About Us
This blog was created in 2008 by Jessica Hall and Joe Linton. We’ve done most of the writing here. We welcomed Jane Tsong and Joshua Link on board as contributors; in 2009 and 2010, respectively. We also welcome posts by other Creekfreaks.
To contact us, email jishica [at] gmail [dot] com and linton.joe [at] gmail [dot] com respectively.
Jessica Hall
Photo courtesy Miguel Luna
I am an ecologically-based landscape architect with my roots here in the LA area. My focus is to reinsert nature back into urban form, to humanize LA by wilding it. A little. I have a particular thing for streams. In 2001, I co-authored Seeking Streams: A landscape framework for the upper Ballona Creek Watershed, and was honored to also receive a Switzer Environmental Fellowship and subsequent Leadership Grant. I mapped historical streams of Los Angeles and looked for those places where restoration (particularly daylighting) might be feasible. Fast forward to the present, where I am a senior associate at Restoration Design Group. My work was featured in the news story Lost Streams of Los Angeles (Los Angeles Weekly), by Judith Lewis, my sometimes harsh assessments of LA included in the Phillip Rodriguez documentary Los Angeles Now, and my silliness exposed in the short film, Stream Spirit Rising (“hello little creek!”). I served on the boards of Cultivating Sustainable Communities and the League of Conservation Voters from 2008-2009, and currently am on the Board of the South Bay Parklands Conservancy.
and
Joe Linton
Joe Linton is an artist, author and activist , living in Koreatown, Los Angeles. He has been a longtime advocate for the revitalization and restoration of the Los Angeles River, serving in various capacities as volunteer, board and staff for the Friends of the Los Angeles River. He’s done additional river advocacy through work for The City Project, Urban Semillas, Occidental College’s Urban and Environmental Policy Institute and while serving as a Council Deputy to Los Angeles City Councilmember Ed Reyes. He’s lead hundreds of walks and tours of the river and its tributaries, and has advocated for parks, landscape, bike paths, master plans, water quality enhancements, and much more. Linton wrote and illustrated Down by the Los Angeles River: Friends of the Los Angeles River’s Official Guide, published by Wilderness Press in 2005 and available at bookstores all over. Down By The Los Angeles River is a guide book to places to walk and bike along the river and its tributaries, with sections on history, projects underway, historic bridges, and much more. Linton was recognized in LA Weekly’s 2006 people issue as the river’s unofficial “minister of access.”
For nearly 20 years, Joe Linton lived at the Los Angeles Eco-Village, where he gardens, harvests rainwater, attends potlucks, writes policies, blogs, and various other activities. He has lived car-free since 1992. He was one of the founders of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition and has advocated for non-motorized transportation alternatives, including bikability, walkability, transit-oriented-development, traffic calming, parking reform, and more. He recently worked as the Campaigns Director for Cyclists Inciting Change thru Live Exchange or C.I.C.L.E. then as an organizer of L.A.’s CicLAvia car-free events. In January 2013, Linton moved to the east coast and worked as the Greenway Director for the Bronx River Alliance. In 2014 he returned to L.A. to edit Streetsblog Los Angeles.
Linton is available for contract writing, project management, speaking, walks and tours – and even constructing passive water-harvesting garden earthworks. He can be reached at linton.joe {at} gmail {dot} com.
Contributors
Jane Tsong
Jane Tsong is an artist and designer.
In central Pennsylvania, where I grew up, hedgerows and vacant lots were our playground. Our favorite toys included fireflies, milkweed, japanese beetles, mud, and pussy willows. In highschool, I would walk for hours through cornfields and new growth forests, to see what I might find. Those spaces are still my favorite: the ones that have no name or fixed use, that are full of possibilities…
I passed over Los Angeles via LAX many times before actually moving here. My first impressions were of a vast landscape of uniformly gridded streets, lit equally uniformly at night. Even in a car, you could drive for hours and the landscape hardly appears to change. Learning more about the history of land use in this area, I was relieved to find that all those featureless flat stretches of the city actually once had their own quirks, ruts, swampy areas, creeping inhabitants, things that only an adventurous local of a certain vintage might know…. all those things that make each place different from every other place in the world, all those things that make you feel something when you know a place. These idiosyncrasies are mostly still there– under the asphalt and infill. It just takes a little looking to discover the patterns. Even among this big grid, every place once had a spirit of place.
myriadsmallthings.org/land.html
L.A. Creek Freak 
Hi…thought that this was a interesting article. Haven’t seen the actual list, but nonetheless:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080909205412.htm
Just wanted to say I found your blog via the FOLAR site! Keep up the good work!
