Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Bridges of Downtown Los Angeles
    Bridges of Downtown Los Angeles
    Bridges of Downtown Los Angeles
    Ebook132 pages29 minutes

    Bridges of Downtown Los Angeles

    By Kevin Break

    5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    The Los Angeles River was tamed years ago. The river, by nature wanting to be violent and random, doses now in a concrete bed through downtown Los Angeles. In the city's core, there are over a dozen bridges that connect Los Angeles across the river--and these bridges are architectural marvels! These bridges were built in the first decades of the 1900s, and their history continues. The largest and longest bridge, the Sixth Street Viaduct, is in the process of being replaced. Others have been upgraded and enlarged; Spring Street is underway now. Many of the bridges were designed by one man, Merrill Butler, who made each bridge different, yet matching. In this volume, the reader will explore the necessity of the bridges, how they came to be, and where they are going in the future. The time is ripe for a reexamination of these jewels of downtown Los Angeles.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateOct 19, 2015
    ISBN9781439654064
    Bridges of Downtown Los Angeles
    Author

    Kevin Break

    Kevin Break has been photographing these bridges since 2006 and has published over 50 volumes of photographs for the City of Los Angeles. He was project photographer for the First Street Bridge and Street Widening Project and currently is project photographer on the Riverside Drive Viaduct Replacement.

    Related to Bridges of Downtown Los Angeles

    Related ebooks

    Civil Engineering For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    Related categories

    Reviews for Bridges of Downtown Los Angeles

    5/5

    1 rating0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Bridges of Downtown Los Angeles - Kevin Break

      Conservancy.

      INTRODUCTION

      Los Angeles has long shared an uneasy truce with the river that bears its name.

      For millennia, the Los Angeles River has trickled down from the San Gabriel Mountains to the coast, occasionally flooding during storms. Some of the floods have been huge, consuming, violent, and unstoppable.

      Large and apocalyptic storms have actually altered the river’s course and mouth, sometimes by many miles. Within living memory, the mouth of the Los Angeles River has moved from Santa Monica to Long Beach, a distance of about 30 miles. It has been said that the entire Los Angeles Basin is the natural floodplain of the river.

      During the population explosion of the last century, enough lives were lost and property damaged, that the effort was made to tame the sometimes wild river. This was done by digging a deep streambed and then paving it with concrete.

      While aesthetically distasteful to some, the stolid concrete channel has served its purpose well. There has been no major flooding near the course of the river nor many lives lost ever since. Most people do not know that more people have died from floods in Los Angeles than from earthquakes.

      The early growth of Los Angeles was hampered and constrained by the river running through the center of the city. Large, newsworthy floods occurred roughly every four to five years in the 19th century, as well as in the beginning of the 20th century, cutting off Los Angeles from railroad commerce, telegraph, telephone service, and, of course, road connections to the rest of the country. The existing bridges also were washed out, halting railroads and the real estate markets. There were no freeways in those days, but they would have suffered the same fate.

      In the early part of the 20th century, floods destroyed parts of movie studios and also caused serious fires. One flood isolated the entire Van Nuys area for a week. About 100 bridges in Los Angeles County have been destroyed by the river.

      Los Angeles had begun its long struggle to understand, contain, and, perhaps, restore the river someday.

      The first bridges, mostly built by the railroads and local commerce, made flooding worse. They usually were of wooden, X-shaped trestles, which caught river debris. As the debris built up during flooding, the bridges acted as dams and soon failed.

      In addition to the poorly engineered bridges, many people insisted on buying and building on land close to the river’s streambed; however, their folly became evident with time.

      As the issue aggravated, both the city and the railroads turned to more permanent concrete and steel construction. These bridges also washed away; their abutments and piers were undermined by the swirling floods.

      As the city grew and prospered, the problems with the bridges became acute. Traffic is and was a permanent feature of Los Angeles, but it was always much worse in the downtown core before the current bridges were built. Using the carrot and stick approach, the city was able to convince and coerce the railroads into helping fund bridges that would go over the tracks instead of intersecting the tracks. This was a huge relief to both the railroad and the commuters. They also had much larger and deeper foundations, which proved to be sufficiently resistant to floods.

      Many Angelenos who are not as well acquainted with the riverine flow forget there is even a river at all! Contrary to belief, the river is never completely dry. In modern times, the rain raises the river by only a foot or two. During storms, for just a matter of hours or minutes, the river swells. Its

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1