Bridge over LA River Date: 02-17-55
Photographer: R. Rittenhouse
A dead body from the book “The Scene Of A Crime†LAPD photo archives.
Under the North Broadway Bridge in Lincoln Hts, the old “Black Railroad Bridge†in the background and Elysian Park. Around this same time, 1955, as a 10 year old playing at the Downey Playground one night, I witnessed some guy get stabbed and thrown over this same bridge onto the railroad tracks (not as far a fall as the body in the picture took) by gangsters from East Side Clover.
Also this picture reminds me that as kids we used to climb under the bridges of the LA River to catch young pigeons for our coops. The LA River was our playground as kids, catching pigeons, toads, sliding down the mossy sides of the riverbank, talking to the hobo’s waiting on the tracks for the train to Seattle or San Francisco.
Around 1955 or 1956 the early horror film “Them†about giant ants colonizing in the storm drains of the LA was shot right where this body is lying.
This area definitely isn’t the East Side claimed by denizens of Silver Lake or Los Feliz.
I love the LA River, even though it has changed over the years it is still a cool place to explore. I wish I could of been there during those times, the walls were bare am sure, no graffit lol..I love it though
DJ, it really hasn’t changed much, the surrounding areas have changed though. There used to be lots of industry and the railroad yards were some of the biggest in the world. Also there were 4 or 5 hobo jungles that had up to 50 or 60 hobos living in the bamboo jungles that thrived then.
And FYI DJ, there was still lots of graffiti then although most of it consisted of gang placaso’s, remember it wasn’t until the late 60’s or early 70’s that spray paint was available. As a young gangster myself we used to use liquid shinola with an applicator or house paint to throw up our placaso’s.
I wish I would have invested in spray paint way back when.
I remember playing in the LA River. A group of us kids would go in the storm drains and walk inside them which seemed like a long distance but in reality it wasn’t. I think it was the fear of not knowing what was ahead. For light we would find dried up palm branches and used them as torches. We would always surface somewhere in Highland Park and peek through the openings along the curb. One time our torch went out going back out and we had to feel our way out. Lucky for us we knew our exit was just straight ahead. I was crying all the way out and never played there again.
I heard once that there exists more than 400 miles of storm drains in LA. We used to enter the man hole next to Friedens Clothing and it would take us out into the LA River near the old Lincoln Hts Jail, we kids would wonder if the inmates in the jail ever escaped via storm drain.
@ DQ
Yes you are right I forgot before spray paint people would use house paint or whatever they could get their hands on.Also your right too on the structure has stayed the same and the area has changed but I guess when I seen scenes from that Killer Ant movie and even ” Grease” the river looked bare and clean. It is a trip you mention the hobo villages, just last week a group of friends went down to the river just to hang out near an old graffiti yard we call the “Soto Yard” just a little ways from Sears Tower towards the Washington Bridge. We always gone that way but there was always these elaborate hobo shacks and villages. When we went last week it was literally a no mans land all the shacks and tents where gone and junk was piled up everywhere, so they must of got ran out by the city. If you think about it the LA River was just like an old neighborhood for the homeless, there has been different generations of people who lived in the river. It might of not have looked like a typical neighborhood BUT people did live there, and if you say there was hobo villages back then, then it’s nothing new.
What I wonder is during the days the river and the bridges where constructed people must of really enjoyed going there, you can tell it was ment for that by just looking at the fancy balconies some of the bridges have, like nowadays who would go and enjoy sometime sitting on some of the stoops of the balconies? hardly anybody they are usually filthy with piss and shit lol..kind of sad but true. My fav balcony is the on North Broadway “Buena Vista Bridge” near Elysian Park It has dope rounded balconies very cool.
It’s amazing how an empty river, that’s pretty much the most spectacular display of just how bad Southern California’s water drought is, became such a historic landmark. You can start an entire blog on the movies filmed there. Then there’s the stories of people who grew up near the river, ranging from playing and having fun to the morbid tales similar to what DQ shared, because no doubt a good stretch of the river has always been gang turf, not to mention a favorite disposing spot, for lack of a better term, for some of LA and Hollywood’s organized crime figures in the early-mid 20th century. The picture above looks to be courtesy of the latter. Great stuff, DQ. LA’s history is fascinating, and pop culture has barely scratched the surface. Of course, this probably isn’t unintentional. They’d like to sweep a lot of it under the rug. The pic above gives us a peek under that rug.
The LA River has quite a history DJ, during a massive rain storm in 1934 a hundred or possibly a thousand people (no one really knows for sure), were drowned like rats in the river. They were “Dust Bowl Okies” who were homeless migrants during the great depression and who had built”hobo shacks” in and around the river.
When the great storm hit on New Years Day 1934 the river flooded and huge boulders and debris washed down from the surrounding mountains and swept away untold numbers of these poor people.
The legendary singer and political activist “Woody Guthrie” even composed a famous song about the disaster,
“The Los Angeles New Years Flood”.
The Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and Powers that Be hushed up the disaster and put it on the dusty forgotten shelf of Los Angeles history.
Your spot on Rob, I could tell many stories (mostly gothic)about events that I witnessed and was involved in around the LA River. It is one of the most historic rivers in the USA and contrary to your thoughts about it, it is never empty, if you know what I mean.
Dam the place must be haunted in some kind of way if so many people have had their last days there. Lots of lost souls.
DQ, I Love your barrio stories, reminds me of my busrides with abuelo down the 68 where he’d lay out the land for me as a chavalito, telling me all about the city he had known since he walked here in the 30s. I also played in the LA River, my backyard when I lived in Aliso Village, but int he 1980s. I also have tons of stories as well. Props to Dona for mentioning soto yard, where my first piece put on video was painted.
Right before I moved out of LA to the yay for a bit, cleaned up my record and became a productive citizen, I painted my last illegal LA graffiti piece at that yard. All my homies took me down there and I was so stoned I almost got hit by a Metrolink train.
“Dam the place must be haunted in some kind of way if so many people have had their last days there. Lots of lost souls.”
DJ, absolutely haunted!
And as everyone knows (I’m sure Art, Javi, and anyone else that lived around the river will back me up on this), the LA River is the home of La Llorona. Yes it’s true, on dark moonless nights she can be heard crying and looking for the souls of her lost children and warning of impending death.
She is known to begin her search in the hills of Elysian Park where the old Chavez Ravine neighborhood was, then moves as a mist like apparition through the Park and into the River among the ghostly shapes of the trees and vines of “Frogtown”.
Her bone chilling wails and sobs reverberate against the concrete walls of the river and echo under the bridges while she floats like a greenish evil fog down past North Broadway, Main St., Fourth St, Sixth St, Macy St., and on and on along the river, searching for the souls of her dead children, or any other abandoned waifs she comes across, until her plaintive and miserable sobbing and hysterical wailing evaporate with the night mists and the mossy, putrid, sulphuric scent of La Llorona.
“Dam the place must be haunted in some kind of way if so many people have had their last days there. Lots of lost souls.”
DJ, absolutely haunted!
And as everyone knows (I’m sure Art, Javi, and anyone else that lived around the river will back me up on this), the LA River is the home of La Llorona. Yes it’s true, on dark moonless nights she can be heard crying and looking for the souls of her lost children and warning of impending death.
She is known to begin her nocturnal search in the hills of Elysian Park where the old Chavez Ravine neighborhood was, then moves as a mist like apparition through the Park and into the River among the ghostly shapes of the trees and vines of “Frogtown”.
Her bone chilling wails and sobs reverberate against the concrete walls of the river and echo under the bridges while she floats like an evil greenish fog, down past North Broadway, Main St., Fourth St, Sixth St, Macy St., and on and on along the river, searching for the souls of her dead children, or any other abandoned waifs she comes across, until her plaintive and miserable sobbing, and hysterical wailing evaporate with the night mists and the mossy, putrid, sulphuric scent of La Llorona, as the first crepuscular rays of dawn illuminate the LA River and the City of Angels.
Don is that really what is said? don’t La Llorona story originate in Mexico lol. I walked down the river plenty of times late night when we painted it but never heard anything but living there can be completely different. Maybe next time I will chop it up with somebody who lives there and ask them if they heard anything.
BTW I like when there is feedback to comments from the author in a blog post! your great at that Don, good looking out.
DJ,Thank you, I enjoy the feedback to any posts I make.
And as to your comment that La Llorona originated in Mexico, that is true, but like so many of our antepasado’s she immigrated to Los Angeles many many years ago, along with El Zorro and Joaquin Murietta, around the same time frame.
La Malinche,(as a historical fact, and related to me in a sueno by the ghost of none other than the famous LA Chicano Tiburcio Vasquez), always haunts rivers and waterways and was fascinated and enchanted by the arterial and historical LA River. The LA she found, so close to her stone heart, in the late 1800’s was one of the deadliest and murderous areas in the world, a reputation which continues to this day.
So, even though La Llorona started off in Mexico as an Aztec legend she has been here so long that she refers to herself now as the Chicana Llorona and has been recognized as such on the East Side ever since the missing nino’s episode of 1852 and the ensuing “children’s finger bones in the tamales sold on Calle Olvera scandal of 1911”.
Chale DJ, La Llorona stalks the LA River at night nowadays, Pobre Mexico, ahora no tienes mas que La Chillona.
Es la neta, pero la neta es que me cae gordo.
“Dam the place must be haunted in some kind of way if so many people have had their last days there. Lots of lost souls.â€
I can tell you this; A few years ago I visited the river for a project I was doing over by the Fletcher Drive, Great Heron Gates. Three times I went that summer and each time some disastrous things happened to me, each time worse. The last time I was there almost killed me. I feel that that part of the river does not like me somehow and I’ll never go back there again.
Al, the Frogtown area of the LA River has always been the most dangerous, aguate! mano.