A friend just sent me to your blog and I was very impressed by the quality of writing and knowledge about the waterways in LA. Bravo! I added a link on my blog to your blog, for an exhibition which is currently up at Cypress College Art Gallery entitled ecoLOGIC.Hope you might get a chance to see it before it closes on Saturday, Feb. 28th!
Develop another part of Del Rey Lagoon; you must be kidding me?
March 5, 6:13 AM ·
ShareThis Feed: http://www.examiner.com/x-4314-South-Bay-Community-Examiner~y2009m3d5-Develop-another-part-of-Del-Rey-Lagoon-you-must-be-kidding-me
Until you’ve seen this trash can dream come true
You stand at the edge while people run you through
And I thank the Lord there’s people out there like you
I thank the Lord there’s people out there like you..
–Elton John, Mona Lisa’s and Mad Hatters
For many years now I have been writing a local newspaper column and contributing to on-line blogs; all with the aim to increase awareness of our little slice of paradise: Westchester & Playa Del Rey.
I had moved away from the beach for a while, and ended up in New York City, which is as about as far away from the left-coast as you can get and still remain on Terra firma. And I can tell you, New York is a “lonely town, when you’re the only surfer boy in town.” I tried not to think of it too often, but sometimes when I was huddled up in my Manhattan apartment, with snow flurries dancing through the trees on Central Park and the sky the white-grey color of a sepia print, my thoughts would inevitably turn to those long summer days on the beaches of Playa Del Rey, and of old friends and warm spring swells and soft summer nights void of taxi horns and never ending waves of humanity.
One day I returned; surprised to see that the town I left no longer existed. It seemed like half or more of Westchester and Playa Del Rey had been lost to airport expansion, and that which was left was being “densified” by development. Everywhere vacant lots were being overbuilt with apartments and condominiums, and many of the old places: restaurants and stores, had closed. Sure, it was still a great town, but other storms were brewing off on the horizon, and in the end I felt again as though I was living on an island; not now bordered with water, but surrounded by roads that fed people through and sometimes intersecting our town.
One weekday morning I took a leisurely drive over Manchester hill and down on to Vista Del Mar, before heading back north to the Village of Playa Del Rey. I wanted to see if the weatherman’s promise of an early summer swell was developing, but instead I sat for close to a half hour in bumper-to-bumper traffic, crawling along the road under the bluffs. I was alarmed and confused. Accident? Fire? How could this be? No one ever drives on Vista Del Mar and Culver Boulevard in the early mornings; what is going on? Que Pasa? Had they built a new highway; the Vista Del Mar/Playa Del Rey Highway?
And it just got worse from there.
So fast forward to yesterday, when I got an email from a fan of my column(I have about seven folks that read my columns, and three are related to me; and they have to read it of they don’t get an allowance), and I was shocked to learn that some nitwit wants to develop the north end of Playa Del Rey Lagoon. And then I further learned that another nitwit still is trying to develop the Dunes area. Folks, we don’t need anymore homes and the traffic is already unbearable, and who in their right mind would build on a lagoon and risk killing off more fragile species?
I have to say at this point, I don’t like to be colored with any shade, or marked by some antiseptic moniker. I am not against some development. I think we need to get a new grocery store on Manchester, and a few places along Culver Boulevard could use a little lipstick, and maybe a bank would be a good idea. But more homes? No way.
I thank my new friend for slapping me in the face and waking me up about this new Lagoon development at Egret Park. I have been busy and I missed it.
Finally, since she asked me, I have some advice.
