Artsy but problematic palms

L.A. desperately needs shade. Yet flammable trees are taking up prime spots near LACMA.

- BY JEANETTE MARANTOS

JULIANA YAMADA Los Angeles Times

THE CITY has planted 77 Mexican fan palms on Wilshire Boulevard, despite the trees' lack of shade.

This summer, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the city's Bureau of Street Services and Metro planted 77 new Mexican fan palms on Wilshire Boulevard, mostly along the sidewalk and medians outside the museum's new David Geffen Galleries.

Local environmentalists, who are lobbying hard for more shade trees in L.A., are decrying the decision. They say palm trees are expensive to maintain, highly flammable and hopeless at producing the shade Angelenos need to dull the heat that radiates off the city's streets, sidewalks and other hardscape surfaces.

Metro planted at least 48 fan palms in the new medians it rebuilt near the museum as part of its D Line Subway Extension Project, between Fairfax and La Brea avenues, said Dave Sotero, Metro's communications director.

Sotero said the palms, interspersed with about five pink-blooming silk floss trees, were selected from the city's palette of acceptable trees, which still includes Mexican and California fan palms.

He said palm trees were chosen "to achieve a continuity of the characteristics of the corridor," with approval from the city's Bureau of Street Services, and he emphasized that Metro is also planting more than 100 broad-leaved trees such as London plane and African fern pines to provide shade at its new Metro stops.

LACMA officials see palm trees as an integral part of the museum's identity, according to testimony during a Sept. 1, 2021, meeting of the city's Board of Public Works, which agreed to a LACMA/Bureau of Street Services plan to permit nine 35-foot Mexican palm trees and six African sumac trees on the south side of the broad sidewalk in front of the Geffen Galleries.