It's a Tangled Web Under Our Streets
Diagram of utilities under the roadway at 9th and Figueroa, part of a permit for DWP electrical work.
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — Under the asphalt of our Downtown roadways lies a tangled web -- one hundred years of utilities, both working and abandoned. Pipes, conduits, bricks and old rails are all buried beneath the streets, easier to cover over than to remove.
That mess makes life interesting for construction workers who need to cut into the roadway.
Pictured is a portion of the drawing done laying out work for DWP to connect a 34.5kv power conduit to Astani's Concerto project at 900 S. Figueroa.
As this diagram attests, record keeping was an inexact science when many of these pieces went into the ground. Buried railroad tracks are shown on both Figueroa and 9th, both with exact locations unknown.
Also under Figueroa are an eight inch sewer pipe, a cable conduit, one working gas pipe along with three listed as abandoned, an AT&T conduit, one for DWP and a 48 inch storm drain.
One wonders how workers can ever manage a cut into the street without knocking out one thing or another.
The construction permit for the DWP job says that work is scheduled to commence this Thursday and be done within a week.
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Jerard on January 13, 2009, at 10:28AM – #1
That is really cool.
It will be interesting to see what's there when they continue through with the Regional Connector to find out what kind of "treasures" are buried.
Chris on January 16, 2009, at 12:41AM – #2
Reminds me of the History Channel's "Cities of the Underworld" show. They did a segment on what's below the streets of downtown. Showed old speakeasy, old Pacific Electric tunnels & passenger platforms, etc. Pretty cool.
Juanito on January 16, 2009, at 05:01AM – #3
What may lie buried under the surface of the river plain may be the most interesting of all, given all the millennia of sand, silts and gravel deposited with each advance of wintertime flooding.
Could there be bones of mastodons and saber tooth cats down there? Could there be voids in the strata? Pockets remaining after the decay of fallen Sycamore trunks, like those discovered under the San Diego Freeway when the Getty Center parking garage was constructed? How about that low ridge which separates the river plain from the Canada de los Abilas to the east, where Mission Road runs east/northeast from Ceasar Chavez Blvd.? Is it made of clay or does it consist of alluvial deposits formed by the great flood of 1825? (Word was handed down from early settlers that that flood had radically altered the shape of the lowlands).
Mastodons, like that discovered lying beneath Hollywood Blvd. when the Redline was tunneled through.
Mastodons, like the one in Washington. Only FOUR MORE DAYS, folks, and there sure will not be a void in that particular case.