It comes from a movie called Network-1976:
Howard Beale:
I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It’s a depression. Everybody’s out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel’s worth; banks are going bust; shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter; punks are running wild in the street, and there’s nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there’s no end to it.
We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat. And we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that’s the way it’s supposed to be!
We all know things are bad — worse than bad — they’re crazy.
It’s like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don’t go out any more. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we’re living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, “Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials, and I won’t say anything. Just leave us alone.”
Well, I’m not going to leave you alone.
I want you to get mad!
I don’t want you to protest. I don’t want you to riot. I don’t want you to write to your Congressman, because I wouldn’t know what to tell you to write. I don’t know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street.
All I know is that first, you’ve got to get mad.
You’ve gotta say, “I’m a human being, goddammit! My life has value!”
So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell:
I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!”
Duke’s Law: “Bury the dead, they stink up the place.”
The Laws, (equi. to those of Douglas Coughlin; Amare et sapere vix deo conceditur );
Duke will be rememembered as a Logical Negativist who flourished in the early part of the 21rst Century and who propounded a set of laws the world generally ignored, to its detriment.
We ordered crayfish for a science investigation in my 3rd grade classroom. Our investigation is over and I would like an eco-friendly and humane way to send my little buddies on their way. Do you know of a natural crayfish habitat where I might release them, in or around Los Angeles?
Hi Juanita, Unfortunately crayfish are not native and highly destructive to our natural aquatic habitats. They eat the eggs of fish and frogs. Can you keep them for your class next year? Otherwise, there’s always gumbo…
Invasive non-native crayfish have decimated native amphibian populations throughout the western US. For God’s sake do not release them into a water body.
[…] of the Santa Monica Mountains, The Los Angeles & San Gabriel River Watershed Council Blog and Jessica Hall. Map from […]
I found your blog whilst researching my gang O’frogs brought home in some plants (bromeliads) stored at a friend’s house with a backyard bordering the La Ballona Creek. I used to play in that creek in the fifties and I remember when there was an open creek at Sawtelle and Palms blvd. in West L.A. Actually I lived on Sawtelle in Culver City. Back to those mouthy frogs. Before this invited invasion I had one frog living as a bachelor for two years. Now I have a crowd that is deafeningly loud outside my back door and more tadpoles in the lineup. I’m going to re-endow my friend with a bucket of them. I found out some of my neighbors think I have a pond! My friend thinks they might be Spring Peepers. Y’all just might know something about that. Any insight will be welcome. Last night I was sitting out in my shop with the door open and one of them sauntered by with hardly a glance in my direction! What gall! Every now and then one hops in and I have to dissuade he or she and place them back at the go point. When this batch were tadpoles I thought gee I hope a couple survive! it might be nice hearing that restful sound. Well, they don’t seem to need quite the watery environment, just a couple of plants that store their own water in the leaf axils.
P.S. Having been a local yokel in this area (a couple years short of sixty)I have seen wild life dwindle, but for the last twenty or more I have noticed it come back like Gangbusters. Not quite tent worm eating up all the Chinese Elms but more humming birds, more insects,hawks etc. I remember my eyes burning and tearing up while taking my grandmother to the bus station in Los Angeles in the mid fifties. If you have no history to compare with it’s easy to run screaming, “The Sky’s falling!” Along with our short comings we have the technology to do a better job cleaning up after ourselves and our direction is forward. I have traveled in Java and Malaysia etc. and have seen what a mess some areas are along with some beautiful jungles (rainforests) and Islands that they haven’t gotten around to paving over so far.
Think positive and don’t believe all the rhetoric you hear. There’s usually a hand in your pocket following shortly and shame on you if you resist, after all, they say, “We Care”
Mark
Mark, thanks for the stories! Send us a photo of the frogs – if they’re small and have a little mask over the eyes they may be Pacific Chorus Frogs (formerly called Tree Frogs). Those little guys are natives, and typically predated upon by the non-native bullfrogs and red slider turtles that people get at the pet store and then unfortunately release into our creeks and ponds when they can’t handle them anymore.
Would love to get your Ballona stories down as a post!
