Located at Angel’s Gate Park, 3601 South Gaffey Street in San Pedro, California, it was a bi-centennial gift from the Republic of Korea and was first dedicated on October 3, 1976.
Due to weather, age and neglect, the bell has not been rung for several years.
The $365,000 restoration took over two years to complete.
Los Angeles Mayor, Eric Garcetti, was present for the ceremony where several certificates, bell models and kudos were exchanged.
This was my first time to hear it ring.
You can hear the bell and the drummers:
It will ring five times a year: Korean Liberation Day, US Constitution Day, Korean-American Day, Fourth of July and New Year's Eve.
It is struck 14 times, once for each of the 13 colonies plus once for good luck.
The bell weighs over 17 tons, is made of copper and tin with gold, nickel, lead and phosphorus; it was modeled after the bell cast for the Bongdeok Temple in 771 AD. These two bells are considered the largest in the world.
7½
feet diameter, 8 inches thick, 12 feet high, the bell has four images of the Goddess of Liberty: The Statue of Liberty and Seonyeo holding hands.
In each panel, the Korean spirit figure holds a different item: a dove, a branch of Rose of Sharon, a branch of laurel and the Taegeuk.
In 1978, the bell and its' structure became Los Angeles Historical-Cultural Monument #187.
Located on the former Upper Reservation of Fort Mac Arthur, you can still see the old access to the underground tunnels.
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| West End |
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| East End |
Below are two images I took in the late 70's inside the underground tunnel. It was pitch dark and I was creating ghost images using a tripod, flashlight and timed exposures:
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| 70'S Interior East Tunnel |
Update: I was watching an episode of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. that aired on 03/04/2014 and noticed the lab hidden in an old World War Two underground bunker looked familiar:
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| Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. S1E14 |
They were using this same entrance (West End). The interiors where shot elsewhere and they graphically changed the background, adding a mountain, but this is the same door.
