There are, I'm sure, many cities across the country which have a rather ambivalent view of the water ways that course through them. When I lived in Columbus, Ohio, the Olentangy River was routinely derided with the moniker "Olen-dingy River" due to it's less than pristine water quality. But the Los Angeles River must surely win First Prize for being the most ridiculed, most maligned and probably least understood river in the nation.
After all, when we think of a river, we usually envision this:
http://worldtravelguide2010.com/...
Not this:
http://blogs.laweekly.com/...
But the Los Angeles River didn't always look this way. I lived in Los Angeles for almost 30 years, and to be honest I never knew much about it, or rarely gave it much thought. I always considered it one big storm drain. And a fairly ugly one at that. If you have ever lived in LA, I'm sure you can relate. If you've never been there, chances are the only association you may have with the river are from TV shows or the famous chase scene in Terminator II. Most of the river's cameo appearances in film are anything but cinematic valentines.
How did this river become what it is today? And what was it like before it underwent a concrete facelift?
It's safe to say that, were he still alive, Mark Twain would never write any novels about life on the Los Angeles River. Elmore Leonard, or even Carl Hiaasen, would be better suited to write that book. When I lived in LA (up until 1998) the LA River was a place one usually ignored and certainly avoided. It wasn't a river so much as a scar...a concrete gash running through the metropolitan area. People used it as a place to dispose of things...like metal shopping carts, old sofas with stains on them that hint, to the more than casual observer, or a possibly troubling provenance, tattered suitcases, and, on occasion, a human body. It's a place where bad things can happen to good people, as they say, and the lone jogger or cyclist may meet with unfortunate circumstances if they aren't cautious.
It is one of history's many ironies, then, that the Los Angeles River is what persuaded the early Spanish to establish a pueblo here. Father Juan Crespi, a member of the Portola Expedition that first explored southern California, wrote this in his journal in 1769:
Wednesday, August 2.--We set out from the valley in the morning and followed the same plain in the westerly direction. After traveling about a league and a half through a pass between low hills, we entered a very spacious valley, well grown with cottonwoods and alders, among which ran a beautiful river (the Los Angeles) from the north-northwest, and then doubling the point of a steep hill, it went on aftwards to the south. Toward the north-northeast there is another river bed (the Arroyo Seco) which forms a spacious water-course, but we found it dry. This bed unites with that of the river, giving a clear indication of great floods in the rainy season, for we saw that it had many trunks of trees on the banks. We halted not very far from the river, which we named Porciuncula. Here we felt three consecutive earthquakes in the afternoon and night. We must have traveled about three leagues today. This plain where the river runs is very extensive. It has good land for planting all kinds of grain and seeds, and is the most suitable site of all that we have seen for a mission, for it has all the requisites for a large settlement.
The headwaters of the Los Angeles River begin in the low mountain ranges that form the San Fernando Valley northeast of LA. When it rains, small streams course down the hillsides and empty into either Bell or Calabasas Creeks, and the Los Angeles River officially begins at the confluence of those two creeks. Like many "rivers" in the arid West, it was a seasonal stream when the city was first established, forming a dry wash during the summer and fall months. The river meanders eastward and south towards the downtown area, and long ago it often accumulated in a low area south of prsent day Beverly Hills and north of present Baldwin Hills. This area west and slightly south of LA was in the early years of Los Angeles referred to as "Las Cienagas", Spanish for marshland, swamp or boggy area. Even that fact is lost to most Angelenos...the marshlands haven't existed for too many decades, and hardly anyone can imagine the basin being wet enough to support major wetland areas.
In years of above average rain, the "cienagas" would overflow their banks and the water would follow a course to the west, joining Ballona Creek and emptying into the Santa Monica Bay around Marina Del Rey. That changed, rather abruptly, in 1824, after an unusually heavy rainfall. The water from the river flooded the marshlands, and the rising lake spilled over to the south, cutting a new channel directly southward along what is currently the 110 freeway, down through Rancho Dominguez towards San Pedro. Thereafter, this became the natural course of the river. Until the completion of the California Aqueduct, the LA River (and underground aquifers it replenished) was the city's primary source for fresh water...another fact that most Angelenos either forgot long ago or never realized.
To understand why the LA River is what it currently is, you have to know the history of flooding in the Los Angeles basin. One might think that earthquakes would be the natural disaster that has caused the most loss of life and property damage in the LA Basin. Actually, it has been floods over the course of the city's history. Hard to imagine today, especially when you consider that the average annual rainfall there is only 15.14 inches, with measurable rainfall in an average year occurring only 35 days out of the year. There was even a pop song in the early 70's entitled "It Never Rains in Southern California", but the chorus of the song says it all:
It never rains in California, but girl, don't they warn ya
it pours, man, it pours
Averages often do not tell the whole story, and so it is with rainfall in southern California. Over the past 200 years there have been many extremely wet years recorded. The problem has been that the aberrations usually occur over just a few days, which often resulted in fairly significant flooding. During the 1800's there were perhaps as many as 12 significant floods in the basin. One of them washed away the original Plaza of the young city. The flood in 1824, as I mentioned, altered the course of the river completely. In the winter of 1861-1862 more than 50 inches of rain over two months, making much of the San Fernando Valley one huge lake. The floods would sometimes turn Ballona Creek in the area of Culver City and Marina del Rey into a huge, temporary lake.
