An interesting project in St. Paul, Minnesota emerged in this Star Tribune article “Work could begin soon to bring St. Paul’s Phalen Creek back to the surface,” which highlights the mix of ecological and cultural benefits of urban stream daylighting. Through a focus on both the benefits to wildlife habitat and ecosystem function and the connection of cultural heritage for native people and early immigrants to the area, it shows a rich story that is told through multiple lenses to provide solid rationale for daylighting projects.
One major idea of daylighting is visibility. As mentioned in the Star Tribune article, this is a typical case of burial of creeks for development, but like many other areas, the perceptions have shifted and the value of historical waterways are being restored. A big part of that is pointed out by Ramsey-Washington Metro district watershed project manager Paige Ahlborg, watershed project: “Another benefit is just restoring a community’s connection to the water,” Ahlborg said. “Seeing it makes it harder to do things that harm it. We still have a number of people who think that ‘if I put something down the [storm]sewer drain, it will be treated.'”
The history of places is expressed in place names. From the Capitol Region Watershed District site, some history on the current name: “Swede Hollow on the City of Saint Paul’s East Side is a historic immigrant neighborhood dating back to the 19th century. This lowland valley includes a portion of a stream from Phalen Creek to the Mississippi River. After housing was removed following the turn of the century, the city created Swede Hollow Park and placed some of the stream flow in a storm sewer pipe to complete its path to the river.”
Image of Phalen Creek burial in the 1920s. – via Minnesota Historical Society
As is the case with most places, the story and names is often told in European terms (i.e. Swede Hollow). The creek name as well comes from Edward Phalen, one of Saint Paul’s original colonists, who settled on the banks of the creek in 1838. Prior to this arrival, the history of place stretched far earlier as referenced in the Lower Phalen Creek Project, a native-led project:
“This creek served as a corridor for the Dakota people who lived here, as they made their way up the chain of lakes by canoe to White Bear Lake – one of many areas where they gathered wild rice.”
The daylighting has both ecological and cultural benefits. In the Star Tribune, Lower Phalen Creek Project Executive Direction Maggie Lorenz, who is both Dakota and Ojibwe, mentions: “[Phalen Creek] is an essential part of the community — it will bring more natural habitat and it means more opportunities for recreation and stormwater management. And, from a cultural perspective, we are really interested in restoring the land and taking care of the land according to our traditional teachings.”
While the goal is to extend daylighting all the way to the Mississippi River, one the first legs connects from Lake Phalen and Maryland Avenue as shown in this enlarged plan, highlighting the ecological benefits, including fish passage and enhanced in-stream habitat, establishment not just of the creek but adjacent floodplain wetlands to provide resilience and habitat for amphibians, and upland prairies that provide native riparian habitat supporting birds and pollinators.
“Consultants at Inter-Fluve, Inc. produced this visual to represent the proposed location, general design elements, and predicted habitat benefits of a restored stream channel of Phalen Creek at the Lake Phalen / Maryland Avenue project site.” via Lower Phalen Creek Project
A ton of additional information is at the LPCP site, including graphic summary of the project is found in a brochure that connects the dots between the cultural and ecological.
The recent article in the New York times on the daylighting project at Tibbetts Creek reminded me, based on some of the comments, of the poem by Robert Frost called “A Brook in the City”. I knew of the poem, but hadn’t really made the connection to hidden hydrology, but the tones of industrialization that . Some analysis of the poem explains the context, as the poem “was written somewhat in early 1920 when history was witnessing Industrial Revolution and urbanization. It was at that time man became an evil and the outcome was the devastation and extinction of nature.”
West Running Brook No. 3 – J.J. Lankes (via Book Porn Club) – one of the woodcuts of another Frost collection of poems ‘West Running Brook’.
The brook becomes the symbol for that devastation, and the domination of nature the culprit: “…because of man’s modernization the brook which was a symbol of force is now nothing more then a weak and meek sewer. At night it still flows. A time would come when people would forget that there was a brook which existed. It would only exist on maps. The poet wonders if man could ever ever understand his mistake.”
An interesting piece of poetry that hits at the root of loss, memory, and the essence of hidden hydrology. Sad and beautiful, be still resonant a century after it was written, and somewhat poignant to consider as we daylight and restore the brooks… reversal of some of that old wounds made right. Enjoy.
A Brook in the City – Robert Frost
The farmhouse lingers, though averse to square With the new city street it has to wear A number in. But what about the brook That held the house as in an elbow-crook? I ask as one who knew the brook, its strength And impulse, having dipped a finger length And made it leap my knuckle, having tossed A flower to try its currents where they crossed. The meadow grass could be cemented down From growing under pavements of a town; The apple trees be sent to hearth-stone flame. Is water wood to serve a brook the same? How else dispose of an immortal force No longer needed? Staunch it at its source With cinder loads dumped down? The brook was thrown Deep in a sewer dungeon under stone In fetid darkness still to live and run— And all for nothing it had ever done Except forget to go in fear perhaps. No one would know except for ancient maps That such a brook ran water. But I wonder If from its being kept forever under, The thoughts may not have risen that so keep This new-built city from both work and sleep.
Header image – excerpt of woodcut from J.J. Lankes from another Frost collection of poem, “West Running Brook” – via Book Porn Club
A recent article on Belfast’s River Farset jogged my memory that I’ve got a ton of great info the hidden rivers in many cities around the world, so figured I’d start writing about them. For this post, I’ll focus on Belfast, and return shortly to discuss Dublin to round out Ireland, then move on to other locales. As mentioned in the most recent article, “For 170 years, the river that gave Belfast its name has been buried underground in a hidden tunnel.” It goes on to discuss how, similar to many stories of cities worldwide, the river was slowly changed from vital aquatic resource that fueled manufacturing such as linen mills, to it’s transformation as dumping ground, leading to the eventual encasement: “One million bricks and 40 years later, the last section of the Farset that flowed through the city centre was buried underground in 1848, and it has remained hidden from sight ever since.“
In the 1800s, the Farset helped to power Belfast’s textile mills, factories and distilleries PHOTO: De Luan/Alamy (via Daily Trust)
From the article:
“Belfast, or Béal Feirste (‘the sandy ford at the mouth of the Farset’, in Irish) not only owes its existence to this river, but also its growth and early prosperity. Yet, for the last 170 years, this ancient waterway has been sealed off from the outside world by a series of tunnels, and is largely forgotten by those walking just above it.”
The desire to open up the Farset is a common theme, with plans “…to redevelop land around an exposed part of the river and also produce a full heritage package – including an exhibition, Farset app, public information signs, and tours with trained guides – that will highlight the heritage to local people and also attract tourism.”
Another article echoing this sentiment in the Belfast Telegraph traces “The lost river that gave Belfast its name” and offers an exploration as well: “Old drawings show a bustling river which powered Belfast’s industrial development and ferried traders into what is now High Street. But most locals would be hard-pressed to pinpoint exactly where the Farset flows before it reaches the city centre – because almost the entire route is now hidden beneath our feet in the form of culverts. The Greater Shankill Partnership recently revealed it wants to transform one of the few open stretches of the Farset into a public amenity as part of its long-term Shankill Greenway plan.”
