The Los Angeles River is pretty much a joke, especially to people who live in LA. They say that back east there was a river that was so polluted that it caught fire one day. Probably an urban legend. But it is a fact that, most of the year, you can rollerblade or drive your car on the LA River. You’ve almost certainly seen it in the movies.
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Our Second Project
The Los Angeles River is pretty much a joke, especially to people who live in LA. They say that back east there was a river that was so polluted that it caught fire one day. Probably an urban legend.* But it is a fact that, most of the year, you can rollerblade or drive your car on the LA River. You’ve almost certainly seen it in the movies. It played an important part in Terminator 2: ... Read more »
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Frogtown
Riverside Drive runs parallel to I-5 on the west from Griffith Park for a while, passes beneath the 2 (Glendale Freeway), then ducks under the 5 where it passes Elysian Park, which contains Dodger Stadium. After that there is a series of little side streets that go into an obscure little neighborhood formed by curves of the river, two little bumps of land never more than 3 blocks wide, and ... Read more »
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Los Feliz
Another surprise: dotted along the Los Angeles River from the I-5 north are a lot of little pocket parks. These can range from just a little side path into the trees with a metal bench to sit on, up to a rather nice little playground with a huge, fanciful snake. (Signs warn you that this is rattlesnake country; we’re keeping our eyes peeled.) Many of the parks have nature-guide plaques ... Read more »
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DreamWorks
Onward we forge, north by northwest up the wide Missouri, St. Louis only a Memory now. Our Companions, Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, courageous Sacagawea, stout-hearted Toussaint Charbonneau, all the Army boys, and Semen (sorry, I mean Seaman), Lewis’s faithful black Newfoundland. All for the glory of Manifest Destiny, our new Republick, and President Jefferson. The savage Indians ... Read more »
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Bette Davis
Burbank: Just across the river, between Riverside Drive and Rancho Avenue, is a little triangle of park land that bears the sign “Bette Davis Picnic Area.” You’re always running across stuff like that in the LA area. Last week we were in the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena looking at 19th Century art, and Lee noticed two small canvases that said “Gift of Mr. Cary ... Read more »
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The Mouse
We began the day where we’d left off the day before: Up to our ankles in horseshit. Well, not actually that deep, but there was a lot of it around, as we were now on the west side of the Equestrian Center, on the sawdust trail, horses to the right of us, horses to the left of us, horses in front of us and horses coming up behind us. Some of the horse riders had dogs with them, all of ... Read more »
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From Johnny Carson to Warner Bros.
The only question when we began the day was how far along the river we’d be able to walk. I knew the paths stopped somewhere ahead, but I didn’t know how far. The ground rule we’ve established is that when the river can’t be reached, we’ll walk along side streets as close as we can. (I think we may violate that one when we start down the river, beginning near ... Read more »
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Toluca Lake
We parked on a street called Screenland, in what Burbank calls the Media District. Warners, the Disney Channel, and scads of other smaller concerns, like the Dolby Company, are in that area. Olive Street runs around the perimeter of the Warner Studios, and when it crosses the river it becomes Barham Boulevard, which snakes around the south of the vast Universal City properties until it ... Read more »
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Wandering in the Wilderness
This episode of Our Conquest of the Los Angeles Trickle … er, river … will encompass several days’ of travel, as none of the individual days really added up to enough for an episode. The crocodiles and hippos must have been dozing, plus we rarely caught a good look at the river itself … We begin with lunch at the oldest operating Bob’s Big Boy, which we passed in ... Read more »
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NOHO
From time to time in our trek we will take a side trip, when something interesting presents itself, or when the river itself is just too damn dreary. I think Lee is a bit more dedicated to actually following the river along the river than I am. Myself, I’d just as soon parallel its course here and there, and not always because there’s no alternative. I’d rather have an ... Read more »
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Farmers Market
Well, phooey! I had this document open, somewhere, and we went out to do some things around town. When I came back I tried to open it, and got a box that asked if I wanted to revert to the saved document. Sounded reasonable. WRONG!!! The whole page of stuff I’d written—and apparently not saved!—went down a cyber rat hole. Gone. Now, I ask you, was that a confusing thing to ask, or what? ... Read more »
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More Sherman Oaks
Some days are more interesting than others. This was one of the least interesting. That happens, when you’re an intrepid urban explorer. As some Indian tribe used to say, some days you get the bear, some days the bear gets you … and some days you’re so bored you wish for a bear. So this will be brief. Once more the river was blocked off, but we saw a footbridge and thought it might get us ... Read more »
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Sepulveda Dam
And so we reach the true wilderness, the Sepulveda Dam Recreation Area. Actually, it’s only wild right around the river, and only for about two miles. The rest is part wild marsh teeming with birds, and part recreation venues of various kinds, and part … golf. Yes, no less than three of these 18-hole monsters take up about half the available land (which looks to be about half the size of ... Read more »
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Reseda, Tarzana
Tarzana was chicken ranches and berry farms until Edgar Rice Burroughs bought it in 1915 and called it Tarzana Ranch, after his famous pulp fiction ape-man. In 1927 the residents of Runnymede renamed the town, and it’s Tarzana to this day, though it’s a part of LA now. Jamie Foxx lives there, and Maya Rudolph, and Kevin Federline, and Eva Longoria. SF writer Larry Niven lives there, or used ... Read more »