The abandoned site of the Griffith Park Zoo, complete with the ruins of animal enclosures, is now a picnic area featuring multiple hiking trails in Griffith Park.

[2]: 37  The Griffith Park Zoo opened in 1912 with a grand total of 15 animals.

[4] As Los Angeles grew, the small Griffith Park Zoo was increasingly criticized as an "inadequate, ugly, poorly designed and under-financed collection of beat-up cages",[5] despite drawing more than two million visitors a year.

[6] In 1958 the city passed an $8 million bond measure to create a brand new zoo.

[7] The animal enclosures, with the bars removed, were left as ruins; picnic benches or tables were installed in some of them for park visitors.