The Corralitas Red Car Property was a private right-of-way through Silver Lake (Los Angeles) for the Pacific Electric interurban streetcar. The “Big Red Cars” ran until 1955 when the Glendale Line was decommissioned for freeway construction. For more than 40 years, a series of developers tried and failed to develop the Corralitas Red Car Property. It's not a park, it just looks like one.
Photo: Jay Lieske, July 13, 2017. The grass is dry and mostly mashed down but not cleared between the construction fence and Fletcher on the Red Car Property. Protected native Black Walnuts are repopulating the slope. A number of trees died after five years of drought. (Click on photos to enlarge.)
Photo: Jay Lieske, July 13, 2017. The Red Car Property is between Riverside Drive and Fletcher and Adelbert Ave. Adelbert is a substandard Hillside Street with a number of hairpin turns to reach Lake View Ave. It has only one means of access. We don't know why Adelbert is not a Red Flag No Parking street.
Photo: Jay Lieske, July 13, 2017. The construction site appears to have done brush clearance on the portion of the Red Car Property behind their fence. It also looks like a few native trees are returning and recovering to the flat portion of the Red Car Property above the construction site. Neighbors have expressed concerns that the native saplings and recovering native trees should be preserved as the brush clearance contractors are not known for their care with young trees.
As with other parts of the Red Car Property, neighbors want to know why the property owner is allowed to get away with not doing brush clearance by May 1, every year? Click here for all our brush clearance posts.
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor, June 29, 2017. If you can barely see the tops of the viaduct footings on the Red Car Property, then the dry brush is about 3 - 4 feet tall. Still flowering at the top of the slope: white Native Dandelions. (Click on photo to enlarge.) Note: If you buy gas at the Arco Station at Riverside and Fletcher, ask them to please paint the graffiti out on their back wall.
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor, June 29, 2017. Heading towards Fletcher from the construction fence, you get a better idea of how much the grass has been mashed down. Some of the dead Eucalyptus still needs removal. (Click on photos to enlarge.)
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor, June 29, 2017. The native trees came back nicely.
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor, June 29, 2017. The native Blue Elderberry (on the far left) is beginning to fruit. It
looked dead this time last year. The native Black Walnut saplings never
went away. Native trees evolved with our drought/deluge/fire Southern California landscape.
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor, June 29, 2017. The protected native Back Walnut Trees above the historic landmark viaduct footings recovered well from 5 years of exceptional drought.
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor, June 23, 2017. Brush clearance has yet to happen on the Red Car Property slope above the Riverside Drive construction site. (The construction site took about 60' in width of the Red Car Property with their construction fence.) *Photo details at end of post.
*Photo details: A neighbor ran
into LAPD Senior Lead Officer (SLO) Luis Reyes (covering for
vacationing Silver Lake SLO Lenny Davis) and CD13 Deputy Hector Vega on
Lot C of the Red Car Property. They were investigating neighbors'
complaints of homeless camps near Rose Scharlin and near Fletcher. They notified the homeless person near Fletcher of the no trespassing order the property owner has on file with the LAPD for the Red Car Property. While offering services, they told him he could not stay on the property.
There is an ongoing coyote scat study, with the help of volunteers, they learn much about what Los Angeles coyotes are eating. In C-145's case, you don't need to find his poop to know he's a regular at Astro and probably taught his pups to eat there too. (I'd heard stories for years about the coyote in a collar who visits Astro, but last week was the first proof.)
Under the advice of Wildlife Officer Dinh, Vlahakis attempted to chase off C-145 and his buddy from the Astro
parking lot. C145's buddy took off across Fletcher. C-145 is so
unafraid of people that he went right back to the parking lot to wait
for breakfast early Sunday morning. Dinh recommends hazing coyotes: making your self large, waving your arms, throwing pine cones in the direction of coyotes to make them afraid of people again.
LA City Animal Services is hosting a series of Wildlife Workshops across the City. In addition to coyotes in our neighborhood we have bobcat, gray fox, raccoon, opossum, skunk, rats and snakes among a plethora of birds, raptors, owls, gophers and insects in the neighborhood.
Photo: Gary Vlahakis, June 11, 2017. The coyote appears to be wearing a tracking collar like one worn by P-22, the Griffith Park mountain lion. (Click on photo to enlarge.)
Sunday morning, a medium-sized coyote was
lying down in the middle of Astro Restaurant's parking lot when Red Car
Property neighbor, Gary Vlahakis pulled in. He'd seen the coyote wearing a collar in the parking lot before. This time, he was able to grab a great photo and some video. The coyote seems to be waiting for breakfast. Vlahakis spoke to workers in the restaurant, where he learned the coyote is a regular visitor. Vlahakis advised them not to feed the coyote as it is not only against the law, but it encourages the coyote to associate humans with food. Clearly this one has no fear of humans. At least the trash dumpster, a potential food source, is closed.
