“Los Angeles celebrated the groundbreaking for the new Ascot Hills Park in 2005. The Olmsted Report recommended a park there in 1930. The Ascot Hills are named for the former Legion Ascot Speedway, Los Angeles’s most popular auto racetrack during the 1920s and 1930s. Until the groundbreaking for the park in 2005, the largest open space in East Los Angeles was Evergreen Cemetery. This sent the wrong message to our children: If you want open space, you have to die first. The City Project worked with the community to create the park through a creative partnership between the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and the City of Los Angeles with funding from the State."