Los Angeles River
— — the river the city tried to forget.
Not only on a wall.
“Fifty-one miles of river, most of it lined with concrete since the Army Corps of Engineers channelised it after the 1938 flood. The water starts where Bell Creek meets Calabasas Creek in Canoga Park and ends at the Pacific in Long Beach. For decades the channel was a movie-set highway, used in Grease and Terminator 2; the stretch through the Glendale Narrows is one of the few that kept its soft bottom and willows. Herons stand in the shallows. The egrets came back. from the studio
Los Angeles River, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Los Angeles River runs 51 miles from the confluence of Bell Creek and Calabasas Creek in Canoga Park, across the San Fernando Valley, around the south flank of the Santa Monica Mountains, through downtown Los Angeles and on to the Pacific at Long Beach. Most of the channel was lined with concrete by the United States Army Corps of Engineers between 1938 and 1960 after the catastrophic Los Angeles flood of 1938. Eleven miles, including the Glendale Narrows and the Sepulveda Basin, retain a soft bottom because the water table sits too close to the surface to pour concrete.
Average flow is low for most of the year and most of the dry-weather water is treated effluent from the Tillman, Burbank, and Glendale reclamation plants. Winter storms can change the river quickly; the channel was sized to carry a 100,000-cubic-feet-per-second design flood. The soft-bottom Glendale Narrows now supports steelhead, carp, tilapia, and over 200 bird species recorded by the Audubon Society, including great blue herons, black-crowned night herons, and snowy egrets. Recreational kayaking is permitted in summer in two designated zones.
The Los Angeles River Greenway Trail follows the river for about 32 miles along the channel banks, open to walking and cycling. The Frog Spot at Marsh Park in Elysian Valley is the main public access point, with kayak launches in summer. The Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Reserve at the upper end is one of the best birding spots in the county. The river is crossed by 90 bridges, including the 1932 Sixth Street Viaduct, demolished in 2016 and rebuilt as the Sixth Street PARC ribbon, reopened in 2022.