Quote:
Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire
I think it has more to do with the Bimini Slough.... See, for instance, Johnny Socko's post from a few years ago here. |
Hard to say that the curve is directly related to Bimini Slough, since it may have affected many areas of Melrose, Beverly, 3rd, and 6th Streets that aren't curved - yet it seems plausible given the proposed Silverlake Parkway map.
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...&postcount=642
The lot lines for expensive west-of Wilton estates in Hancock Park could have been determined by architect's whimsy or by following the natural topographical contours. I heard stories from long passed original residents that they would play Huck Finn and go fishing in nearby creeks - and have the hired help cook 'em up. But fish stories are sometimes fishy. I say this having seen family photos of the same old timers as "boys" watching someone tend an expansive backyard Goldfish pond. And on that point, thank you GW for reminding us of the Article also mentioned by Johnny Socko concerning LA's "lost streams."
http://www.laweekly.com/2006-11-09/n...f-los-angeles/
“Do you know why there’s sometimes fog at the intersection of Beverly and Rossmore?” Hall asks. “It’s because there’s a perennial creek that runs through the country club there,” she says. “It goes underground beneath Beverly, and comes up again on the other side.”
Hall has found streams in the backyards of Brentwood and Hancock Park mansions, in unkempt parks dotted with oil derricks, in parking lots, and on golf courses and university campuses. She compares what she finds to archival maps and oral histories she digs up in libraries. In her files are several hundred pages of transcribed stories told by people who lived in Southern California when it was still wild and wet. One 1902 federal map shows the Los Angeles basin, a bowl ringed by mountains from the Santa Monicas to the Santa Susanas to the San Gabriels, shot through with thin blue lines — streams — each of them tracing the thin line of a canyon: Benedict, Coldwater, Laurel, Franklin. Hall is on a mission to find the threads of every waterway Los Angeles has systematically buried since the late 19th century."http://www.laweekly.com/2006-11-09/n...f-los-angeles/
I knew of a few homes that sit in the shadow of the Pacific Design Center with constantly running pumps (in their basements and yards) to remove runoff attributed to the Hollywood Hills. Their streets are not particularly curvy, but maybe they should be.
"A study published in a 1997 Geological Society of America bulletin reported that a subterranean "alluvial fan" extends from canyons above Hollywood through the heart of the business district. An underground barrier traps groundwater, creating a water table that in some places is as close as 15 feet to ground level." http://articles.latimes.com/2007/feb/09/local/me-stars9
1925 Topographical Map of Sawtelle area. Full size is here:
http://130.166.124.2/latopoh/sawtelle25.gif
Evidently, much of early Santa Monica was carefully plotted in straight lines.
(As the Bimini Slough did not extend to that area.
)
http://www.kcet.org/updaily/socal_fo...-archives.html