Culver West Alexander Park

by Kenny Stevenson

DID YOU KNOW?

That there is a Culver City park west of the 405?! Two miles west of the freeway, surrounded by a West LA neighborhood, Culver West Alexander Park is 3.13 acre park that has a playground, a basketball court, handball courts, PICKLEBALL COURTS!, a rec center, plenty of green grass, and one of the only pooch paths in a Culver City park. Dogs are not allowed in Culver City parks, but you can walk them through Culver West Alexander Park.

WHAT NEEDS FIXING: 

The play surfaces near the playground are crumbling to the point where a child could easily trip on it. The playground equipment is old and fading. The handball and pickle-ball courts are cracked, faded, with paint peeling everywhere. The basketball court has cracks and several instances of uneven blacktop, and the backboards are old and weathered.

There are several murals around the park that are old and faded. These make the park feel dated and are an apparent sign that this park has not been updated in years. The pooch path and the jogging path also look old and worn. Overall, the park has great green space and lots of room for activities, but it all looks run down.

WHAT PARKS IS DOING TO IMPROVE CULVER WEST ALEXANDER PARK:

The Parks and Recreation Department has expressed an immediate need for $2  million to improve playgrounds at Lindberg and Culver West! Also included in their long term plans is increasing the park space for Culver West Alexander Park! All the more reason to make sure that the Parks Department gets the money they need from the budget every year.

WHAT CULVER WEST ALEXANDER PARK MEANS TO ME:

There is one thing that my daughter loves more than anything, and that’s musical theater. She has been doing musical theater since the fall of 2021, and has now been in about 10 shows and counting. Her first show was 101 Dalmatians, which she did through a program called Dee-Lightful Productions.

Dee-Lightful has been doing musical theater productions for kids and teens for more than 20 years through the Culver City Parks Department. They run productions during the fall and the spring, and they have camps over the summer. The summer camps are held at Veteran’s Park, but the programs in the fall and the spring are in the rec center at Culver West Alexander Park.

Below is what the rec center at Culver West Alexander park looks like. This is the space where children learn and choreograph a show.

Every Saturday, we would drive our daughter to the rec center, and she would practically run out of the car and could not wait to be let into the rec center so she could begin blocking scenes and learning choreography. The kids would rehearse and rehearse for months. For us parents, we would never really know what was happening on Saturdays, only that my daughter was more confident, found something that she was interested in, and was having the time of her life.

It all culminates in shows put on at the Veterans Auditorium, and it’s very easy to see how all of the hard work at Culver West Alexander Park was paying off on the stage.

These moments have been very important to my daughter and many kids in Culver City, and that comes from all of the time spent working and having fun at Culver West Alexander Park.