Landmark Gateway Plaza inaugurates facelift of park.

IT'S easy to miss the stretch of green northeast of Wilshire and San Vicente boulevards. Surrounded by rusty fencing and within earshot of loud traffic, the 16-acre Veterans Park is not an inviting place.

The Veterans Park Conservancy intends to change all that.

The organization at 4 p.m. Tuesday will unveil the Landmark Gateway Plaza on the site as the inauguration of its total facelift, due for completion at the beginning of 2008.

The plaza area covers about 8,000 square feet. Six brass eagle plaques on the gateway are replicas of plaques at another veteran facility in Los Angeles, and also at one in Ohio.

The park was intended years ago as a dedication to the courage and sacrifices of the country's veterans of the past, present and future. But that intention seems to have been lost over the years.

"People don't even know it is here," said Susan Young, founder and executive director of the Veterans Park Conservancy. "By doing this, we want to create awareness and make people feel welcome. They will walk in and want to help veterans and perhaps write a check."

Money is something the project can use. Just the perimeter fencing and plaza cost $2.3 million. The Department of Veterans Affairs gave $1 million, which was bolstered by contributions to the conservancy from Eli Broad, Thomas V. Jones, Peter Mullin, Jerry Oppenheimer and 2,900 other donors from the Los Angeles community. The remaining money also was raised by the conservancy. Former Mayor Richard Riordan was an advocate of the project.

The conservancy is a non-profit community organization in Los Angeles founded in 1989 with the intention of preserving the open space on the Veterans Affairs property in West Los Angeles. The renovated park will offer veterans and patients at the nearby Veteran Affairs Medical Center a quiet spot lor resting and healing.

The plan for the interior of the park includes walkways, fountains, reading areas, game tables and historic and educational displays. In addition, it will also preserve half a dozen species of trees and over two dozen kinds of birds and animals. The park will be patrolled by federal police officers.

Beautifying the interior of the park will cost about $7 million, which the organization expects to raise through private donations.

Terry Tracy, a state service officer for the American Legion, said the park would be a spot that veterans and others could use for recreation, but that it also has potential for other functions.

"The Veterans Affairs department could probably consider contracting part of the land for various functions (like concerts) as long as it is respected as a veterans' area primarily and doesn't disturb them," he said.

Any money collected from such activities will go back into projects and programs that benefit veterans.

One focus is to create awareness about the existence of such a spot in the heart of Los Angeles and to allow people to enjoy it, Young said.

"There are patients at the VA medical center, there are employees from all these businesses on Wilshire and San Vicente Boulevards who will be ecstatic about a spot where they can eat their lunch and watch the birds and butterflies," she said. "'They are the direct beneficiaries of this project."