Tracing the source of the Farset river in Belfast from the hills over looking Belfast to its end at the Lagan Weir Shankill cemetery where the river behind – image via Belfast TelegraphTracing the source of the River Farset in Belfast: river ends at the Big Fish at Customs House Square –
This similar theme is expressed in stories from 2015 from the BBC, “Hidden History of Belfast’s lesser-know rivers brought to the surface”, which includes the Farset, as well as the Blackstaff rivers, both of which “determined the shape of the city that grew up around the narrowest bridging point of the Farset, where High Street is today.”
A computer image showing the original course of the rivers Farset and Lagan in Belfast – via BBC
Additionally, the Connswater, which was featured in Van Morrison’s song “Brown-Eyed Girl“, but also has a larger history as a locus of whiskey production, ” In Victorian times, two-thirds of whiskey exported from Ireland came from Belfast, and around half of that came from two distilleries – the Connswater distillery and the Avoneil distillery. “ Today, remnants run under the 400-year old bridge in east Belfast. Portions of the river runs through Orangefield park and supports wildlife, “The river used to run along fences at the back of the houses, which were susceptible to flooding. Instead of building floodwalls, here the river has been ‘moved’ to become a central feature of the park.”
The 400-year-old Connswater Bridge in east Belfast – via BBC
HEADER: Partially hidden view of River Farset in Belfast – via Belfast Telegraph
Building on my recent post about the anniversary of the catastrophic flooding of Vanport, I had the opportunity to visit some of the events at the Vanport Mosaic Festival from May 25-June 5. One highlight was a series of tours being offered as part of the events on Memorial Day weekend. The tour started at the Portland Expo Center and looped through key areas of the site, and it was exciting to get access to a few areas that are typically off-limits to people on a regular basis. It was also available as a self-guided walking tour, so they had maps for referencing key Vanport locations overlaid with current conditions
Vanport Tour Map (via Vanport Mosaic)
The back side of the map is supplemented with imagery of sites along the route, giving a feel for what it was like during the height of Vanport. It’s interesting to see these spaces and activities from 70 years ago, and for the most part discover that few traces of this still exist on-site.
Vanport Tour Map (via Vanport Mosaic)
The tour took a bit over an hour, and was led by Clark College professor of geography Heather McAfee, who layered stories and facts onto the tour, and demonstrated a passion for the need to tell the stories of Vanport more widely. While I wished we were able to hop out and explore a bit more, there were a few stops along the way, including this kiosk at one of the parking areas.
A Place in Time Called Vanport – Kiosk
The trail adjacent to the site led Force Lake, one of the amenities of the original Vanport community that was formerly adjacent to the original Recreation Center, and had beaches at the margins. The perimeter is now overgrown and a large wetland zone that is mostly inaccessible except from some narrow paths or to golfers on the west side.
Force Lake
Those other uses are a part of the story. South of the kiosk is a good orientation to the current land use of the majority of the Vanport site today with the western portions occupied by Heron Lakes Golf Course and portions of the east side of the site occupied by Portland International Raceway (PIR), making most of the site not publicly accessible.
Heron Lakes Golf CourseTrack at Portland International Raceway (PIR)
Both of these uses contribute to the lack of remnants that remain from the original Vanport site. As our tour wove between the two atop short levees, we struggled to look from map to site and make any meaningful connections, so disconnected these areas were from their original site, with staring golfers wondering why a seemingly lost tour bus was lumbering around in the middle of nothingness as they went about their rounds.
One area that was protected, through the advocacy of groups wanting to preserve some remnant, the old foundation of the original Theater is still visible on a small margin adjacent to one of the sloughs, protected from construction of PIR (Another remnant area of roadway, a portion of North Cottonwood Street) was incorporated into the straighaway of the racetrack). While indistinct, even this tracery of crumbling foundation serves as a powerful marker, even more so due to the almost complete erasure. Many on our group walked on the surface, paused in a moment of silence, and then moved on. It seems odd, but it had a power, and seemed almost sacred, becoming a tangible touchstone for the past.
Remnant foundation of original Vanport Theater building
McAfee (here pictured) used this location, pointing up at the top of a tree to show the relative height of the floodwaters, which were between 22-28′ high depending on where on the site one stood. As McAfee mentioned, people came into the theater to warn of the breach, shouting:
“The Dike has Broke!”
Seeing this and imagining a water line many feet above your head, coupled with the fact that there was a direct sightline here to the original railroad embankment breach point along the western edge of the site, it hammered home the immensity of the event. It also left me in amazement that even more people hadn’t perished.
Tree marking the height of flood waters
The southern apex of the tour swung by Drainage Pump No. 1, which was built in 1917 and worked to remove water from the interior of the levee bottoms. While it helped slow the flood a bit, the fact that it pumped water outside into already swollen creeks meant that it was fighting a losing battle. The pumps still work to dewater the interior the areas today as part of the larger drainage system.
Original Drainage Pump Station
The tour looped to the southeast and a second breach point, then wove back by the original site entrance along Denver Court before returning to the EXPO center. One stop adjacent was a larger wetland area, with another public sign adjacent to the dogpark that also tells the story of Vanport.
Informational signage adjacent to dog parkAdditional information marker from Oregon Travel Information Council
The Vanport Wetlands were adjacent to the site, nestled between PIR and the original Vanport site, and the EXPO center to the north. These and are protected today and support a range of wildlife, according to the Travel Oregon site: “This is an excellent site for waterfowl in winter, and southbound shorebirds in late summer, including Pectoral Sandpiper. Summering ducks include Cinnamon and Blue-winged Teal. Many swallows forage over the water in season. Check the wooded edges for warblers, vireos, and tanagers. Yellow-headed Blackbird has nested here. Red-shouldered Hawk appears occasionally, while American Kestrel, Red-tail Hawk, Osprey, and Bald Eagle are expected. Another 0.5 mi NW on Broadacre is Force Lake, a good place to view migrant grebes, ducks, and shorebirds.”
At the EXPO center post-tour, there were a number of exhibits and groups showcasing topics related to Vanport, social & environmental justice, arts, and culture. The Vanport exhibit was a chance to explore many of the themes around Vanport flood, not just as a historical retrospective but as a way to use this to have new conversations around race. From the site:
“Join us for two weeks of memory activism opportunities, to explore and confront our local past and recent history of “othering” and its tragic consequences. Through exhibits, documentary screenings, tours, theater, and dialogues we will celebrate the lessons of resilience and resistance as defined and told by historically oppressed communities.”
“…it’s important to remember because I feel like we are experiencing yet another wave of collective historical and cultural amnesia.”
Vanport Spirit mural
Lots of interesting side stories, including learning more about Levee Ready Columbia, working to protect from flood risk in the context of development and climate change in the slough today, as well as finding all the ways to access some local waterways via the Columbia Slough Watershed Council’s ‘Paddlers Access Guide‘. From the artistic side, a few related events include a documentary of Portland stories around trees, Canopy Stories, and a cool project exploring stores of place through music from the Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble “From Maxville to Vanport”. Similar geography, the Maxville Heritage Interpretive Center highlights a fascinating slice of Oregon history, and many other stories can be found via the Oregon Heritage Tradition, which “recognizes events that are more than 50 years old, reflect Oregon’s unique character, and have become associated with what it means to be an Oregonian.” Lots more folks at the event, so this is just a snapshot of a few.