I agree there’s been some nice regeneration – sometimes all we got to do is change the way we manage the landscape. I grew up here and never saw a pelican, due most likely to the DDT devastation. Every time I see one at the beach I think about how successful we can be in restoring the environment, when we have the political will to act.
Thanks again, Mark.
Jessica,
Thank you for your prompt feedback, It’s nice to have a frog name to research. I will have to surriptiously (spell check thinks that this word is misspelled) scout out those frog locations. They are in a very small but foliage dense eight by ten ft. area under shade cloth.
On the subject of La Ballona Creek and wildlife in general:
I see herds of squirrels around town, a brace of raccoons walking down my fence and standing up to stare me down, after using their clever little hands to turn my carnivorous plant container into an barely recognizable mush. There is no water near my home and a postage stamp little park at the end of the block with no water! in the middle of Culver City! Now that’s visual signs of progress. All this, thanks to loud and persistent voices getting some concrete action and overall education.
On the OTHER HAND! While house, garden and various animal sitting I looked over the back fence to watch the ducks and other fowl eat and play and the view that meets my eyes is a TRASH MORASS floating with the DUCKS! I don’t mean twenty or thirty cups and paper but a slick of trash about 50 yards long! It made me sick to see it. I’m not for authoritarian law making but watching from a bridge over looking La Ballona creek during a storm and seeing a snow like coating of styrofoam endlessly flowing to the ocean I start lean in that direction. I’ve been to the shore and seen so much styrofoam ground up that the small waves broke on the shore more like soup than water.
Someone please enlighten me as to the new law banning the sale of styrofoam cups et al. I would be happy to admit my ignorance if I missed it. You can’t even recycle the stuff.
Regarding the previously referenced Duck Soup, I recognize this doesn’t happen every day, but this day was a sunny day with no high wind or rain water movement, just the regular daily tide action.
So just another little rant. Thanks for the opportunity. This is the second time I have ever done this after many moons online.
P.S. Do you have a phone number I can use to report this horror scene when it does happen. That garbage could have been scooped out as it was in a localized area (duck hangout).
Maybe a surface float across would keep it contained. They used that and a huge metal box, probably a filter to get some oil two weeks ago.
Mark
P.P.S. Multiple millions have died and continue to die in Africa after the removal of DDT. There are some other views on that subject.
Hi guys,
I couldn’t find just an email address to send you a message, so I’ll do it this way.
I’m looking for suggestions from you for a good person to give a talk on the la river project(s?) up here in San Francisco to a group of sustainable development people, which would include environmentalists, urbanists, and developers. Know any knowledgeable people who are also great speakers?
Thanks in advance.
Mary Davis
I like your site. I grew up along San Rafael Creek. My childhood in “LA” was quite different with that “stream” as we called it, Johnson’s Lake (Mirror Lake) and the larger Arroyo Seco nearby. I’ve slided on the spillway that leads down to the the Arroyo Seco, and explored every nook and cranny.
Hi. Great article in the L.A. Times today!
I recently graduated with a degree in landscape architecture. As per our requirement to graduate the students are to develop a senior project or thesis. Growing up in the San Gabriel Valley I chose to develop my project in an around that area. In a nutshell, my project, inspired by Olmsted and Bartholomew’s 1930’s plan for the Los Angeles Region, sought to reconnect Los Angeles. My concept was simple, transform the concrete lined drainage channels back to their original state while simultaneously providing a means of transportation in the form of greenways. While doing research for this project I was pleasantly surprised to come across others who had similar visions! I applaud both of you for your great work. I am looking to get involved and would love to share my project with you both. Thanks for you time!
Steve – That Olmsted Plan is a real inspiration. If you’re up for, perhaps you could write a guest blog – and post images from your work. Let us know if you’re interested.
Hi –
Read the great article in the LA Times and love the site.
I live on Hudson near Brookside and have been fascinated by the brook since I discovered it running though a neighbor’s backyard. I always wanted to know why it goes underground south of 9th Street – was it buried or did it flow underground naturally?
Anyway, I’m a documentary filmmaker and was wondering – has anyone done a doc about the streams of LA? If not, I’d be interested in exploring the idea.
Cheers, and thanks for the site.
