[Mackerm]

Originally Posted by Scott Charles

That is an awfully high curb.

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality

"The foot-high curbs in Los Angeles were part of an early flood control system.
Before storm drains were common, engineers planned streets in flood zones to capture runoff from a “100-year storm.”

Changing a curb means raising the street or lowering the sidewalk
—each is a huge undertaking—so you might have to wait 100 years for a new one."

Chris Nichols at lamag


.

Thanks, USC Digital Library

Curb height measured at 13½ inches with ruler and hand, Los Angeles, 1953

Photograph of a 13½-inch high curbstone. "Looking around with Harry Lang -- Detroit's jibes at L.A. curbstones draw sharp retort right back -- Today, 'Looking around' leaps fearlessly to defend LA's fair name against calumny, detraction and belittlement from (of ALL places!) Detroit. Let me tell you this, Detroit: What we have here in LA, we HAVE! -- and let no Detroiter say we haven't. -- I'm talking about curbstones. And I don't mean those runty, little, niddling, chickensized curbs like in Detroit. I mean fine, noble, upstanding, out-west-where-men-are-men-sized curbs. ¿ Curbstones that'll take on and crumple ANY car made in ANY Detroit factory! Curbstones that'll take second place to NO cliff in all Michigan! -- It's all because of this plea from Mrs. Bertha Worthington of 5022 Coolidge Avenue, Culver City, whose daughter Gladys is ill in the Herman Kiefer Hospital in Detroit, and facing a relapse because the other patients (all Detroiters, mind you!) are calling her a liar for asserting that LA has curbstones 'a foot high.' Pleads Mrs. W. 'Help my daughter! I know The Examiner can do anything, so can you help her against these Detroiters?' -- All right, Mrs. W; all right, Gladys. All right, you puny-minded Detroiters! A half block from the Examiner Building, at the LA Chamber of Commerce headquarters, our cameraman took this picture. That's an LA curb. That's a 12-inch ruler standing against it. Sidewalk level is 13½ inches above street level. So Gladys is a liar, is she? And that's at 12th and Broadway, virtually the heart of LA; elsewhere in LA, you'll find curbs even higher. Detroit will ALL its auto-factories can't make a car an LA curb somewhere can't crumple! And one final word: Out here, when you curb your dong, be sure he's a Great Dane¿! -- P.S. -- And now I just KNOW that some damtexan will tell me that in Texas, you have to ring for an elevator to get up onto the sidewalk!)" -- Examiner Clipping attached to verso, dated 2 March 1953.; Streetscape. Horizontal photography.