A River Ran Through It: In Search Of The Lost Rivers Of UCLA

The Militant Angeleno, as you may or may not know, is fond of retracing the lost waterways of Los Angeles. In April of 2008, he won several awards (okay, he didn't win any, but his blog sure got a lot of hits) on discovering Sacatela Creek, which ran from Los Feliz to Koreatown. A couple months later, he found Arroyo de los Jardines, which runs from Hollywood down to Mid-City, some of it still visible. He thought there weren't any more rivers to retrace...until now.

(Cue dramatic epic theme music...)

School may not be starting up for another few weeks at UCLA, but you're about to get your first Militant History 101 lesson (and you don't even have to be a registered student to learn!).

Whether you're an incoming freshman, a senior about to graduate next Spring, working on your master's or Ph.D, there's a lot you may know, but what you Bruins may not know is what lies under the very ground you walk on.

When UCLA ditched its original campus on Vermont Avenue (now Los Angeles City College) in the late 1920s for a much larger space, originally called the "Beverly Site," it left the bustle of the city for a quiet, serene meadow land near the foothills of Santa Monica Mountains.

The first freshman class at UCLA arrived to a campus of all but five buildings - the landmark Royce Hall being one of them - and a terrain of streams, creeks and arroyos.

Wait, what?

Yes, rivers once ran in Bruin Land. But where did they go?

There were four waterways that ran through the UCLA campus - all north from the Santa Monica Mountains down south eventually towards Ballona Creek - just like the other two rivers that The Militant retraced. There was (from west to east) the West Arroyo, Foothill Stream, Stone Canyon Creek and East Arroyo.




View Lost Rivers of UCLA in a larger map

West Arroyo ran through where the student housing complexes now stand. Foothill Stream ran just west of Drake Stadium.

As for the East Arroyo, it was once the most prominent geological feature of the campus (seen towards the right of the above picture), a sunken ravine that somehow resembled a moat protecting the virtual castles of higher education. In fact, the main entrance to campus was once a bridge that went over the East Arroyo:

And here's what it looks like today (Royce Hall at the left is reference):

The arroyo was filled in in 1947 to make way for Dickson Court and more campus buildings, such as Schoenberg Hall.

So what happened to the bridge? Oh, it's still there. See the low wall running across the middle of the picture above? That's the bridge!

Yes, it's still recognized by the State of California as a functioning bridge, complete with weight limit restrictions (pictured left, ya rly) and periodic seismic inspections.

As for Stone Canyon Creek, it's still very much a creek, starting up in the Santa Monica Mountains, running down parallel to its emponymous road, making its presence in the front yards of more than a few Bel-Air homes.

On the UCLA campus, The Militant is proud to say, the creek still runs - albeit for just a little bit. Found sandwiched between Sunset Boulevard and the Anderson School of Management and hidden behind a layer of trees, lo and behold...you can still see the last vestige of the rivers of UCLA:

  

For even in the Summertime, the water still flows, just as it always has been, even before the university arrived here. Come see it for yourself sometime!

And then, just like that, the waters unceremoniously enter a storm drain (pictured right), never to reflect light again, at least until it gets dumped into a concrete channel just south of Westwood en route to Ballona Creek.

Fortunately, there are proposals to "daylight" Stone Canyon Creek on the UCLA campus, although it's quite a challenge (funding notwithstanding).  A website makes a call for volunteers to help restore the creek, although it looks like it hasn't been updated since 2007.

Class dismissed. You will be quizzed next week. Professor Militan Tan-Geleno will be available after class in his office for any questions.

In the meantime, The Militant seeks his next lost river adventure!

Militant props to the L.A. Creek Freak and UCLA alum Loteria Chicana for providing a couple leads towards the research of this blog post!
 

A River Ran Through It: In Search Of Arroyo De Los Jardines

No one can accuse the Militant of not listening to his readers. In an entry last year where the Militant ranted about the proliferation of designated community names in Los Angeles, reader Bert Green pointed out that there was, indeed a "Brook" in Brookside and left a location of the stream which may or may not exist.

This trickled through the Militant's mind over the months so he decided to get on the bike and check the damn thing out. But what was it called?

After retracing the path of the long-lost Sacatela Creek from Los Feliz to Koreatown, he wondered to himself, "How is the Militant ever gonna top that?"

Well, he can't. But he still found the stream nonetheless.

After some Militant research, he discovered the stream was called "Arroyo de los Jardines" (Creek of the Gardens), and the name pretty much holds true today, at least where it's visible.