Additional Stories
For a more permanent look at some of the art that looks back at Vanport, you take the yellow line north and stop at the Delta Park/Vanport MAX Light Rail Station. From the TriMet site outlining the Public Art on the Yellow Line, there are a number of elements that reference Vanport. Artist Linda Wysong was the primary creator of this stations installation, built in 2004. Elements include foundation remnants embedded in sidewalk, and a range of other specific elements.
These mosaic tile (the original Vanport Mosaic?) of community maps overlay the current Delta Park site onto the city grid of Vanport. Another map shows local river context within the location of the station.
Vanport MosaicClose-up of Mosaic
There are also these beautiful bronze railings, which are a nice touchand easy to miss if you’re not looking, featuring “cast artifacts from the Chinookan culture, Vanport and the Portland International Raceway.”
Bronze railingClose-up of artifacts
Another piece that slipped my attention was some “CorTen steel sculptures recall rooftops adrift in the 1948 floodwaters”. There are also works by Douglas Lynch and Timothy Scott Dalbow are reproduced in porcelain enamel on steel, and “…a cast-bronze scupper channels stormwater into the bioswale below.” Lots I missed as it also seems like there an adjacent water quality pond a sculpture called “Waterlines” which had “Massive steel arcs allude to the engineered landscape and Liberty ships made by Vanport residents” as well as a “glowing monolith of stone, steel and acrylic symbolizes the unity of human and natural worlds.” Guess I need to make another visit.
The stories of Vanport are told in multiple locations, with the help of groups like Vanport Mosaic and local artists. However, as mentioned in the OPB story, our “collective amnesia” about historical events, especially those that involve racial inequities and displacement, requires us to first understand and next confront these narratives. As I talked with people around Portland, it was a mixed bag of whether people even knew about Vanport (many had not) or had any real knowledge of the significant (many, myself included, had not). Hopefully the Vanport Mosaic Festival continues, and energy around more ways to discuss, celebrate, and interpret this spatially, so that these hidden histories and made more visible and persist.
HEADER: Force Lake – image by Jason King (all images in post by Jason King unless otherwise noted).
The story of Vanport is a critical narrative woven into Portland’s water history, and gives a hint at the dynamic nature of river/city interactions, along with formative context for race and class relations that shaped the community, both in positive and negative ways. This 2016 documentary from the Oregon Experience provides a compelling and well illustrated history of the Vanport community that’s worth a watch.
From the cover of the video: “During the early 1940s, Vanport, Oregon was the second largest city in the state and the single-largest federal housing project in the country. Built quickly to house men and women coming to work in the Portland/Vancouver shipyards during World War II, Vanport boasted some 42,000 residents at its peak and offered progressive services for its diverse population. But one afternoon in 1948, a catastrophic flood destroyed the entire city, leaving about 18,500 people still living there suddenly homeless. Vanport tells the story of a forgotten city: how it was created and once thrived; and how it changed the region forever. It features first hand, personal accounts of former residents and dramatic, rarely-seen archival film and images.”
The origin story here is around World War II, and the wartime shipbuilding, and Henry J. Kaiser, who operated 3 major shipyards that built over – two in Portland, in St. Johns and Swan Island, and another across the river in Vancouver, which built over 750 ships and employed around 100,000 people at their peak in the early 1940s.
In order to house the growing and diverse population of shipbuilders, who were coming for a mix of opportunity and patriotism, Kaiser proposed in 1942 to build what would become the largest wartime housing project in the United States, a new community of over 40,000 people in a 650 acre tract wedged between the Columbia River and Columbia Slough in North Portland. The plan of the community, completed in 1943, shows the general layout, including over 9,900 individual apartments, built cheaply and quickly. The size and diversity of the community, which included a diversity of White, Black, Asian, and Native American workers, as well as a large percentage of the workforce made up of women, who were recruited from all around the country to come to Portland to support the war effort.
From the documentary, the community also had a hospital, police station, library, fire station, transit, shopping, grocery, schools, recreation centers and even a move theater. While there was an effort to make the community livable, and improve ‘quality of life’, the goal was also production, with buses ferrying workers to and from shipyards, which operated 24 hours a day.
The relationship of the plan is woven around water, and the history of flooding of the wetlands and sloughs within which Vanport was built could be said to be both amenity and omen. Some images from the documentary show life around these waterways, including beaches on one of the two lakes, and some exploration around the Slough and it’s tributaries that wove throughout the community.
Vanport Location – via Vanport (Oregon Experience) Vanport Location – via Vanport (Oregon Experience)
As mentioned in the documentary, the cafeteria was located adjacent to the beach on one of the lakes, with water-loving cottonwoods woven throughout. And beyond what was referred to as a “slightly ill-kempt public park”, kids found waters of the Slough the real playground, using make-shift rafts to find turtles, bullfrogs, and tadpoles.
Vanport Location – via Vanport (Oregon Experience)
Post World-War II the idea was for the temporary city to be demolished, and as people starting moving out, some structures were removed. A housing crisis kept Vanport a necessity, as a combination of post-internment Japanese, blacks who could not find housing due to red-lining in the greater Portland area, and lack of housing for post-war returning soldiers, all combining to provide affordable, if somewhat ramshackle, housing for a variety of residents. There was also a Vanport College, founded in some of the vacant buildings, which eventually became Portland State University. For the growing Portland area, “mud on the shoes” meant you were from Vanport, which was seen by the greater Portland community through the lenses of racism as a slum.
In the winter of 1947-48, conditions started to shift towards catastrophe. Heavy snowfall coupled with more intense spring rains swelled the Columbia Rise, which flowed in mid-May at a rate of 900,000 cubic feet per second (cfs), which was almost double the normal flow. This led to the need for reinforcing dikes and sandbagging, along with regular patrols by the Army Corps of Engineers to ensure the perimeter was solid. At this point, there was a question of whether to evacuate, and an emergency meeting was held, but the thinking was that the dikes would hold, and if not people would get plenty of warming. A few days later things changed dramatically.
River Stage levels in late spring 1948 – via Vanport (Oregon Experience)
The entire Vanport area, as former lowlands, was surrounding on all four sides with dikes in order to keep the adjacent waters at bay. The massive vulnerability of the perimeter meant a lot of potential failure points. The dike along the railroad lines to the northwest of Vanport separated Smith Lake from the lower-lying Vanport area was just that failure point, seen in the map below.
Vanport Location – via Vanport (Oregon Experience) Vanport Location – via Vanport (Oregon Experience)
The 30′ berm was ostensibly about protection of the railroad, so the integrity to hold that massive amount of water back during a huge flood event was less a priority, so water levels from Smith Lake started spilling over the dike, the railroad berm started degrading with water boils appearing and seeping thorugh, and on 4:17pm on the May 30th, the breach happened, as mentioned, a “600 foot section melted away.”
Railroad embankment failure – via Vanport (Oregon Experience)
Sirens blared, and people grabbed anything they could get their hands on to evacuated to nearby Kenton. As people recounted stories of “a wall of water” and climbed to their roofs to be rescued, it was exacerbated by the housing, which was built cheaply and without solid foundations, which began to float around, knocking into each other, as seen in the images below.
