will for construction of the observatory at 2800 E. Observatory Road.

In the planetarium, more than 100 projectors re-create parts of the solar system and beyond the Milky Way in hourlong shows.

About $25 million in renovations (with money from a 1993 bond issue) are in the works for the planetarium, which will close for nearly two years - probably in 1998 and 1999 - said Mosley.

The Hall of Science, the observatory's museum, has on display a solar telescope, 6-foot Earth and moon globes, meteorites, a cosmic ray cloud chamber and more. On the roof are two giant telescopes.

The Laserium presents music-and-light concerts in the Planetarium in the evenings after other shows end.

Los Angeles Equestrian Center

Not far from two freeways, riders canter along on rented horses from the Los Angeles Equestrian Center, completed in 1982. In addition to Griffith Park Horse Rentals, the center is home to a horse-boarding facility and a riding school. Most visitors rent horses for a ride along the park's official 54 miles of riding trails.

You don't have to be an experienced rider to rent a horse, said Anthony Holt, manager of the rental stable.

``For inexperienced riders, we give a few instructions and a map and send them on their way,'' Holt said.

Horse rentals cost $15 for an hour's ride, $24 for 90 minutes, and $28 for two hours; services of an experienced guide on horseback costs an additional $5 per hour. A $15 refundable deposit is required of all riders.

The stable stages barbecue rides - which include a 90-minute ride and a meal - every other Friday, and schedules pancake breakfast and barbecue rides for private parties of seven riders or more for $35 per person.

Los Angeles Zoo 

The zoo, opened in 1966, is the second-most-popular place in the park to visit. It now houses more than 1,200 animals in facilities that are undergoing renovations detailed in a $150 million, 1991 master plan.

The zoo has had its share of troubles in the past couple of years. Forty-four of the zoo's penguins had died, flamingos were being killed by coyotes sneaking through fences in disrepair, and primate cages were vermin-infested. The American Zoological and Aquarium Association considered pulling the zoo's accreditation. The city hired Manuel Mollinedo, a former assistant general manager with the city's Recreation and Parks Department, as the zoo's new director, and agreed to fund improvements.

In September, the zoo won a five-year accreditation and has embarked on the first renovations and new construction outlined in a master plan. Last month, construction workers broke ground on a $14.5 million Great Ape Forest. The first phase of the project is scheduled to open in spring 1998.

The next project will be a new hospital for zoo animals; the project has not been designed and has no price tag yet, said zoo spokeswoman Lora LaMarca.

During the Christmas season, kids can get up close and personal with four real reindeer, on loan from an Oregon firm, that will be on display in a pen in the zoo's eucalyptus grove.

Travel Town Museum

In the 1950s, old steam locomotives were being replaced by diesel engines, and Griffith Park officials petitioned for the railroads' castoffs. The result was Travel Town, an open-air exhibit established in 1952 featuring retired locomotives, passenger and baggage cars, and cabooses. The museum also has an indoor collection of automobiles and horse-drawn vehicles, along with turn-of-the-century fire trucks.

Passage of Proposition A Nov. 5 will fund a new $1.9 million, 30,000-square-foot covered locomotive pavilion where the oldest and most valuable of the locomotives and cars will be exhibited out of the rain, prolonging their life.

You ought to be in pictures

Chances are you've seen Griffith Park in the movies.

In the early days of Hollywood, movie companies routinely used the hillsides, caves and ravines as backgrounds for films that included ``Birth of a Nation'' (1915), ``The Big Parade'' (1925), ``King Kong'' (1933) and ``Union Pacific'' (1935).

The Griffith Observatory, high above the city, was seen in several scenes in ``Rebel Without a Cause'' (1955) and ``The Terminator'' (1984).

The Bronson Canyon caves doubled as the undergrounds haunts of the Muranians in the 1935 Gene Autry serial, ``The Phantom Empire,'' used as hideouts from the aliens in ``Invasion of the Body Snatchers'' (1956), and one was seen as the entrance to the Batcave for both TV and movie versions of ``Batman.''

