The Korean Friendship Bell Turns 50 on a First Saturday, and the Free Noon Ringing Is the Celebration

Ernest Lee was a boy in Seoul when the bell was cast. A few years later he immigrated to the United States, and once his family was settled his parents drove him to San Pedro to see it. He turned a corner in a quiet neighborhood and found an ocean view and a red-and-gold pavilion covered in writing he could read. He still remembers being surprised by that, and proud of it.

Today Lee is president of the Korean Friendship Bell Foundation, and this Saturday, October 3, is 50 years to the day since the bell was dedicated at Angels Gate Park and struck for the first time on American soil. The calendar makes one detail easy to miss. October 3, 2026, is the first Saturday of the month, and the bell already rings on the first Saturday of every month in a free public ringing. The anniversary and the regular monthly ringing are the same event.

The jubilee runs on the monthly schedule

Lee calls the milestone a jubilee, not a birthday. His team has been marking it since last December with a rotating series of small ceremonies, with no single blowout event. In a September 24 profile in San Pedro Today, writer Aaron McKenzie reported that the bell will be rung on-site on the anniversary itself.

The free monthly event follows the usual schedule. Here is what the City of Los Angeles Recreation and Parks materials say:

1. A tour and history talk starts at 11:45 a.m. at Angels Gate Park, 3601 S. Gaffey St.
2. The bell rings right after the talk. The city's community flyer gives the ringing time as noon.
3. Everything is free and open to the public, and the city notes that events can change with or without notice.

The San Pedro Calendar lists the October 3 ringing from 11:45 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. and shows the monthly series continuing through December 5. No public source has announced a special program for the anniversary ringing. Go expecting the regular first-Saturday event, with fifty years behind it.

The park is open 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., and the parking lot is open from sunrise to sunset.

What the sound actually is

The bell has no clapper. A wooden log hangs beside it and strikes the bronze from the outside. The bell's sculpted shape and an acoustic reflector underneath help produce the long, layered tone that carries across the hilltop.

At ceremonial ringings, the bell is struck thirty-three times. Lee describes the sequence as moving outward in all directions and then returning to the center, and he thinks of the ringing as a continuing prayer more than a signal. In recent years, visitors have sometimes been invited to put a hand on the bronze while it sounds and feel the vibration. "The human body itself is resonant," Lee told San Pedro Today. Neither the strike count nor the chance to touch the bell has been announced for this Saturday. Treat both as possible, not promised.

Five official dates and a monthly ringing

Officially, the bell rings five times a year. Each date was chosen for what it means to one of the two countries.

October 3 does not appear on the official list. The dedication anniversary gets its ringing in 2026 because the date happens to land on a first Saturday. The monthly maintenance ringing gives anyone a chance to hear the bell twelve times a year, and this year one of those twelve marks fifty years.

How a bicentennial gift ended up above Point Fermin

The Republic of Korea cast the seventeen-ton bronze bell in 1976 and sent it as a gift for the U.S. bicentennial and as a mark of friendship between the two countries. It was modeled on South Korea's Divine Bell of King Seongdeok, cast in 771 AD and still one of the largest bells ever made. According to San Pedro Today, nobody had attempted a casting on that scale in more than a thousand years.

The bell missed the Fourth of July. It was rung once in Busan on July 4, 1976, because it could not reach San Pedro in time. When it arrived at the Port of Los Angeles, unloading the 28 cargo containers of materials took two weeks. Korean stonemasons and carpenters then worked fourteen-hour days building the belfry, the platform and the steps. The dedication on October 3 came about three months after the bicentennial itself.

It almost went somewhere else. As Lee tells it, a mountaintop in Griffith Park was in the running. What tipped the decision was the old name of the San Pedro site, Fort MacArthur. The site-selection delegation arrived assuming the name honored General Douglas MacArthur, whose Incheon landing turned the Korean War. They learned the fort was actually named for his father, Lt. Gen. Arthur MacArthur Jr. Lee says that link between a father and son carried real weight for a culture that takes ancestor reverence seriously. He also says that if the search had happened a year earlier or later, the hilltop probably would not have been available.