Houses in the aftermath – via Vanport (Oregon Experience)
The sloughs filled up with the initial flows, so people had 30 minutes to escape. With only one route available, Denver Avenue, the road was quickly jammed, and people started fearing that this area would also fail, so continued to sandbag and reinforce this zone, and people started walking through water as vehicles and buses were stuck. By Monday morning, Denver Avenue was also breached, along with other perimeter dikes, inundating the entire community. The extent of flooding wasn’t localized to Vanport, as it impacted the entire city and it was estimated to have caused over $100 million in damages throughout the basin. The displacement of 1000s of people meant that the flooding of Vanport was some of the biggest impacts, and they were long-lasting well after the water subsided.
via Vanport (Oregon Experience)
There have been a number of stories that have covered the events around Vanport life and flooding, including loss of life, as well as its aftermath, such as investigating the absence of accountability for inaction on evacuation and the lack of dike maintenance that could have prevented the disaster. I’ve not seen critical analysis in general of the general wisdom of occupying the spaces and places like Vanport and its flood susceptibility, which were chosen hastily to fill a need, such as emergency housing in war-time, but are perhaps much less suitable for people to live long-term. Should the city have been demolished after ship-building slowed? It shows the impacts of larger social forces on disasters, and the brunt of that impact being felt by frontline communities.
Some of that aftermath is capture in this snippet from the Oregon Encyclopedia: “Refugees crowded into Portland, a city still recovering from the war. Part of the problem was race, for more than a thousand of the flooded families were African Americans who could find housing only in the growing ghetto in North Portland. The flood also sparked unfounded but persistent rumors in the African American community that the Housing Authority had deliberately withheld warnings about the flood and the city had concealed a much higher death toll.”
Iconic image of man holding boy – via Vanport (Oregon Experience)
The erasure of that history is part of this larger story, with little remnant or physical marking of the place and event as what was left of Vanport was demolished, burned, or auctioned., which is now occupied in parts with West Delta Park, Portland International Raceway, and Heron Lakes Golf Course. As summed up in the Oregon Experience, there is to this day:
“Little to remind anyone of a ‘once thriving city.'”
It an important piece of history around both race, building, and hydrology to investigate in Portland, so expect to hear more about this. The Vanport Mosaic site provides a great opportunity to learn more, and there are some other films on the topic, including a documentary ‘Vanport and the Columbia River Floods of 1948‘, produced by the National Weather Service, and ‘The Wake of Vanport‘, produced by local independent paper The Skanner in 2016.
HEADER: Image of flooding with newspaper Headline – via Oregon Experience
An interesting case study in hidden hydrology from a region I’ve yet to discuss, Greece. Via the Telegraph, an article “Athens hatches ambitious plan to uncover fabled river, once the haunt of Socrates, and turn it into a park.” The river in question is the Ilissos, which, due to lack of maintenance on the subsurface tunnel in which the river flows has led to structural issues that has caused issues with the tram line running on the surface, and opened up opportunities for restoration of this ancient waterway. As mentioned:
“An 1821 water colour of the Ilissos River and the Temple of Olympian Zeus” – via Telegraph (image credit Alamy)
“Urban planners have suggested that rather than spending millions of euros on reinforcing the tunnel and repairing the track, the tram line should be diverted along a different route and the river opened up. They are proposing the creation of a park along a one mile stretch of the formerly forgotten river.”
Some context on the significance of this river, via the HYDRIA Project, “Ilissos river was considered in antiquity as the second main river of Athens, forming an horizontal landmark in its southern and eastern sides. Ancient writers mention various activities by its banks, varying from civic processes, cults -including a sanctuary dedicated to the river himself, by Ardittos hill- or social walks and philosophical endeavours in idyllic landscapes, as for Socrates and his disciples (Plato, Phaedrus 229-230, link). “
View of Athens from the River Ilissos – painting by Johann Michael Wittmer – via Greek City Times
Due to the dry climate, the Ilissos and the other river in Athens, the Kifissos, are often dry, as mentioned in the article. “Given Greece’s dry, hot climate, neither is huge – they are nothing like the Thames in London or the Tiber in Rome.” They do, however, act as places for floodwaters to run after winter rains, and the depths can reach up to six feet.
From the BBC “Athens to open up ancient river“, the plan by Nikos Belavilas from the Urban Environment Lab shows the route of the proposed daylighting, restoring it after it was paved over in post-WWII development. You can see the location of the current configuration in the context of the historical routing above, including the Stadium and the Temple of Olympian Zeus, built by Hadrian.
Beyond daylighting, the restoration also has bigger implications, as a strategy to avoid future issues. As mentioned in the BBC article:
“But it is not just a simple matter of reclaiming the city’s past, but also of saving its present.”If the Ilisos tunnel collapses, it will block the natural course of the river, and could flood the entire city centre,” Mr Belavilas warns – “That doesn’t bear thinking about.”
Currently, only a small section is now visible on its path from the mountains, as mentioned in the Telegraph: “It originates in the mountains on the edge of the city and eventually flows into the Saronic Gulf, after passing almost unseen beneath the streets of the capital. It does emerge briefly, in reed beds behind the Temple of Olympian Zeus, which was built over several centuries starting in the second century BC. “
The only uncanalised part of the bed of Ilissos river that once ran outside the old city of Athens. – via Wikipedia
HEADER: River Ilisos and Stadion Bridge, ca. 1900 – via Wikipedia
As the title suggests, there were many incarnations of Chinatowns over the years in Portland focused around two zones. The first is the urban development zone of habitation that shifted shape running along the Willamette River to areas centered on Burnside and running to the north and south. These emerged first as a cohesive enclave, and later into a dispersed ‘non-clave’ that persists somewhat today in the small district of Old Town/Chinatown. The second is a zone of Chinese Vegetable Gardens further upland south of Burnside and west of 14th and provided more informal housing and opportunities for vegetable gardens. My focus here is on the latter, the farming zones inland along the banks of Tanner Creek, which Wong discusses and outlines their evolution over time, and how the fates of Chinese farmers and the creek were linked.
The three vicinities of Chinatown – From Wong, p.206
Much of the backstory here is found in the previous post, which focuses on a 2016 article by Putsata Reang in Oregon Humanities, entitled ‘The Farmers of Tanner Creek’ along with some additional information from Tracy Prince’s book “Portland’s Goose Hollow”. In this case, I was pretty fascinated by the dual narratives of the erasure of the Chinese Vegetable Gardens in tandem with the erasure of Tanner Creek, which is illustrated in the series of maps in Wong’s book, spanning 1879 to 1908.
Via “The Farmers of Tanner Creek” – Oregon Humanities “Tanner Creek runs between Chinese gardens and shanties, circa 1892. Providence Park, the Portland Timbers soccer stadium, now stands where these gardens once did. “
I took the liberty of adding a few items of color to these maps, focusing on the routing of Tanner Creek and the extents of the Portland Chinatown Vegetable Garden Community. As mentioned by Wong the roads “…were needed to serve an expanding population, but the flood-prone Tanner Creek and the gulch that meandered through this area were dominant nature features that controlled much of the building potential of the region.” (211) Thus improvements were required to tame this and create conditions better for development and expansion. Wong continues:
“In 1873, the old wooden bridge that spanned the creek connecting B Street to a small number of residences collapses in the rise water fed by winter rains, necessitating replacement and improvement. In July of that same year, the City of Portland contracted Chinese workers to construct a 115-foot cylindrical brick culvert sixty feet below the level of B Street. The culvert was to run along the bed of the creek, with some infill of the gulch to permit construction of a new bridge. At six feet in diameter, the culvert was large enough for a man to walk through and was intended to provide drainage for at least a hundred years. This improvement made it possible to control, if not totally prevent, flooding of the creek and associated erosion along the creek bed and the embankment up to street level.” (211)
The control of flooding by installation of the pipe of Tanner Creek allowed for the Chinese to occupy the site for gardening, as it no longer flooded. The first map from 1879 (p.210) shows a linear band of gardens along Tanner Creek parallel to B Street (current Burnside Street) which future road rights-of-way extending to connecting streets, but the creek had limited development of these roads, and the margins occupied with “Chinese Shanties”.