Unlike, old Sacatela, there are sections of the old arroyo which are not only visible, but carry fresh running water. And we're not talking gutter runoff here.

According to a Los Angeles Times article on the Brookside community, the Arroyo de los Jardines runs from an unspecified location in the Hollywood Hills and ends up in Ballona Creek.

The article also mentioned that the stream is home to "koi, goldfish and crawfish." Hmmm. Many people who settled in the Mid-City area in the mid-20th Century had roots in Louisiana...coincidence?

Militant research to locate the creek's Hollywood Hills source turned up futile and calls made to the creek's publicist were unanswered.

But the creek does daylight itself just south of Melrose Avenue where it runs through the middle of Wilshire Country Club. So yeah, only the privileged few can enjoy this thing (shyyeah, as if they care...). But the average Jose can get an easy glimpse of it at 3rd St. and Hudson Ave. (pictured above, right), where one can see the creek empty into a culvert that runs south-southwest on Hudson (Could the street's name be attributed to a NY transie of yesteryear who named it so because it was a river?).

It emerges south of Wilshire in its namesake community, where it again flows for the privileged few, this time in the backyards of some pretty well-to-do mofos. It can be seen over an un-barred masonry fence just west of Longwood Ave. and Olympic Blvd (pictured right). As traffic rushes by on Olympic, one can hear the trickle of Arroyo De Los Jardines, at this point truly living up to its name, nestled in there amidst the abundance of lush greenery found there.

From there, in the neighborhood of Longwood Highlands, the arroyo plays peek-a-boo in seemingly random backyards before disappearing completely. There's no real evidence of the stream save for a few curious-looking channels of greenery running to the southwest, as viewed from an aerial map.

Somewhere near there, beneath Venice Blvd. and Cochran Ave., our little brook friend unceremoniously merges with Ballona Creek, which does not have a source per se, but was originally fed by the various wetlands and swamps (Cienegas in Español) that used to dot the Westside (and the reason why buildings on that part of town are susceptible to liquefaction during earthquakes - remember the little section of the 10 Freeway by The Swamp Blvd that was badly damaged in the 1994 Northridge quake? Of course most transplants don't...).

From there, the Ballona, a.k.a. The Mini-Me to the Los Angeles River's Dr. Evil), as we all know, flows into the great Pacific. No need for the Militant to retrace that, though you're more than welcome to on a bicycle. Just be careful if the fences trap you in.

A River Ran Through It: In Search Of Sacatela Creek

A late 1920s-era photo from the LAPL Photo Database shows an aerial view of Sacatela Creek (upper-right corner) in what is now the Koreatown area. The tracks that cross it are part of the "H" Line of the Yellow Cars. The street running towards the top is 1st St; the street towards the left is Bimini Place and the street towards the bottom is 2nd St. The large building is the Bimini Baths.

It all started last week during the Wilshire Center Urf Day festival, when the Militant mentioned that the Los Angeles Eco-Village had a historical display of what their neighborhood looked like in years past. The Militant saw the same picture as above and was incredibly curious about this "Sacatale" [sic] Creek that was in the caption.

According to this 2006 LA Weekly article, Sacatela Creek ran from its source in Los Feliz's Franklin Hills south through to Koreatown. Like the Los Angeles River, it was tamed by being converted into a storm drain, and the creek bed filled in 1930. The Shakespeare Bridge on Franklin Avenue and the Myra Ave. Bridge on Sunset Blvd were originally built to cross the creek. The storm drain still carries water today.

The Militant plotted it out on da Gmapz Pudomiter here: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1847852

Like Richard Dreyfus' Roy Neary character from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the Militant was suddenly obsessed with finding out more on this lost part of our geology, even to the point of creating a model of the creek out of mashed potatoes (Okay, only kidding there, but that almost happened...)

But the Militant decided to do a little militant investigation and rode his bike to retrace the route of the old creek and to reveal any evidence of its existence. So here goes.

In Los Feliz, the creek began in the little valley under the Shakespeare Bridge (pictured left), built in 1926 when there was still a body of water running underneath. A storm drain opening lies right there at the end of Monon St. The creek continued south underneath where the Lycee International de Los Angeles and Prospect Studios (formerly KABC-TV's Studios) stand today. It then ran under where Myra Avenue runs, which is flanked between two inclines. The street is broken up by Thomas Starr King Middle School, which - surprise - has storm drain openings on the north and south ends of its campus.

