Happy City News loves a birthday with a view, and this one is golden. This October marks 50 years since the Korean Bell of Friendship was dedicated on October 3, 1976, atop Angels Gate Park in San Pedro — a 17-ton bronze gift from the people of the Republic of Korea to the people of Los Angeles, presented for the United States Bicentennial to honor Korean War veterans and celebrate friendship between the two nations.
The bell stands 12 feet tall and 7.5 feet across inside a stone pavilion built by Korean craftsmen, its twelve columns representing the twelve signs of the zodiac. It was modeled after the Divine Bell of King Seongdeok, cast in the year 771, and its sides pair a Goddess of Liberty with a Korean spirit holding symbols of friendship: a Korean flag, a rose of Sharon branch, a laurel branch and a dove of peace. The bell has no clapper — it is struck from the outside with a great wooden log — and it sounds only five times a year, on New Year’s Eve, Korean American Day, Independence Day, Korean Liberation Day and during Constitution Week each September. It was declared Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 187 in 1978.
Half a century on, the hilltop at 3601 S. Gaffey Street still offers some of the finest free views in Los Angeles: the harbor below, the Catalina Channel stretching to the horizon and the terraced hills of San Pedro. Come for a picnic, a kite-flying afternoon or a sunset stroll, and listen for the next ringing as the year turns — fifty years of friendship, still sounding strong.
Photo: Bill Ebbesen / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.5)