Between 1879 and 1889 the amount of area for Vegetable Gardens increased dramatically, from 3 acres to over 21 acres, as shown on the map below (page 214). The reduced flooding allowing for farming and Shanties to expand, filling the entire lowland zone. The new plank road to the east and a new wooden bridge spanned new developments towards Jefferson to the west.
1890s – Trestle bridge, Chinese vegetable gardens, Portland High School Courtesy Oreg. Hist. Soc. Research Lib., bb007389
The Creek was still intact through this zone as well, however starting to get chopped up with development on the edges. The ability of the Chinese to extract maximum production from this space was notable, as Wong mentions: “The immigrant gardeners… acted collectively, sharing the labor and the profits as they continued to farm the low-lying ground and slopes of the Tanner Creek Gulch. The Chinese applied their extraordinary agricultural skills, shared by Cantonese immigrants of rural background, to successfully cultivate the land.” (212)
As seen above, at the time, there was some development, but more residents were moving near here and building larger houses, and for a short time the two lived in close proximity with little issue.. “Perhaps the year-round beauty of the gardens and the convenience of easily available low-cost produce enable two such economically disparate and cultural distinctive social groups to coexist for many years.” (215)
The 1901 map (below, from page 216) shows the impact of a new resident, The Multnomah Amateur Athletic Club (now the current The MAC ), which displaced some of these gardens by moving into 5 acres to the north of the creek, using the natural slope as a viewing amphitheater and building a clubhouse. They also constructed considerable raised plank infrastructure on Alder Street, which eliminated gardens below there (but did keep the creek free flowing for a while longer). Farmers expanded the Shanties in existing areas, and moved to the area west of Jefferson where they installed new gardens and Shanties. The creek it seems to also have started disappearing more in this period. The drawing doesn’t show a key to connote what dashed lines mean versus solid, but it’s probably not a stretch to imply much more culverting of flows, and the plank roads also serving to visually disconnect the creek from views of residents.
By 1908 the map (from page 217) expansion of the city was reducing (to around 11 acres) the area of gardens even more as land became more desirable. The Creek was removed through conversion of bridges and plank roads into surface streets, which filled up gulches. This was a product of one of the “… city’s long-range projects for controlling flooding, raising the grade to accommodate roads, and encouraging urban residential development.” (218) The area near the Multnomah Amateur Athletic Club purchased the land and “over the next few years, both Tanner Creek and the land adjacent to it were filled to permit final construction of the athletic club and nearby homes.” (219)
Together with a number of ordinances aimed at reducing the number of Chinese vendors selling products, and finally just outright banning street peddlers in certain areas. As Wong concludes:
“Portland’s urban growth and expansion into the Tanner Creek area, the filling in of the creek, and the city ordinance that prohibited the rural Chinese from earning a living did irreparable harm to the fragile gardening community. A reporter’s prescient statement in 1889, that the time would likely come when ‘the gulches [would be] filled up and used as building site,’ had come to pass, and the Chinese Vegetable Gardens community disappeared from the record after 1910.” (220)
It’s a wonder as well that it lasted as long as it did, within the rapid urban expansion and the racist undercurrents at the time. The map sequence is a great snapshot in time to see Tanner Creek in the midst of Portland’s urbanization towards the end of the 19th Century. While, it is not totally clear graphically which portions of Tanner Creek were still remaining and which were buried, it shows a valuable sequential picture of the development of this portion of the city and how land shifted from that which had little value to some (and immense value for growing food for others) to becoming more necessary for further development. Gardens and creeks presented barriers to this progress and were slowly eroded and ultimately erased. Wong’s ‘Sweet Cakes, Long Journey‘ is an essential picture for understanding Chinese life and contributions to the history in Portland, of which the above is just one story. However, it is a critical one in terms of hidden hydrology, showing the displacement of Chinatown Vegetable Gardens in tandem with development that slowly buried Tanner Creek, forever losing it’s productivity as a creek and its ability to support agriculture in the city.
HEADER: 1892 Image of Chinese Gardens and Homes in Tanner Creek Gulch, Photo courtesy of Gholston Collection – image via Oregon Humanities, “The Farmers of Tanner Creek“
A search of the history of Portland will inevitably unearth a reference to a strange collection “Portland Oregon A.D. 1999 and Other Sketches” by Jeff W. Hayes. Published in 1913, this long story, often referenced in the realm of science fiction or futurism, envisions a Portland as remembered by the protagonist, an elderly woman recounting her visions of the future. As other utopian visions, it is both a product of its time and has an air of moralism, but if you read it as I did for some prescient thoughts on a future as envisioned over a century ago, it’s somewhat intriguing at time. A short bio of Hayes here from the UW Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest gives a bit more context: “He framed this tale so that it resembled Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward (1888). The main character is an elderly woman who has seen Portland in the year 1999 and returns to the city around 1911 to offer “prophecies” of how life would change. Her predictions emphasize how technological change and social reform produced a sort of Christian socialism that would make Portland a nearly perfect city. Note how people of color are described at the end of the included text. In a chapter not included here, Hayes’s prophet envisioned a truly utopian transformation—doctors, lawyers, and ministers who work not for themselves but for the public good as defined by city commissioners.”
The reference to Bellamy’s work “Looking Backwards: 2000-1887” (which I have yet to read) is interesting as I recall that this was also a formative text for Ebenezer Howard, who wrote his 1898 “To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform” which was an early version of what was reprinted in 1902 as the more commonly known as “Garden Cities of To-Morrow” and the blueprint for Garden City Movement. I’m sure some further digging into Hayes would reveal some agenda for his writing Portland A.D 1999, but it seems like the use of common vehicle at the time to tell a good story, versus a manifesto in this case. While it is at certain times a bit boring, it does have some ideas worth noting excerpted here, but seriously you can read the whole thing in about 15 minutes (and for free, here).