The people who keep it ringing

The city owns the land but has had neither the budget nor the specialized skills to care for a bronze bell and a hand-painted pavilion. Lee found that out as an adult when he visited the bell. The metal linkage was corroded, rebar was showing, and nobody could tell him whose job the repairs were. He and a handful of others stepped in. He is unpaid and calls himself "a finger pointing at the moon," his way of saying people should look at the bell, not at him. The foundation he now leads was reorganized last year from the committee he helped start in 2006.

Keeping the pavilion authentic takes detective work. Its painted decoration, called dancheong, can only be maintained by a small group of Korean artisans. Over the decades, details have shifted. A tiger that once stood beside a dragon in the artwork was later judged a historical error and repainted as a second dragon. A major restoration in 2013 required finding Chai Dong-hey, the last living apprentice of the bell's original master caster, Kim Chul-oh. Lee says Kim called the bell "his child that he sent away for adoption" and had spent decades wondering how it was doing.

Volunteers keep the ringing going. San Pedro Today's profile names Maria Kunic, Jennifer Choi, Young-Mi Yi, Heaja Kim, Alex Chang, Betty Chang and Jon Wiedenman among the foundation's members and volunteers. Lee says the moment he comes back to most is something John Olguin, for decades the closest thing San Pedro had to a town patriarch, told him after an early ringing during his first year on the committee:

"You're young enough that I can tell you. No matter what happens, you don't go away. Promise me you will not leave the bell."

Lee said okay. Twenty years later, he is still there.

October 17 is a separate event, and it's ticketed

The large public anniversary event comes two weeks later, on Saturday, October 17. It pairs a 5K/10K run-walk with a K-pop concert. San Pedro Today reports that the event outgrew Angels Gate Park and moved to West Harbor, with a trolley taking visitors back up to the bell for anniversary activities.

The event is the Infinite Challenge Run, named for the long-running Korean variety show Infinite Challenge. It is the run's first event outside Korea, following runs in Seoul and Busan. The race page describes the festival as centered on West Harbor and dedicated to both the 250th anniversary of the United States and the 50th anniversary of the bell. One event listing names MBC America as host. The participant guide names Aztlan Athletics, LLC as operating partner.

Here is the practical information:

• Cost: As of late September, registration is $101.70 for the 5K and $117.60 for the 10K, service fees included. The participant guide lists base prices of $95 and $110.
• Tentative timetable: The vendor and sponsor village is open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. The 10K runs 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., the 5K 12:30 to 2 p.m., festival activities 2 to 4 p.m., and the concert 3 to 6 p.m.
• Concert access: Registration for either distance includes the concert. As of the last update, the K-pop guests were still listed as "Coming Soon!"
• Kids: Children 5 and under can do the 5K free with a registered adult, but they don't get a shirt, medal, bib or timing.

The location details don't fully agree yet. The race page puts the festival at West Harbor, but its course description still has runners starting at the Korean Friendship Bell. That course winds through Angels Gate Park past the Korean Bell Cultural Center, the Angels Gate bunkers and the Fort MacArthur Museum, and the 10K adds a stretch along Paseo del Mar. The participant guide still describes limited prepaid parking for about 200 cars at the bell, plus a shuttle from nearby lots. The race page also says the location can change with 30 days' notice. Trolley pickup points and times have not been published. Anyone planning to drive up Gaffey that morning should check the race page the week of the event.

That leaves two ways to mark the anniversary. On October 17, there's a paid festival with a concert at the waterfront. On October 3, there's a free tour at 11:45 a.m. on the hill and a ringing at noon, the same as every first Saturday.

Gary Krill grew up in San Pedro, where events like the noon ringing at Angels Gate have long been part of the calendar. If you own a home near the park or along Paseo del Mar and want to know how the market around it has changed, ask us, "What's Your Home Worth?" We'll walk you through recent nearby sales on a call, at no charge.