On the Ripple St. side of the Fletcher Dr. bridge was where we young ratero’s used to hide, and when the unsuspecting drunk walked by late at night we would pull him down into the river, kick the shit out of him, and liberate his wallet.
Also, me and Black Phil from Clover almost died from drowning one time there, we rode the old junked mile high ice cream cone sign from the bankrupt Curry’s Ice Cream Store (where the El Conquistador is now) down the river during a ferocious rain storm when the LA River was roaring. We escaped like drowned rats near San Fernando Rd.
That’s an evil stretch of the River Al.
yeah- there are some kind of parallel to the river drain tunnels near the top of the bank that you could walk thru for a short distance. Kind of creepy vibe in there. I also noticed that a bunch of kids from a nearby school go hang out in this area after school.
Maybe “The White Lady” that haunts Elysian Park was a ghostly refugee from the River???
That’s funny Chimatli! Yea your right on, The White Lady of Elysian Park and La Llorona are one and the same, but although she appears as a white sobbing mist while in the park, in the LA River she becomes a wailing, screeching banshee, an apparition as a greenish fog who has the odor of a swamp with sulphuric, rotting flesh overtones. La Llorona not only searches for the souls of children her visage is a harbinger of impending death.
Beware!
http://s201.photobucket.com/albums/aa318/rhsghs/La%20Streetz/LA%20River/?start=80
Very nice photo’s Erik! I dig em the most!
In the year 1945, I was born in Glendale at the Hospital of Physicians and Surgeons, now named Glendale Adventist.
As a very young boy, I remember driving with my folks along Riverside Dr., I think it was, and stopping at Curry’s Ice Cream for a strawberry cone. I’ve often wondered what became of that place. Thanks for solving that part of my memory questions.
I have so many wonderful recollections of old LA along Vermont Av., particularly 31st St., Santa Barbara, 66th St., and Manchester. The best rootbeer floats were in a soda shop on Hoover and 66th. Damn! Back in the late 40’s and early 50’s, times were good. The fragrance of new-mown lawns and water wetted hot sidewalks, the Helms man, Good Humor Ice Cream, the Barbara Ann truck. My first introduction to sex was at the age of 2 years when the Rhinegold girl made an appearance at the Alexander’s market on 31st and Vermont. I am 65 years old now and still remember she was blond and wore black high-heals, fish-net stockings, black silk shorts, a white, cuff-sleaved top beneath a tux jacket and a silk top hat. Woof..!!
Do you all remember Brew 102? Or, “What’ll you have? Pabst Blue Ribbon..” Or, “My Bear is Rhinegold the dry bear …?” Whatever happened to Reineir Ale, AmerPicon, fights at the Olympic Auditorium, street cars, the Red Line, Roller Derby, orange groves, dairies, balmy summer nights when we could play in the street until midnight and our folks wouldn’t worry?
For sure, there was a bad element, but it was pretty much confined to it’s own area. But, for an average youngster like I was, times were good. I was a happy kid…
Always delighted to chat with natives. Please float an email with your memories, if ya want…
Fred
bldg23@gmail.com
Thanks Fred, You mention the Barbara Ann Bakery which was located on Pasadena Ave, right alongside the Pasadena Frwy and the Arroyo Seco River. My Father worked there for over 40 years, I and most of my family worked there off and on as needed. It is now gone like most of the good union paying jobs in Lincoln Hts and the Eastside.
You also mention balmy nights and the smell of orange groves and citrus, well that’s one of my favorite recollections of those days. Unless you have your own citrus tree or still live in an old neighborhood where people still have fruit trees it’s just a memory.
In the summertime I used to take my grandchildren fishing at Lake Piru, and that little town of Piru reminds me of one of the old neighborhoods, where everyone is outside and it’s hot, and that dreamy smell of orange blossoms permeates the air from one of the last remaining commercial orange groves in So Cal.
It probably won’t be there much longer though.
Hey while on the subject of fruit, how about when we were kids in the summertime and found a Loquat tree that hadn’t been hit by kids yet. We would climb that tree and sit up there like monkeys, eating loquats and spitting the seeds out, having a contest to see who could spit them the farthest.
hey you guys, i am just a white southern girl who has lived in lincoln heights now close to a year and i LOVE it here. i lived in venice for a couple years and it seems like everyone on the west side thinks the east side is just smog, gangs and spanish grocery stores. i love the history here, my neighbors are really friendly, and best of all there are very few hepsters here. its real here. families, kids, working class people. and the second oldest neighborhood in los angeles!
i feel like i am sitting in a bar listening to you guys’ stories. i live right on broadway and i am proud to live on this side of town, with real history, not just movie stars and surfers and industry kids. wish you guys would keep talking, these stories are priceless. i am learning spanish so i can talk to my neighbors. i hate it when i walk into the big saver and people are being friendly in the checkout line and all i can say is “poquito espaniol”! before i moved here i wanted to live on the eastside and i may stay here for a long, long time. love this blog!