Exposition Park Rose Garden
Sunken garden of geometric rose beds and marble statues, planted over a scandalous former racetrack.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Exposition Park Rose Garden in Los Angeles traces the ground's transformation from a rowdy fairground of camel races and one of the city's most fashionable brothels into the sunken, geometric rose garden planted here in the 1920s. It follows attorney William Bowen's campaign to clean up the site and the rose experts hired to lay out its beds. Four marble statues carved by the Danish sculptor Thyra Boldsen still stand at the garden's corners, having been stolen, vandalized, and recovered more than once.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Descanso Gardens
Historic camellia forest and botanical estate with a rose garden, oak woodland and seasonal blooms across rolling acreage.
The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
Library, art museum, and botanical gardens spanning desert, Japanese, and rose collections.
Tongva Park
Seaside park of rolling hills and arroyo-inspired gardens built atop a former parking lot.
Echo Park Lake
Historic urban lake ringed by palms, with a famed lotus bed and pedal boats gliding past a fountain.
Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA)
Former roller-skating rink turned museum of modern and contemporary Latin American art, with a sculpture garden.