Tom LaBonge believes there’s a bogeyman in Silver Lake.

EXCLUSIVE REPORT: Inside Silver Lake!!

The Silver Lake monster reported in the fifties(?) turned out to be…not so much, so let’s hope this works out as smoothly.

As I investigated the composition of the Silver Lake walkway, on the east side of Silver Lake (finding out in the process that instead of soft dirt, it’s dangerous granite) I had several conversations with the LA Bureau of Engineering. Eventually this led to an invitation from the BOE project manager, Michael Haddadin,  to examine the new walkway going in Silver Lake right now. (And this is their opportunity to make the new walkway healthy, instead of rock.)

This is as close as I’ve ever gotten to the Silver Lake water. It’s about as exciting as a bathtub, but it’s still a treat to stand at the edge of a big body of water. Refreshing to look at, too!

Getting in was a  struggle. I’ve never been inside the Silver Lake gates, nor have most people, and there’s a good reason: this is protected drinking water for several hundred thousand people in Los Angeles. The two BOE men were with me at all times. (Nor will I go into the fact that the biggest danger inside Silver Lake is one they put in there themselves, the black bird balls, which are just plastic, and have never been tested for heat, cold, nor for any length of time beyond 17 days! No, I won’t go into all of that again, because, you know, I hate to repeat myself.)

Two stands of juniper trees. Yes, they look like bushes, but they are really very low-lying trees, part of the cypress family. These have probably been there for 100 years, since Silver Lake was built. They are extremely drought-tolerant.

So Michael Haddadin came to the guard gate to pick me up in his big bouncy truck, and immediately two LADWP guards got mad and started shouting. Apparently they were supposed to have some kind of advance notice about visitors, but he kept saying he was responsible for me, and they got even madder, and moved to stop me, and to block the truck. He started to wave frantically at me, and opened the truck door. I had to run and jump in!

The stand of junipers on the right that makes Tom LaBonge anxious. Apparently the other trees have already been vetted.

Here was the annoying, sexist part: no one would let me speak, (including Michael) nor did anyone address me directly, ask for the ID and LA Press Club credentials I offered, or anything. I was just… a woman. I am quite sure they don’t do that to men who could be coming in for construction, etc.

Closer look at this group of trees. (or is it just one low-lying one?) The orange traffic stick shows that the trees are less than 3′ high.

After that, we drove past the bird-balled Ivanhoe. That is so full of balls now that some sit on top of others, like little black sentinels. (I am mad that I forgot to take a picture of that, but it’s hard being a reporter! I had to balance notebook, pen, camera, my big purse, a map he gave me, and not get carsick as we careened all over, and he talked a mile a minute.)

As close as my lens would get. Scared yet? I don’t think anyone could play hide and seek in here.

We drove directly to the section that will be called The Meadow. I would call it a big patch of dried crabgrass with a path that will soon be rock, if they use decomposed granite again.  Let’s call it “The Lawn”. They have certainly stripped it down. There are hardly any trees left – haven’t gotten a call back from their landscape guy about how many, but whatever was there is GONE. Michael said they are keeping the palms; I love palms, but they are the least environmentally friendly trees, and the city of LA no longer plants them on streets.

He pointed out how they are encasing the roots of some trees along the walking path with concrete curbs, to protect them, and that looked like a good idea, however.

On the phone Michael had said, “Tom LaBonge does want some trees taken down because he’s afraid someone will reach out and grab a runner.”

This group of a couple of trees and some bush is the only spot of shade there. The Bureau of Engineering plans to take it all out (or has taken it out) because LaBonge and the CSSLR would rather have the privy than the trees. The spots of white in the center are the daylight because this is only one thin line of trees.

This was such a strange thing for someone to say that I wasn’t sure I had heard him correctly. Tom has anointed himself the Mayor of Griffith Park. He hikes there nearly every morning. Has he noticed that GP has quite a few trees and bushes? Yet I don’t hear of ANY runners being accosted. Does Griffith Park have a hidden crime wave that the public isn’t privy to?

So I asked Michael to show me the trees that Tom is concerned about, while we stood on The Lawn. Michael quoted what Councilman Tom LaBonge had said to him:

Take out that whole stand [of junipers]. I don’t want strangers pulling young girls into the bushes.

Michael said Tom was quite concerned about little girls.

Tom, NO ONE wants men jumping out of bushes to grab little girls. (And I am pretty sure that these madmen pursuing little girls would be more comfortable in cars than in 2′ high bushes, not that I’m trying to help them or anything.)  Say, Councilman, have you ever been to Griffith Park?  Lotsa bushes there, I’m just sayin.

Michael said these bushes are really junipers, and as you can see by the traffic cone near the clump of trees, they are about 2 1/2 feet tall, at most. They are so dense that no animal bigger than a mouse or a bird could possibly enter them.

And Tom (and the CSSLR, which has kept an iron school-marm hand on every detail of The Lawn) are also concerned about the other groups of trees I photographed here. They’re not big enough to be groves – you can see the spaces through them. But they’re just too WILD for Silver Lake denizens, so they, too, will be taken out. Anyone go to a park to cool down? No shade to be found in The Lawn, sorry.

Other plans for the future of The Lawn: to put in hardscape (park benches) and botanical gardens (which I assume will never be tall enough to hide a scary man, even a short scary man.). And a big fancy gate, to be closed at dusk, which CSSLR has apparently put a lot of thought into, as opposed to anything green.
Poor Silver Lake.