By 1914 these recurring floods had proven so disruptive and damaging that the first calls began to emerge from city inhabitants to create a flood control district to consider channelizing the river. That year a flood resulted in extensive damage to the city's harbor in San Pedro, and the price tag for these events was becoming too burdensome to ignore.
Towards the end of the 20's civic leaders in LA recognized that the city, if it wanted to attain the status they envisioned, needed a great park. New York had Central Park, Chicago had Lincoln Park, and San Francisco had its Golden Gate Park. Frederick Law Olmsted Jr was commissioned to draw up a plan for Los Angeles. The plan he submitted in 1930 would have resulted in a much different Los Angeles River than the one the city ultimately ended up with. His vision called for a series of parks connected by green strips following the course of the river. On The City Project's website (a planning/advocacy group in LA) they note that the plan:
recommended 71,000 acres of parkland, and another 92,000 acres in outlying areas, with 440 miles of connecting parks and parkways, including a parkway along the Los Angeles River. The Olmsted Report proposed the joint use of parks, playgrounds, and schools to make optimal use of land and public resources, and called for the doubling of public beach frontage. Implementing the Olmsted vision would have made Los Angeles one of the most beautiful and livable regions in the world.
Unfortunately, the scope of the plan, as well as its price tag, led civic leaders to balk. Then The Depression hit, and it became for all practical purposes infeasible. Two more major flood events in the 30's within 4 years of each other forever cemented the perception of Angelenos that the LA River was more of a threat than a civic asset. In 1934 flooding killed 40 people in La Canada. In 1938 four days of rain culminated in what was determined at the time to be the 5th worst flood in history to date, killing 113 people and causing more than $400 million in damage in today's dollars. It was determined that the Army Corps of Engineers needed to drastically alter the river, and oversee a major flood control public work project. The river was to be chanellized finally, with cement embankments added to restrain it from jumping its banks.
10,000 workers, including many WPA workers, dug the channels and poured 3,000,000 barrels of concrete by hand. When it was completed, the LA River had been converted into a 52 mile long cement canal system stretching from the San Fernando Valley to the San Pedro harbor. It is the longest "man made river" in the world.
For all intents and purposes this is the only Los Angeles River that anyone is really familiar with. There are a few small sections that aren't cemented, but it is mostly concrete, chain link fencing and (in the past, at least) the collection of urban flotsam and jetsam that gets thrown there by individuals or gets washed into it from the cities storm drains. I haven't lived in LA since 1998, so I can't speak to how much progress has been made to clean it up and make it more amenable to recreational activity. In 1986 the Friends of the Los Angeles River (FOLAR) group was formed to address many of the river's problems. They have advocated diligently since then on behalf of the river, and from what I have read strides have been made, bond issues passed, and plans are on the books for reclaiming the river. Ironically, the city's Master Plan for the project incorporates many of the proposals from Olmsted's Plan 80 years ago.
The Los Angeles River may be a concrete labyrinthe, but it is no longer a season waterway. 3 water reclamation plants located within the flood control district process sewage and waste water from the city, and release it into the river. During the dry months, as a result, some 85% of the water flowing in the river comes from these reclamation plants. During stormy years, however, the river can quickly turn into a dangerous magnet for youths that are drawn to the rarity of raging water. The combination of 45 degree cement slopes, which get slippery, and currents that can reach 35-40 mph, all too often leads to dramatic local news accounts of someone being rescued from the river by police. Sometimes those rescue attempts have been unsuccessful. And being swept along a cement channel in such a current is sort of like being keelhauled on a barnacle covered ship hull. To take it full circle, this is a place where bad things can happen to otherwise good people.
Over much of its history as a man made river, the channels and their pathways have been a place for much illicit behavior. They are out of sight in many places, with limited access points and hundreds of over crossings from streets. They have sheltered drug activity, criminal activity and several homeless encampments. One such homeless camp was removed a couple of years ago, and interviews with some of its residents showed that they had been living there for as many as 5 or more years. Out of sight to the city, and out of the mind of the city. The police didn't patrol it, cause it was largely inaccessible and off the beat. It was an urban micro-environment, with cross jurisdictional obstacles regarding who was responsible for it at the end of the day.
Since I no longer live in the city, I'm not sure how much progress is being made towards achieving the goals of FOLAR, or how firm the city's commitment is to accomplishing the various aspects of its Master Plan. I have read on various blog sites that there are many more cyclists and joggers, for example, making use of the pathways than did so when I was growing up and even shortly before I moved away. I have also read posts that suggest that, though improved, it can still be a dicey place to bike alone if you aren't vigilant about your surroundings. There are accounts of cyclists being accosted by homeless people or others who throw junked bikes in their path to provoke a fall, and thefts of their bikes and other possessions. So clearly, caution still, and perhaps always will be necessary.
It would be interesting to hear from any of you who live there now who are involved in FOLAR or who are at least aware of the current state of affairs with respect to the LA River.
If you are interested in reading more on the Los Angeles River, here are some resources on the web:
http://www.laep.org/...
http://ladpw.org/...
http://freeassociationdesign.wordpress.com/...