We forwarded the video and photo to the researcher conducting the Los Angeles urban coyote study with the National Park Service via one of their volunteers who is a Red Car Property neighbor.
Photo: Diane Edwardson, April 9, 2009. Tomcat Clover above the historic viaduct footings. Even though the non-native grass and flowers are tall, it's time to look for native wildflowers low to the ground, particularly at the base of the slope going up to Adelbert, among the viaduct footings and along the edges of the trail. Many of the native flowers bloom after the non-native, invasive grasses have gone to seed, so there is still time to start looking for the native plant communities.
Photo: Diane Edwardson, February 2, 2013. Miner's Lettuce (Claytonia) near the viaduct footings.
Red Tailed Hawks ride the updrafts of Fletcher at Riverside, often landing in the power line towers off the public staircase coming down from Waverly. Neighbors report hearing owls after dark. Rarely seen, but present in the neighborhood: Bobcats and Gray Foxes. In the early mornings you're likely to see coyotes on this part of the Red Car Property, even crossing Fletcher near the ARCO Station.
Photo: Diane Edwardson, October 8, 2016. Despite dire warnings of the very high fire danger of 5 years of exceptional drought, a fire on the south end of the property and annual notices from LAFD, the north end of the Red Car Property still has not been cleared of dry brush and dead and dying Eucalyptus between Fletcher and the construction fence. (Click on photos to enlarge.)
We don't know if the property owner was fined for the 2014 tree removal. These lots were a testament to the hardiness of California Black Walnuts, as many of the larger trees cut down in 2014 were growing back.
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor, August 15, 2016. According to CD13, the developer secured a permit from the City's Department of Urban Forestry to remove 1 protected native Black Walnut Tree. Dozens of Black Walnuts were cut down last Monday. In addition to the numerous protected native trees of all sizes, they also removed an unknown number of significant trees (with a trunk diameter of 8" or more). Those trees don't count.
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor, August 15, 2016. Monday, I received an alarmed email from a neighbor, saying a large crew was cutting down ALL of the trees on the Riverside Drive lots (between Gilroy and Fletcher) where, in 2014, more than 15 protected native trees were cut downwithout permits from the City. Trees were also being cut down from an adjacent Red Car Property lot as well as one or two lots not included in the unpermitted tree removal 2 years ago. (Click on photos to enlarge.) Photos from more than one neighbor, were posted to Twitter as soon we received them. Inquiries and photos were also sent to CD13. A CD13 representative responded that a permit was issued to remove one protected California Black Walnut Tree on one lot. Two years ago, we reported illegal tree removal as it was happening. In 2014, they chopped down the largest and healthiest Black Walnuts first. Like Monday, it was a large crew that moved quickly. At the time, there were no applications pending with Building & Safety. No permits for protected tree removal were applied for either.
Today, there appear to be 8 or 9 building permits for homes, in various stages of plancheck, submitted separately for each of the 8 or 9 substandard lots. A permit for removing 1 protected Black Walnut Tree was issued for just one of the lots. It is not the same lot for which grading permits were already issued. Expect a lot of grading activity as (according to the applications submitted) they will be cutting into the hillside and building retaining walls. No discretionary actions by City Planning were involved, so there was no public review.
Photo: Diane Edwardson, May 24, 2016. The Eucalyptus tree in the center of this photo is the large Eucalyptus still standing the first photo, as was the Black Walnut directly to the left of it.
Also worth noting: the dry Arundo on the top of the hill is also still standing on the Red Car Property Lot C. Neighbors are still awaiting brush clearance throughout the Red Car Property.
Photo: Stephanie Bartron, May 8, 2016. Bartron and her family walked to Mother's Day brunch using the trail on the Red Car Property. Regarding the large protected native Black Walnut Tree (dwarfing her daughter on the trail), Bartron said the tree is "healthy and full of walnuts!"
Photo: Red Car Property Neighbor, February 8, 2016. Out for an early morning run today, a neighbor couldn't believe someone bothered to drive all the way north from the India Street entrance to the Red Car Property to dump a stationary bicycle at the top of the historic landmark viaduct footings. If you see someone dumping, anywhere: take a photo and/or get a license plate and vehicle description and call the non-emergency 1-877-ASK-LAPD and report it immediately. Stay on hold to report it, as dumpers are often serial dumpers. There may be other witnesses in other parts of the neighborhood.
The City will not pick up illegal dumping on private property. You may as well put this bike to good use, as it will be there for a while. Click here for all our dumping posts.
Community Residents’ Association for Parks is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization formed in 1997 by our Silver Lake neighborhood. We are dedicated to acquisition and preservation of the Corralitas Red Car Property as a park in partnership with the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.
Contact: redcarproperty@gmail.com
