He’s the closest person to a real life Indiana Jones I have ever met.” — Elliott Porter, retired personnel director for the Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department, which oversees the city-owned and city-operated Griffith Observatory.
After 2,200 expeditions to ancient and prehistoric medieval sites all over the world — hacking his way through thick jungle vines and taking buses to remote sites where no bus has gone before — you’d think Dr. Ed Krupp, Indiana Jones to his friends, would be slowing down as he approaches 80.
Not a chance. The director of Griffith Observatory for the last 45 years is still dreaming big, still looking for new adventures in space and on Earth to offer the people who sign his paycheck — the people of Los Angeles.
That’s the way Griffith J. Griffith — one Griffith was obviously not enough — wanted it back in 1935 when he stood on top of Mount Wilson looking at Saturn through the world’s largest telescope at the time, and wishing more people could see what he was seeing. Only scientists and special guests, many of them with deep pockets, were invited to take a peek.
“He thought if mankind could look through this telescope it would change the world,” Krupp said. “He wanted to give everybody the chance to put an eyeball to the universe.”
Griffith had donated 3,000 acres to the city for a park named after him, and said here’s the land, build the people’s telescope. The only caveat was admission to the observatory had to be free.
Krupp laughed when I told him his friends and co-workers looked at him as an Indiana Jones, adventurous kind of guy. He had just hung up with his car mechanic and was feeling good. His 1968 Camaro he bought new was getting out of the shop any day now.
“I never thought that Camaro and I would stick together this long — 525,000 miles,” Krupp said. “We’ve been to the moon and back, and then some.”
I was beginning to see what his friends were talking about.
When he…
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