And other park scenes were used as a backdrop for films ranging from ``Dragstrip Girl'' (1957) to ``The Bodyguard'' (1992), as well as for dozens of TV series that included ``Bonanza,'' ``Gunsmoke,'' ``Little House on the Prairie,'' ``The Bionic Woman,'' ``The Incredible Hulk,'' ``The Beverly Hillbillies,'' ``Seinfeld,'' ``Fantasy Island,'' ``Beverly Hills, 90210,'' ``The Rockford Files'' and ``Murder, She Wrote.''

Former cameramen Fred J. Balshofer and Arthur C. Miller, in their book ``One Reel a Week,'' said film companies in the 1920s and '30s shot in Griffith Park to save money on more faraway locations.

``Griffith Park was a beautiful place with tree-covered hills, ideal for western pictures,'' the two wrote. ``It was only a few miles from our studio and many times we set up an Indian village and left it there for days at a time in the section now known as Griffith Park Golf Course.''

It was supposedly producer Sam Goldwyn - some say it was producer Abe Stern - who kept early movie companies shooting close to the Hollywood studios. ``A rock's a rock and a tree's a tree,'' Goldwyn is quoted as telling any director who wanted to venture outside the Hollywood radius. ``Shoot it in Griffith Park.''

Film companies pay $300 a day to film in the park, and it's a rare day - generally only when there's a downpour - when a movie or TV company isn't at work somewhere on park property.

Hooray for Hollywood

The Hollywood sign, atop Mount Lee in Griffith Park, is the last remnant of one of the first real estate promotions in Los Angeles, erected in 1923 to promote a housing development called Hollywoodland. The last syllable was removed years later, and the remaining sign became the symbol of tinseltown.

The sign originally was lit with 5,000 electric lights, but the light show was abandoned after it became too expensive - and hillside neighbors complained.

The sign - 50 feet high, 450 feet long, weighing 480,000 pounds - was renovated in 1978, with donors sponsoring a new letAter for $27,000 (rock star Alice Cooper donated an ``O'' in memory of movie comedian Groucho Marx), but visitors can only see the sign from afar. No trails lead to the sign.

Pack a lunch

Picnicking is allowed throughout the park, on the grass or at the many area with picnic tables. There are five group picnic areas in Griffith Park. One - the Crystal Springs Picnic Area, off Crystal Springs Drive near the park ranger station - is available for rental, accommodating up to 1,500 picnickers.

Young at heart

The Merry-Go-Round, a 1927 design brought to the park in 1937 from San Diego, is off Griffith Park Drive in Park Center. Owned by Warren Deasy and Rosemary West, the carousel has 68 horses and two chariots; a band organ with five moving figures plays traditional carousel music.

Griffith Park & Southern Railroad trains depart on an eight-minute, mile-long run from the station near the Los Feliz/Riverside entrance to the park off Griffith Park Drive.

The Pony Ride is next to the train station off Griffith Park Drive, near the Los Feliz/Riverside entrance to the park. Rides cost $1.50 each. The smallest children are strapped onto ponies tethered to a wagon wheel-like contraption in a small circular enclosure where parents can walk alongside. Older and more adventurous children ride ponies along a small, fenced trail system, accompanied by an attendant who jogs alongside. Information: [phone]. There's a snack bar between the train station and the pony ride, and park visitors also can rent skates and bicycles at a small stand.

Los Angeles Live Steamers, a group of more than 400 train buffs celebrating their 40th year in the park, gives free rides (donations are accepted) to kids and their parents aboard miniature, 1.5-inch-to-1-foot scale steam trains from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sundays. To ride, children must be at least 24 inches tall and able to sit in their own seat. The trains are at 5202 Zoo Drive, between the Travel Town Museum and the Autry Museum.

TenAnis, anyone?

Griffith Park has three tennis complexes.