Hi Gabriel. My assessment of that stream (I hope this makes sense) is that the flows you see at Wilshire Country Club go into a stormdrain that runs roughly parallel to the original stream, down city streets. The stream in the backyards appears lower and slower than what you see at WCC. There are maps that indicate capped springs at the school on Wilshire and it appears that those flows might go into the backyard stream. Neighbors could easily confirm if the water levels go up very much in big storms (I think I remember being told that it never fluctuates too much) – a clue for determining flows. Below 9th Street/south of Olympic, the flows from the backyard stream go into a storm drain, and joins the parallel drain that I believe carries the Wilshire Country Club flows. It all goes down to Ballona Creek. Maps indicate that it didn’t go underground, and was a perennial stream (as it is still today).
Would love to chat about a documentary.
and the school I referenced was Burroughs Middle School on McCadden and Wilshire
Hi Jessica –
I’d love to talk about a documentary. Please send me an email with contact info and I’ll get in touch.
grotello@gmail.com
Greetinsg Jessica, I read the article in the LA Times, and have been browsing your super blog. Bravo to you! I live in Laurel Canyon, where we have many seeps (some on the road ice up on winter mornings – very dangerous!) Have you made any drainage/flow maps of LA?
Yes, there are maps accessible via the sidebar (Find a Creek or Wetland in Your Neighborhood), although those maps are at a scale that may not show everything in Laurel Canyon, nor seeps or springs per se. There are more detailed maps that can be provided. Additionally, you have a local reporter, Joanne Deutch, at the Canyon News doing some great research on the history of water in your area who can provide more context to go with it. I hope to publish a link to her story when it comes out.
Bravo!
Hi Joe, Hi Jane, didn’t realize you were working together. Hope to catch up with both of you soon.
Cheers, ilsa
@Ilsa – will be great to catch up with you. I’ve been enjoying Rambling L.A. (and linked it here once in a while – ie: the toad nookie piece!) Keep up the great work.
Hi, An FYI about links on some of LA River’s headwater creeks in the Simi Hills. (In case it might help getting a few more postings on ‘west of Sepulveda Basin’ – not complaining!, just pouting…).
#1 The State agency overseeing Rocketdyne’s SSFL (Santa Susana Field Lab) cleanup (relating to Bell Crk, Dayton Crk, & Chatsworth ‘Reservoir’ watersheds and Chatsworth Formation’s deep watertable toxic contributions to LA River). They have many pdf document files on the concerns and process.
Calif. Env. Protection Agency, Dept. of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) @
http://www.DTSC-SSFL.com/
#2 The West Hills Neighborhood Council had a meeting in Sept’09 about the proposed Bell Creek Greenway Project (in Bell Canyon), a segment of the National Park Service’s recreating the ‘De Anza Historic Trail’. The Friends of the LA River & Trust for Public Land co-presented. Being unable to go, sorry have no ‘report’.
Link to announcement @ http://acmela.org/bellcreekgreenway.html
Link to W.H. neighborhood @ http://www.westhillsnc.org/
Thanks for all you do cover.
At N 34 16.345 , W 118 27.757
http://maps.google.com/maps?client=opera&q=N+34+16.345+,+W+118+27.757&oe=utf-8&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=%2B34%C2%B0+16'+20.70%22,+-118%C2%B0+27'+45.42%22&gl=us&ei=on9nS7Y7gYKyA6LhoPcE&ved=0CAgQ8gEwAA&ll=34.275677,-118.469803&spn=0.014114,0.027874&z=16
there is a large fountain in the Brand Park Memorial gardens that was originally constructed in 1812 and is an exact copy of the fountain in Cordoba, Spain. This fountain was moved 300 feet from its original location. As the fountain has a bollard shaped appliance in its middle I am certain that at the fountain’s original location there was an artesian spring. I am also certain that the location of the spring was the reason for locating the San Fernando mission here.
Wondering if you’ve heard unusual reports lately with egrets. Got a photo from a neighbor of an egret standing on the parkway of the 2 Frwy at Allesandro yesterday. (Not clear on the exact location but can forward the photo if you’re interested.) And today the same neighbor said an egret was hanging out on the ground near their car at the Pep Boys Parking lot on San Fernando in Atwater.
