The River in a Concrete Straightjacket

The LA river is many things: an example of bad urban planning, an outsize concrete sewer 51 miles long, a movie set (Terminator 2) and a surface for graffiti and murals. Although efforts are being made to revive it, "it's a miserable spot now, a trash-strewn wasteland of empty lots, steel fences and railroad tracks beneath a tangle of freeway overpasses."  Most inhabitants of LA don't realize that it exists.