I was struck off the bat with some of the statements, after setting up the scene, it’s mostly recounting scenes of different facets of life. Early on she visions things that were close to mark in terms of reality: “I could see people flying through the air in vehicles shaped like birds from the Atlantic to the Pacific and that the almost impenetrable forests of Oregon would one day be entirely laid low by the woodman’s axe.” (3) and while we’ve not achieved the sense of car-free city as outlined below, the idea of compactness and green-ness (perhaps with a bit more diversity than blue grass and roses) does hint at the city, and perhaps some things we could be focusing on more today:
“The city is compact and the business houses are lofty and well constructed, safety to occupants being the chief Care. “Owing to the fact that there are few, if any, automobiles or other rapid methods of travel to take up the streets of our city, there was an order issued by the City Commissioners removing the hard surface pavements and authorizing the Commissioner of Public Service to sow the streets in rye grass and Kentucky blue grass, so that the city of Portland is one perpetual system of parks, where the youngster may play to his heart’s content. Just imagine what a beautiful city we have and how our past day metropolis would pale into insignificance beside the picture I have drawn. Roses are planted in the streets and we are really and truly the ‘Rose City’.” (6)
Transportation does take a good portion of attention (including a strange balloon system for world travel – page 19). Presaging Elon Musk as well as many urban interventions for highway tunnels: “There are no more bridges across the Willamette river, tubes 75 feet wide at every other street taking the place of the bridges. These tubes are about a mile in length and start from Broadway on the West side and extend to Grand avenue on the East. Public docks extend from St. Johns to Milwaukie and cover both sides of the river, which is dredged the entire length of the dockage. “ With a nod to some of the land shaping that was more prevalent in Seattle, some of these interventions were a bit more ecologically destructive, such as hillside removal to create flat land for economic development, “Many of the hills back of the city, including Portland Heights, Kings Heights and Willamette Heights are leveled, only Council Crest with its historic traditions being allowed to remain. This gives a vast area to West Portland which is really vital to its business supremacy.” (7)
There are allusions to grand designs (reminiscent of City Beautiful), where ““The city, county and state buildings embrace five continuous blocks beginning at Jefferson Street running north, taking in Madison, Main, Salmon, Taylor and Yamhill Streets, each building being ten stories high and connected at each third story with its companion on the opposite side of the street for a distance of five blocks, making it practically one solid building five blocks long and each building ten stories high.” (8) With a utopian nod, Hayes does envision that police, and half of the judges were women, mentioning pioneering Portland suffragette Abigail Scott Duniway as an inspiration. The moralism extends to some inherent racism, in particular around token remnants of Native Americans and Asian immigrants in the city, with oddities like “The Chinamen, more particularly have fallen into the customs of the white neighbors and a much better feeling is manifest on both sides, which knocks the dreaded bugaboo about the yellow peril.” (14) Perhaps in that whiteness of spirit, it is mentioned things like lack of crime and the absence of jails, and in general “…less roystering, riotousness and lawlessness than existed earlier in the century.” (9) But is odd when directed towards schools with “…little need for an elaborate education, children are not compelled to go higher than the sixth grade, the rest of their education being made up by practical experience later in life.” (10)
The funniest moral statement, especially in the context of how many breweries, wine bars, and distilleries exist in Portland today, is around alcohol, as ““It was in the year 1950 that it became quite observable that corn, wheat, rye and other cereals entering into the production of alcohol had lost the power to ferment and to be converted into beer, wine and whiskey. This was a startling announcement to the old topers but it was nevertheless a fact and the science of making alcohol has become a lost art.” Weinhards and other brewers instead, thrive by’ “manufacturing a beverage which exhilarates but does not inebriate.” (16) I’m guessing this is the precursor for Kombucha, right?
A few interesting items that were interesting in terms of communication, include such things like video phones, computers (or the improvement of typewriters), and wireless, at least in some incarnation. For instance, futuristic Facetime “not only talk to a person over a wire, but you can actually see them, life size and just as they are, exactly as if you were talking to them face to face.”, wifi and the prevalence of cell phones ““Much telephoning is now being done by wireless and that branch of the service has developed greatly and is used to communicate with aerial vehicles.”, and perhaps scanning coupled with AI such as Alexa:“Take for instance, an item cut from a daily paper and paste it on the cylinder, or disc, and without further preparation, a voice will read off the item to you in a plain, clear tone.” (36-37)
On a larger scale, hints echoing the amazing reputation for sustainability was interesting, with lots of forward-thinking technologies mentioned, like “The lighting of the city is done by one immense electric light suspended in the air at a height of several thousand feet which illumines the city as bright as the brightest day.” and perhaps an early Eco-District idea, with “Heat is furnished by the city through a thorough pipe system and it is compulsory on all citizens to patronize the city’s heat.” Also mentioned is sustainable agriculture, with horticultural practices, “as a result many new fruits and vegetables have been put on the market, their flavor and excellence outstripping anything known in the early twentieth century.” (17) Further, open spaces are a big deal as they are today, even going so far as to replace previous taken lands. “Cemeteries have been turned into play grounds, tomb stones removed and no vestige of the former gruesome abode of the dead is visible.” (31)
And the biggest miss was the opposite of climate change, Instead of our rapidly melting poles, in this future “Ice was forming at the South Pole, each year encroaching more and more towards the north and some alleged scientific men predicted that the time would surely come when the ice deposit at the South Pole would be come so great and the weight so heavy, that it would result in throwing the earth off its present axis, probably tipping up old Mother Earth and reversing the positions of the Equator and the Poles.” (38). Crisis was averted due to volcanic eruptions melting this ice-cap, so we were not thrown off axis, but no hints were given as to what future catastrophe that held… perhaps something for the future.
From a specific focus on a water perspective, this was the age of progress and modernization, it is mentioned the massive yield increases which hint similarly to the Green Revolution aiding in huge production of wheat in Eastern Oregon, shipped through Portland through all parts of the world. Closer to Portland, the use of waterways is more traditional, mentioning that “Columbia Slough was reclaimed and most of the manufacturing industries are carried on at that point.” (7) assumes a slightly different take on ‘reclamation’. The more grandiose “movement on foot away back in 1905 to harness the ocean’s waves, but it was determined to be unfeasible. Later on, it was demonstrated that the project was a simple one and now the highway to the ocean is lined with poles carrying power developed by the ocean waves which gives an endless and inexhaustible supply and which is cheap and always reliable. This means of securing power is utilized the entire length of the Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean and on all the Great Lakes, Chicago being the first city to try the experiment from the waters of Lake Michigan. “This discovery has had the good effect of making it possible to properly conserve the nations water supply and has created a new industry. Irrigation by means of huge air tanks filled with water and allowed to rain upon parched spots is the present method of irrigating and it works wondrously well.” (29)
Water supply was also mentioned, in the grand tradition of big infrastructure. While the Bull Run was logical, stretching a bit further north seemed excessive. As mentioned, “It was deemed necessary, about the year 1951 to in crease the water supply for the City of Portland and it was ascertained that the conditions at Mount Hood for bade looking to that place for a greater supply and it was decided to utilize the, as yet, great and untouched abundance of water offered by Mount St. Helens, and three years later the pipe line was completed, and water from beautiful St. Helens was turned into the new and immense reservoirs constructed for the ever-increasing population.” And in an interesting switch, the idea of eruption had some truth but was focused a bit on the wrong mountain, as Hayes’ protagonist states: “It was fortunate for the city that this new supply was projected and consummated just at this time for it was but a year later that Mt. Hood, which had been groan ing for some time began to belch forth from its intes tines a mass of smoke and lava which bared the moun tain of snow and caused much consternation among our people. The volcano continued active for several weeks, at intervals, finally entirely subsiding and it has been on its good behavior now for 25 years. Repairs were made to the pipe line and Portland, today, is getting a portion of its water supply from Mt. Hood as of yore.” (35)
Also, on topic of irrigation and water supply, the technologies for irrigation seem wildly odd, as outlined on page 11, in which is discussed:
“What might appear to the people of 1913 as very extraordinary, is the manner in which the streets of the city are sprinkled. A huge air bag with a rubber hose attachment is allowed to rise to a height of about 1,000 feet and water from the Willamette river is pumped up into it by the good old fire boat … “Attached to the air bag is a regular sprinkling machine… it is allowed to fall on the city, the air bag, of course, frequently shifting its position to give all parts of the city an equal show for a rain storm. This process is used whenever there is a drought in Multnomah county which, thank the Lord, is a seldom occurrence.”