I haven’t heard anything specifically about egrets… I will keep my eyes and ears open and let you know. I wonder if it has to do with the rains?
Hi Joe. Thanks. In 20 years I’ve never seen or heard of this kind of behavior this far from water. And there were no large puddles nearby in either sighting.
you should mobilize your readers to support this la conservency project.
http://laconservancy.org/issues/issues_NSpringSt.php4
We’ve got it up now: LACreekFreak http://wp.me/pi4Y0-16L
Hi,
American Rivers would like to do a blog on the EPA announcement yesterday and use your picture for the blog – is that OK?
Thanks steve
@steve – yes – American Rivers can use the picture – as long as you credit it. For the EPA press conference photo, please credit it like this “Photo by Joe Linton/LA Creek Freak” Include a link if possible, too!
Hello Jessica, Joe and Jane,
San Gabriel Valley Bloggers are participating in a blog day on July 7th regarding proposed soccer fields in Hahamongna Watershed Park. I’d love to email about it in case you’d care to join us, but I don’t have your email address. If you’d like to hear about it, please email me at pb (at) petreaburchard (dot) com. Thanks!
Hi Joe, Saw you on Channel 4 News tonight with Fritz Coleman, taking the Ciclavia bike tour through El Lay, GOOD JOB JOE! It was a long segment for local news and you were informative the whole way! Just wanted to say great job and thanks! Mary
[…] works mostly on L.A.’s CicLAvia car-free events.You can see his extremely impressive bio here. Just know that Linton was recognized in LA Weekly’s 2006 people issue as The River Guide, or […]
Hi, Jessica and Joe: I’m originally from the PV Peninsula and still live in the South Bay. I’ve recently been working to find natural springs from which one can drink or in which one could steep and reap therapeutic benefits (thermal). I don’t know if you’re familiar with Daniel Vitalis or his site, findaspring.com, but it would be great to help grow the database of places like this in LA, not just for drinking better water but for raising more awareness in another [slightly different yet equally interested in natural resource conservation] about the continual fight we wage to keep our dwindling waterways around for another generation. (That was an unbelievably long sentence. Sorry.)
I found your site in my various searches after reading the LA Times article about the University HS/Tongvan/Gabrielan springs that I was so thrilled to hear about and then so disappointed to see have also been semi-closed to folks wanting to appreciate that spring both on spiritual and thirst-quenching levels. I would love to know if there are any other springs like that in LA that aren’t attached to exclusive groups, where the public can fill a glass jar and appreciate a true gift from the ground? I just came back from the San Bernardino mountains where I filled 4 gallon jugs from a natural piped spring along the side of highway 18. Where are those in LA County? I’m sure they exist, yes? Or can you point me in the direction for further research? I’m no stranger to piles of charts and articles….
Thanks so very much for all you do. I’m now an addict to the blog and will be foraging faithfully til I’ve devoured every entry attended more talks and tours!
Shari – I am not really aware of any springs to steer you toward… they’re out there, but it’s not clear how the water quality would be, depending on underground contamination, etc., in the L.A. Basin. Jessica may have ideas.
Hi Shari, I will try to do a post with more info on springs, but as Joe says, big caution on drinking! Am out of town for a bit, so the post will probably be in a month or so. Best, Jessica
Hi Guys
Very much enjoyed the blog. It’s inspiring to see how much a committed community can achieve. There’s a small group of us trying to achieve something similar with the waterways of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia (blog here: http://hamiltonnorth.wordpress.com/).
Keep it going!
Mark
This is great! My sister Emily and I have a blog called Dinnshenchas, which is an Irish term for the lore of place. I’m trying to discover the origins of a very enhanced lake in the bluffs above the Upper Newport Bay…it probably started like as a freshwater seep, but there are persistent myths about it being “spring fed”.
