Old Los Angeles Zoo, Griffith Park, Los Angeles

                                        Walking up on the entrance of the Old Los Angeles Zoo

The Los Angeles Zoo was the fourth zoo to serve the city. In 1885: The City-owned East-lake Zoo opens in East Los Angeles Park. Then in 1912: The Griffith Park Zoo opens only two miles from the current Los Angeles Zoo site) with 15 animals.

This Griffith Park Canyon area served as the City's Zoo from it's founding in 1912 to 1965. Many of the original Grotto's, Enclosures, and Walls still stand today abandoned and in ruin. These enclosures  were built in the early 1930's by County Relief Workers and Works Progress Administration (WPA) Crews.

Once this entire canyon echoed in the calls, growls, and roars of Bears, Lions, Monkeys, Macaw's, Elephants, Reptiles, Goats, and Turtles. The Historic Enclosures are now considered completely barbaric and inhumane even by myself. I felt like a prisoner just looking at them. It's also disgraceful the way they have been treated being desecrated by taggers, gangsters, and thugs. As I get older places like this make me realize just how much our rich history should be taken care of and promoted as a place of reflection and introspection. If your reading this please respect the buildings, walls, and the habitats that have been left for us to enjoy and discover.

Being that my website is dedicated to the Phantom side of things, I have to say this one haunted place. I brought my Electromagnetic Field Meter, Digital Video Camera, and Audio Recorder with me on my visit. There were cold spots, strange sounds, and spikes on my EMF meter in a few of the enclosures that I went inside of. I noticed strange sounds when I entered a darker, danker enclosure at the top of the hill. The EMF meter spike into the 4-5 range in the bear enclosures, and the audio recorder picked up some strange growling noises in one of the cages. I will be definitely be visiting again in the near future at night when there are less people running around.

The Ghost(s): There are reports of ghostly animals, full-bodied apparitions of people, strange odors or smells, and sounds echoing inside of this historical edge of Griffith Park. The park has been haunted since it's opening in the late 1800's. Paranormal researchers, and amateurs from all walks of life come to investigate this land once the night falls upon sleepy Los Angeles. There is a claim that a person was snarled at when entering some of the abandoned cages by sounds of a Lion.