The people of 2018 would think that is extraordinary as well. Read it, it’s fun.
HEADER: Unrelated, but I figured representative image of a Future City – Tullio Crali’s ‘Architecture’ – 1939, via Reddit
There is no shortage of articles written on the Los Angeles River, and I’ve covered some of the broader hidden hydrology work being done there in a previous post here, Beyond the LA River. I do however have a special affinity for the quality of scholarship on Places Journal, and an essay from May 2018, Willful Waters by USC’s Vittoria Di Palma and Alexander Robinson doesn’t disappoint. This longform essay provides a great background and historical framework for anyone wanting to understand the river and it’s long and contentious history, as well as recent efforts of revitalization and reconnection. It also comes with a great collection of historical imagery, which elevates our thinking out the past, present, and future river beyond the concrete ditch we tend to associate with the Los Angeles River.
I’d recommend the essay in its entirety, so I’ll just include a few snippets and comments I thought were compelling. At first I was a bit confused about their allusion to the Thomas Cole series The Course of Empire in this context, but after some explanation, it’s an interesting framework in which to think about hidden hydrology, in terms of binaries such as life/death or sin/redemption, and as a “cyclical” journey from wildness through some sort of apex and back through destruction and desolation. That narrative begins another cycle of “revitalization” and “restoration”. As the authors mention: ” If not for the galvanizing effect of a set of historical ideas — the belief that a site, destroyed and degraded by human industry, could be transformed into something evocative of its original condition through the power of “nature” guided by enlightened design — Los Angeles might have continued to forget that it ever was a river city.”
Los Angeles River in the early 20th century. [Security Pacific National Bank Collection, Los Angeles Public Library] – via PlacesFrom a historical viewpoint, the idea of a soft, meandering river is hard to comprehend, but also is the origin of the city itself, supporting described as “…a stream trickling through a wide sandy bed.” with “The river basin was overspread with springs, marshes, and shallow ponds (the very name of La Cienega Boulevard recalls the landscape’s original swampy character), and the debris from the mountains, deposited over centuries, created a layer of alluvial silt that in some areas lies 20,000 feet thick.” This lack of structure meant lots of variability, which created unpredictable volatility during storms and “rain events” in which “…waters would rush down from the mountains, carrying gravel, silt, boulders, and trees.” This factor would ultimately lead to the demise of the river itself.
Edward O.C. Ord and William Rich Hutton, Plan de la Ciudad de Los Angeles, 1849. [Los Angeles Public Library] – via PlacesThe other interesting idea was the concept of zanjas (irrigation ditches), in which there were miles built as shown in the above map: Quoting John Shertzer Hitell, “The “zanjas, or irrigating ditches, run through the town in every direction.” They “vary in size, but most of them have a body of water three feet wide, and a foot deep, running at a speed of five miles an hour. They carry the water from the river to the gardens, and are absolutely necessary to secure the growth of the fences, vines, and many of the fruit trees.” The image below showing how these canals were parts of the fabric of the city, enclosed but still open and visible, and enlivened the place, as mentioned in a reference to visitor Emma Adams, who commented on “…the soft murmuring of water as it glides through the zangas [sic] in some of the beautiful suburbs of the city is sweet music to the ear, a happy voice sending out joy and gladness. Wherever it is heard are sure to be seen verdure, flowers, and fruit.” In this way, the wild and unpredictable Los Angeles River was remade into a tractable urban water source.”
A canal, or zanja, on Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, ca. 1892. [Security Pacific National Bank, Los Angeles Public Library] – via PlacesThe manipulation of the river for utilitarian purposes followed many others before it, but foreshadowed larger interventions of control. As the authors point out, “Los Angeles was shaped by a dual need to be at a safe distance from its unpredictable, flood-prone river, and in close contact with the river’s highly controlled, artificial reincarnation: the zanja madre and its network of ditches. This relationship between city, river, and ditch is illustrated by the map drawn up by Ord and the surveyor William Rich Hutton in 1849. Agricultural lands occupy the area between the river and the city up on the Elysian Hills, with the southerly extension of both fields and city closely conforming to the route of the zanja madre. At the same time, the problematic nature of the flood-prone river is indicated by this inscription: “sand over which the River spreads its waters which are wasted.” They go on to conclude that,“The zanja madre was, in other words, the Los Angeles River tamed and perfected by the improving force of human culture.”
Los Angeles River and the Fourth Street Bridge, 1931. [Herald-Examiner Collection, Los Angeles Public Library] – via PlacesThe river at the time was still natural in most places, but the canals soon depleted water levels, and created a trickle, which was the impetus for Mulhollad’s hyperbolic yet apt “Titanic Project to Give [the] City a River”. After this change to more consistent supply, which included piped water from the Owens Valley some 233 miles away via aqueduct, the Los Angeles River only emerged during rain events, those “… “intermittent moments when it flowed with a violence that only intensified as galloping urbanization further hardened the city’s watershed. No longer valued as a natural resource, the ever-wilder river was now feared as a “predator,” able to roam and strike wherever it wished.” This unpredictability and ensuing series of floods changed how people thought, thinking of the river as a “menace” and thus “perceptions of the river were changed irrevocably.”
Los Angeles River at Griffith Park, ca. 1898–1910. [California Historical Society Collection, USC] – via PlacesThe flooding was the final impetus to use new technology to “train” the “unruly dog” of a river, which seemed to be the particular bailiwick of the Army Corps of Engineers, and creating what amounted to a “water freeway” that we know today. In a few short years, the Corps“ …systematically transformed the Los Angeles River from an intermittent, meandering stream bordered by willows and cottonwoods into the concrete storm drain we see today.” The authors point of the lesson of this today.
“In a textbook example of the triumph of reason and human agency over willful nature, the Corps created the ultimate Los Angeles fantasy of a river: a “water freeway.” That a drought-prone region would celebrate the speed at which water could be drained off to the ocean was an irony not then appreciated by either the military engineers or the public.”
Los Angeles River, San Fernando Valley, 1949. [Valley Times Collection, Los Angeles Public Library] – via PlacesPerceptions changed in the 1970s, and the media, politicians, artists, and environmentalists rediscovered the river in a variety of ways. A series of articles in the Los Angelse Times by Dick Roraback in 1985 entitled , ” “Up a Lazy River, Seeking the Source: Your Explorer Follows in the Footsteps of Gaspar de Portola.” provided a poignant story about the forgotten waterway, where “… the author narrated his expedition from the river’s mouth to its putative source, chronicling the riparian habitats of its flora and fauna. Roraback’s picaresque tale turned the Los Angeles River into an incongruous backdrop for a cast of quirky urban characters (the blonde waitress, the salty sea dog, the mussel gatherer, the dog-walking divorcée) engaged in various activities, both licit and illicit, in the river and along its banks. By presenting the river as a neglected urban feature, the series brought its paradoxical charms to the attention of a large new audience, and, crucially, positioned the river as a postindustrial terra incognita — an attractive, slightly dangerous, and alluring urban landscape.”