There’s a little creek, called Indian Springs, right below it. I am talking to naturalists, Newport Beach City hydrologists and others to see if I can uncover the natural history. Haven’t found anything conclusive yet, but it’s been lots of fun!
i found this blog while looking for a good picture of a slender horned spine flower. i found something today in the big T wash that was tiny and looked like it might have slender horns.
i have a mule and rhave been riding in the wash from oro vista north a ways. it is a very interesting area, with birds and plantsive never seen before. i have been up and down little T and riden around in Hansen Dam, but the nature of big t is different.
i never seen anyone but homeless people.
im glad to know that there are others that care too.
Have you seen this cool photo of the old rancho for rancho ballona?
Hi, Would you happen to know how to contact Brett Goldstone (wrought iron work/artist). I am from Auckland and knew him whilst I was growing up. My father was a close friend of his father Ray. Thanks.
I have a very old email brettgoldstone [at] yahoo.com – it may or may not work
Brett Goldstone Inc
163 N Avenue 21 # L
Los Angeles, CA 90031 – View Map
Phone: (323) 225-6638
Hi Joe I really love your mini hand out guides! There is one on the milkwood web site. They are excellent for my understanding strategies of permaculture and they start my learning process off to a good start. I am dyslexic so starting of simple works well! Do you have any more I can look at? I am willing to pay for them if that’s a possibility. Such an excellent embedded learning system for me. Sometimes too I dont need alot of technical information to understand things my mind works to the advantage of leaner lateral thinking!! The one on the milk wood site shows of rain water harvesting designs methods. Its a small 8 page booklet. Warm regards. Neil. UK.
Hi Jessica,
I just wanted to thank you (and the rest of the team) for this great blog. I’m currently working on my MLA at Cal Poly and am really trying to focus on urban ecology and particularly hone in on streams, so its really nice to see a working landscape architect with the same interests. I’m looking forward to checking out your other publications.
All the best,
Matt
Thank youbto love the out doors
[…] Francisco, Mary Miss’s artful explication of the White River in Indianapolis, Jessica Hall’s creek freak investigations in Los Angeles, Steve Duncan’s fearless expeditions into the sewers, Robin Grossinger and Erin […]
Hi! I’m in the process of trying to start forest school in NELA. Based on the growing need to unplug and connect to nature, our forest school will encourage kids to run, climb, play and explore in a natural setting, learning to build, identify plants, exist with animals and other innate wilderness skills. We are trying hard to find a trail where there is water year round (or nearly year round) and would love if you have any suggestions of places we haven’t thought of. Our favorite spot right now is Switzer Falls, but it’s pretty far away and the lack of any cell service makes some parents nervous. Windsor Canyon is another option, but it is pretty populated and with views of JPL and houses everywhere, doesn’t quite have the vibe of being really out in nature. I would love to hear if you know of any hidden spots, anywhere from Silver Lake/Los Feliz to Monrovia…
Thank you!
Abbe
Do you have any info on this creek remnant? http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=8276926&postcount=48207
Thx
I don’t know about it – looks like it’s just north of PCC in Pasadena.
Just discovered this fascinating blog, having grown up in San Marino where our home was located on El Molino Avenue, the road named after the Old Mill built by Mission San Gabriel.There is reason to believe that Mission San Gabriel’s involvement with tapping watershed from the mountains and foothills extended far to the east in LACO and beyond. The original site of the MIssion was on the river today known as the San Gabriel River, but was largely ruined in a flood. In Azusa Canyon, the source of the river, the Spanish colonialists reportedly were minding for gold. East of there in Claremont was an Indian farmhouse and an experimental agricultural station that almost certainly got its water from San Antonio Creek. It does not appear that these dots have all been connected by water, but they should be, and perhaps through infra red satellite photography we may get a better picture of the old waterways.
[…] also an expert on the hidden creeks and streams of Los Angeles, which she highlights in her blog, LA Creek Freak. We chatted and Jessica was kind enough to share with me her map of underground creeks and she […]
Could there be a river running under the Viper Room in L.A. towards Santa Monica Pier?
Are there known underground rivers near Sunset Strip?
Not a “river” – but perhaps some sort of tributary.
I appreciate your reply to me, thank you.
That helps to know.
Glad you are here as an important source of knowledge about the natural waterways of Los Angeles.
Thank you again.