Officials Break Ground on LAPD Museum

Police Chief Willie L. Williams, City Councilman Richard Alatorre, community leader Sybil Brand and other dignitaries gathered at the site of the old Northeast Division station in Highland Park on Thursday to break ground for the LAPD Historic Museum and Community Education Center.

“This project will be a testament to the work that the men and women of the Police Department have done in this city for the past 127 years,” Alatorre said. “Not only will it re-create the history of the department, but by having a substation and community education center it will reaffirm the Los Angeles Police Department’s mission of reaching out to the community.”

The project is the brainchild of Richard Kalk, a retired homicide detective and founder of the Los Angeles Police Historical Society. Kalk and his colleagues convinced the City Council to rent them the police station--built in 1923 and vacant since 1983--for $1 a year.

Over the years, the society has amassed thousands of bits of police memorabilia that it plans to display in the museum.