Griffith-Riverside Pay Tennis is at the Griffith Park Recreation Center, off Griffith Park Drive south of Los Feliz Boulevard. Courts are open 4 to 9 p.m. weekdays, 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. weekends and holidays, closed Thanksgiving and Christmas. Court fees are $6 an hour.

Griffith-Vermont Pay Tennis is on Commonwealth Canyon Drive, across the road from the Roosevelt Golf Course. Courts are open 4 to 7 p.m. weekdays, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Court fees are $6 an hour.

Griffith Park Drive Tennis Courts are in Park Center, off Griffith Park Drive and near the merry-go-round. Play is free and first-come, first-served; courts must be relinquished to waiting players after one set.

Gone golfing

Four golf courses are operated in the park by the Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department. All are open daily, sunrise to sunset. To reserve a tee time, golfers must have a reservations card, available for $25 a year at any city-run golf course.

Wilson/Harding Municipal Golf Course, two 18-hole, par-72 courses, include clubhouse, locker room, electric carts, hand carts, rental clubs, snack bar, night-lighted double-decker driving range and golf pro shop. A restaurant and coffee shop serve breakfast, lunch and dinner. Greens fees are $17 weekdays, $22 weekends.

Los Feliz Municipal Golf Course, a nine-hole, par-27 pitch-and-putt course, has a coffee shop and golf club rental. Greens fees are $3.50 weekdays, $4.50 on weekends.

Roosevelt Municipal Golf Course, a nine-hole, par-33 course, costs $8.50 to play on weekdays, $11.50 on weekends; snack bar available.

Let's play

The Plunge, a 1937-built pool that's 75 yards long by 20 yards wide, is open during the summer months, and can accommodate 450 swimmers at one time. Next year, the pool at Riverside Drive and Los Feliz Boulevard, opens June 23 and closes the day after Labor Day.

John Ferraro Athletic fields include five regulation and two practiceA soccer and rugby fields, mostly used by city-sponsored and independent leagues. But it's also available for use - for $23 an hour - by private groups. Reservations are required. The fields are in the Riverdale section of the park, near the zoo and the intersection of the Interstate 5 and the 134 freeways and the Los Angeles River.

Happy holidays

To celebrate the park's 100th birthday and the holidays, Griffith Park plans a Festival of Lights that will open Dec. 7 and run through Christmas Eve, featuring a mile-long stretch of Crystal Springs Drive between the ranger headquarters and the zoo light with millions of lights - including lighted vignettes in clearings along the road.

Visitors can drive the route, or park in the zoo parking lot and walk the avenue of lights. The lights will be on from dusk to 10 p.m. nightly.

The park's annual Winter Holiday Festival runs 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Dec. 7 and 8, with the lighting of the park's 30-foot-tall Christmas tree at 5 p.m. Dec. 7 in the Zoo Magnet School parking lot, adjacent to Crystal Springs Drive. The festival features music, crafts booths, food and holiday vendors.

Kids can take a special Ride to Santa aboard Griffith Park & Southern Railroad trains Nov. 30 and Dec. 1, Dec. 6, 7 and 8, and nightly Dec. 11-23. From 5 to 9 p.m., kids can take a mile-long ride, stopping halfway to greet Santa and get a candy cane before boarding the train for the return to the station. Rides cost $5.

CAPTION(S):

Drawing, 6 Photos

Drawing: (Cover--Color) On a poster commemorating the Griffith Park Centennial, an old-fashioned couple in a horse and buggy meander leasurely through the park toward today's Los Angeles skyline.

Photo: (1--2) (2--Color Only) An airfield operated in the park, where the Autry museum and the zoo now stand, from 1924 until after World War II. At right, singing cowboy Gene Autry and his horse are captured in bronze outside the Autry Museum.

(3--Color) The Griffith Observatory towers over the Los Angeles skyline.

(4--Color) no caption (Deer)

(5--Color) A park visitor contemplates the Hollywood sign on the slopes of Mount Lee.

(6--Color) Engineer Rafael Alcarez dusts one of the Griffith Park & Southern Railroad trains.

Phil McCarten/Daily News