Further work by artists and others who started exploring the waterway, and ultimately went on to found the Friends of the Los Angeles River, started to think about the area in different ways, and through exploration, began as a “…characterization of the river as a paradise lost, a place of discarded things and marginalized people, served to ignite a potent landscape imaginary. It also introduced the idea of the river as a space for environmental action. ” This was aided by the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant which added 20 million gallons of water per day, which had an effect of revitalizing the ecology of the river. “This infusion of wastewater generated a verdant riverscape, which in turn, and somewhat improbably, inspired comparisons with the earlier paradise described by Father Crespí and sparked talk of a riparian rebirth. As the changing river increasingly evoked that lost, idealized waterway (particularly in the unpaved eleven-mile stretch known as the Glendale Narrows), it also inspired residents to take up walking, bike riding, bird watching, horseback riding, and even kayaking and canoeing…”
Los Angeles River, Glendale, with a bicycle path along the banks. [Creative Commons] – via PlacesThe kayaking wasn’t always for pleasure, as it was interesting to learn that a waterway has to be navigable to be eligible for the Clean Water Act, so a group of people in 2008 kayaked the length of the river to provide its navigability. This meant that maybe “The fantasy of transforming the flood control channel into an arcadian waterway began to seem real. Kayaking has also become a powerful means of introducing visiting dignitaries to a vision of a newly green and civic river.” The final part focuses on the long and winding road of Revitalization, including master plans in through the 1990s and more recently efforts by interdisciplinary design teams, government agencies, and non-profits. These focused on ecology, hydrology, and recreation, amongst other factors, either as technical studies but more often than not art intervetions or designs. One such example is the Piggyback Yard Feasibility Study (image below), done by Mia Lehrer + Associates, which “…integrates economic and hydraulic modeling with community design considerations, but such efforts such are still few in number and small in scale.”
Piggyback Yard Feasibility Study, Mia Lehrer + Associates. [Mia Lehrer + Associates] – via PlacesThe mix of design, art, tours, and other creative methods of interpretation, often using minimal intervention, hint at “…the remarkable activity generated by the Los Angeles River — which as yet remains largely a concrete channel bisected by a thin course of water — testifies to the profound power of the city’s desire for ecological redemption and urban rebirth, and to ways in which civic or even poetic acts have found purchase within a byzantine network of managerial interests.”
Endnote:
The post in Places referenced above is an excerpt from what sounds like a great book, River Cities, City Rivers published by Harvard University Press and edited by Thaisa Way. Will track down and report on at some point on this book, but here’s a summary from the site: “Cities have been built alongside rivers throughout history. These rivers can shape a city’s success or cause its destruction. At the same time, city-building reshapes rivers and their landscapes. Cities have harnessed, modified, and engineered rivers, altering ecologies and creating new landscapes in the process of urbanization. Rivers are also shaped by the development of cities as urban landscapes, just as the cities are shaped by their relationship to the river. ¶ In the river city, the city river is a dynamic contributor to the urban landscape with its flow of urban economies, geographies, and cultures. Yet we have rarely given these urban landscapes their due. Building on emerging interest in the resilience of cities, this book and the original symposium consider river cities and city rivers to explore how histories have shaped the present and how they might inform our visions of the future.”
HEADER: Los Angeles River, view from 6th Street Bridge, 2010. [Ian Rutherford] – image via Places
The most recent October issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine (LAM) has a great story on hidden hydrology inspiration Anne Whiston Spirn, FASLA, titled Where the Water Was, which highlights the “long arc” her work in West Philadelphia, namely the “water that flows beneath it.”
The aha moment is recounted in the article, the inspiration for the poem linked above “The Yellowwood and the Forgotten Creek“, as recounted in the article, she “was on her way to the supermarket, when she was stopped at a gaping hole where the street had caved in over the Mill Creek sewer. “I looked down and saw this big, brown rushing river, and all this masonry that had fallen in. I thought, ‘My God, there are rivers underground. We’re walking on a river.'” (122) Sprin’s work spans decades since that story in 1971, predominately around Mill Creek which was “buried in the brick sewer pipe in the 1880s”, morphing into the West Philadelphia Landscape Project (WPLP) [covered in brief on our post on Philadelphia here]. While I was inspired as a student and professional by her work on books like The Landscape of Landscape and The Granite Garden, her work on hidden streams was perhaps the most powerful for me, both as an object of study but more broadly to leverage this research into a vehicle for positive change. As mentioned, the WPLP website “contains maps, historical documents, reports and studies.” including an updated interactive timeline, and some newer updated interactive mapping which is good to see, as much of the interface until late was a bit dated.
A long way from the preliminary maps in CAD as part of the early mapping in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The sophistication and breadth of this work at the time is telling thought, and I remember seeing these for the first time in college and being amazed. The article shows what many of us know, which is how much of what we take for granted in technology of mapping that’s available to us today, and how hard it was, physically and sometimes politically to get good information. As Spirn mentions “You had to literally go out and field check.” (134)
The takeaways of this early work was to both connect the above ground with what was underground, both historically in predevelopment hydrology but also with sewer routing and burial of waterways. As mentioned, the idea that is a constant with Spirn of “reading the landscape” was instilled as a way to understand the full picture of a site or district. The connection of the physical features with the social is also evident as Spirn is quoted: “It’s a pattern of eastern old cities and across the U.S., where lower-income folks are living in the bottomlands… Many are literally called the Black Bottom.” (126) From this analysis, the idea of mapping and using vacant lands was a way to solve the hydrological problems of flooding or sinkholes, but also to revitalize communities.
How to do it was an issue, as recounted in the article, ideas where one thing, but changing minds into action was another. McHarg’s Design With Nature inspired her writing The Granite Garden, not as an academic treatise, but rather “…to fill a void. Scientific journals, historical documents, topographic maps, all sorts of materials contained a wealth of information for ecological designers, but no one had pulled it together in a comprehensive, understandable book that could guide designers as well as the public.” (127) This book influences generations of landscape architects in many ways beyond merely historical ecology, but in how we think and communicate. For the project itself, Adam Levine (who is the mind behind the PhillyH20 project which i documented previously) found the 19th Century maps “that showed Mill Creek and its tributaries before the land was developed. Spirn’s students digitized those surveys and overlaid them on the city’s topographic maps, finally getting an accurate depth of fill along the floodplain. “We found it’s buried up to 40 feet in some areas…”” (134)
The actions were part of this research as well, and many interesting strategies came from the Vacant Lands report (see here), as well as a number of other projects, many of which took a long time to become reality, or came with ups and downs of poor implementation or. The successes came, owing to the persistence of Spirn and her local compatriots in West Philadelphia, summed up in the article simply:
“Change is a bit like a buried creek. It’s hard to remember its origins. Its many branchings are invisible.” (137)
The legacy locally is a series of activists still working on landscape and community building. Beyond that, there’s an army of landscape architects inspired by this project and her writings, and her life-long spirit of advocacy. A great homage to a wonderful teacher and landscape hero. Lots of great info in the article – which unfortunately isn’t available digitally at this time.
HEADER: Snapshot of Interactive Map of Mill Creek – via
