The Lost Streams of Northeast Los Angeles
Garvanza Water Fountain
“There cannot be life without water.”
A wonderful new online book titled, Water, CA: Creative Visualizations for a New Millennium has been published with a couple of entries by local LA Creek Freaks, Jessica Hall and Jane Tsong that focus specifically on the lost water sources of Northeast Los Angeles.
In Jessica Hall’s segment of the book, Daylighting: Consciousness and Streams she explores the topic of Nature Deficit Disorder (or in this case, “Water Blindness”) with Daylighting ancient creeks that have been paved over in cities by focusing on the North Branch stream of the Arroyo Seco. (Known today as Storm Drain 5202.) In collaboration between The Audubon Center, artists, historians, and local children she retraces the North Branch, documented in a couple of videos on YouTube.
The second local contribution to Water, CA is Jane Tsong’s extensive mapping of the lost and forgotten streams of Northeast Los Angeles, titled Myriad Unnamed Streams. In the project, she traces the water sources for Eagle Rock and Highland Park and maps their courses against contemporary maps of the area, along with background history for the 15 points of water interest. A more detailed map of Jane Tsong’s research can be found at her project website. (Also, poke around her artist website: Myriad Small Things. Some of her clandestine projects may look awfully familiar to 90042 locals.)
The Aldama Dip at Avenue 56 denotes where the North Branch of the Arroyo Seco once flowed.
H/T, L.A. Creek Freak
all that and you didn’t mention my name?? bwaaaahhhhhhh! (snicker)
Joe Linton! -There, done.
Neither here nor there, but the dip at Aldama and 56 doesn’t really match up with Tsong’s maps of the north branch of the Arroyo Seco. According to her maps (and old flood pictures), the stream traveled and paralleled what is now York Blvd., hugging the hills along Baltimore on the way to Avenue 50. For the stream to get to that spot, it would have to go uphill for a bit…
Pladdis, you have a good point. Not sure about the stream getting through the hilly section at Baltimore and Ave 50. The dip there on Aldama seems like a more obvious route for the North Branch to get to the Arroyo. Jane’s research certainly has me thinking and looking at the varied hills around here.
I have thought about the North Branch a lot too. Always thought of it running along York, crossing towards the Arroyo at the dip behind Buchanan Elementary. Then traveling down to where El Paso and Avenue 50 meets, than flowing along the bottom of Mt. Washington, behind Aldama…
Good to remember these streams and fun to look around where ever there is a dip in the road!
Like Duff, I thought about it alot and I, too, actually went, and looked: If you’re going west on Baltimore, there is a dip adjacent to Buchanan school, just before you go up the hill to Ave. 50.
That dip is actually the bottom of a now-built-out gulley that parallels Ave. 50 until they meet at El Paso and San Rafael Ave. From there, the gulley continues on down toward Sycamore Park. Both Marmion Way and the gold line right of way are built on what amount to land bridges, effectively earthen dams, that were built on and across the stream to accomodate cars and trains. Why actual bridges were never built (or why earlier bridges were torn down?) is a good question.
See this entry in LACreekFreak for an aerial pic of the stream as it cross through Sycamore Park.
http://lacreekfreak.wordpress.com/2009/08/11/more-on-the-north-branch-of-the-arroyo-seco/