The southern end of the school faces a continued Myra Ave., which, according to this 1929 photo, once ran uninterrupted before the school expanded. Look towards the bottom end of Myra and you'll see a little bit of the Sacatela Creek bed.

The creek then ran through today's Myra Avenue (now flanked by the Laguna and Sunset at Silver Lake condos) which runs underneath a bridge which carries Sunset Blvd. - a bridge constructed to cross over the creek (pictured right).

The diagonally-running street ends at the intersection of Hoover St. and Santa Monica Blvd. in East Hollywood. Here, a recently-constructed apartment complex stands at the corner.

Further Militant research reveals that this apartment (pictured left) is an affordable family housing complex run by a local Filipino non-profit agency that opened in 2004 and that the design of its corner structure is inspired by a typical rural Philippine bamboo hut. The name of the complex? Sacatela Village Apartments.

Yessssss!

The rest of the creek's path was difficult to discern at this point, so the Militant only had topographical clues to work from. Obviously gravitational forces make it difficult for water to travel up in elevation, so the lowest point in the area was the assumed path of the creek. With nearby Hoover St. to the east being of a higher elevation, the creek could only flow slightly west of here.

To the southwest lies Dayton Heights Elementary School, just south of Melrose Ave. The Militant doesn't know what the big deal is with all these schools along the creek's path, though perhaps it was an attractive place to put an institute of learning. The lowest point in this area is Madison Ave., which dead-ends at the 101 Freeway. And what do we see here at the end of the cul-de-sac?

Yo, it's not just a storm drain, but A BIG MUTHA OF A STORM DRAIN! And here's the best part...
The big mutha of an opening allowed the Militant to reach his Militant Cam inside and take a snap. Here, the sound of trickling water accompanied by the cool, musty scent of algae greets the curious observer.

Behold, for we have found it...Sacatela Creek.

At the other side of the freeway is a similar storm drain facility and Madison Avenue continues again, past the PATH homeless shelter and crossing Beverly Blvd. Speaking of which, the LA Weekly article also mentioned the intersection of Beverly, Silver Lake, Virgil and Temple as a former body of water. Silver Lake Blvd. was once a creek itself, and the Temple St. bridge which crosses over it is yet another reminder of a street's riparian origins.

Across Beverly, the Militant spots an orange DWP truck parked on the street and a couple crewmen climbing in and out of a manhole cover.

Going south, the creek crosses yet another school - Virgil Middle School - and at the lowpoint of 1st St. we see yet another storm drain grille. Madison Ave. dead-ends (here, pictured right, water seems to percolate out of nowhere...hmmm....) at a berm upon which stands an apartment complex, which is exactly where the visible creek is situated in the 1920s photo at the top of this post - which means the land its built on is just fill, and might not be a good place to be during a big earthquake. Just sayin'.

The water spot is most likely a remnant of Bimini Springs, upon which a large early 20th-century bath house was built and was a famous local resort spot, attracting Hollywood celebrities and the like and was served directly by a Yellow Car line. Eco-Village residents described the history of the baths, which were segregated until after World War II, but then closed down in 1950 when whites stopped coming because they didn't want to swim with teh c010r3d. Hmph.

Today, Bimini Slough Ecology Park, located next door to the Bresee Foundation's offices on Bimini Place recreates the feel of Sacatela via a man-made creek, adorned with native flora.

The creek ran south-southwest, behind the Ralphs Supermarket, the Shatto 39 Lanes bowling alley and the Islamic Center of Southern California, then running west between Wilshire and 6th St.

The constant flooding of 6th and Mariposa (pictured left, circa 1920s) was one of the reasons for turning the creek into a storm drain. Sound familiar?

Today, the 6th and Mariposa intersection is home to "DWP Distribution Station 61" and, until recently, an establishment called "Creekside Cafe."

There's been talk, from Eco-Village resident activists and even Cal Poly Pomona planning students, of digging up (known as "daylighting") Sacatela Creek as part of the the process of taking our region's topography back to da old school. Interesting concept, though the LAUSD will probably be the first to cry foul, with four school properties (to date at least...you know the land-grabbin' LAUSD!) built right through the creek's path. Maybe after the Big One, we'll talk about it. Maybe the Big One will cause the creek to daylight itself.

Nevertheless, this is an example of not only man-made history, but natural history, being torn down (in this case, encased in concrete and filled in). But knowledge and awareness of history nevertheless enriches the Angeleno and puts both memories of the past and visions for the future into perspective. For what once was is sometimes better than what never was, and what could be will always be better than what is.