Los Angeles Survey Control

[mpallamary]

Howdy folks,

I am preparing a White Paper comparing the differences between municipal survey control in San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles. As best I can tell, the cadastral network in Los Angeles was delayed and sometimes nonexistent because of racism and bigotry. I have been reading a number of books on this issue including a fascinating book captioned "Before L.A., Race, Space, and Municipal Power in Los Angeles, 1781-1894." For a number of reasons, the Mexican and Chinese neighborhoods were neglected as the paving of streets and installation of sewer systems was delayed if not entirely neglected in these neighborhoods. As LA surveyors know, primary survey control monuments are located within manhole shafts using the subsurface cup hooks.

The purpose of this inquiry is to ask if those that survey in Los Angeles have encountered the lack of survey control within these older neighborhoods. Are they more difficult; are there more disputes; are they more difficult to survey.

According to the author, David Samuel Torres-Rouff;

. . . the Common Council’s commitment to sewers-lauded as a universal public benefit- excluded the thickly settled Mexican American and Chinese residential districts. Most Mexican Americans Angelos lived in a neighborhood that spread east from Main Street to the Los Angeles River and north from Aliso Street to Main Street. Chinatown sat just south of Sonoratown and clustered around Los Angeles, Commercial, and Alameda Streets. Comparing the city engineer’s 1891 sewer map to residential patterns reveals no sewers crisscrossed these enclaves. Two sewers grazed Sonoratown’s southern boundary, and one ran along Chinatown’s southern edge. Annual reports from various entities inside the city give no reason to suspect this disparity found a quick resolution after 1891.

No direct evidence explains the causes of this infrastructural asymmetry. Most sewer work resulted from petitions filed by property owners requesting the new service, suggesting that landowner initiative played a decisive role in the sere network’ specific growth. . .

While using public funds to build sewers where Mexican and Chinese citizens lived might not have been the smartest political decision for elected officials, ignoring their own committees and endangering the city’s general public health seems essentially unwise. The city’s unwillingness to sewer these neighborhoods contrasted sharply with its active program to provide sewers to others. Given the operations at its disposal, it is difficult to find a reason other than discrimination to explain why the city simply refused to build sewers in the Mexican and Chinese residential districts.

. . . By 1871, however, calls to open more streets, to widen and smooth those already operating, and to improve general cleanliness and lightning became too loud to ignore . . .As with the sewer system, however few streets in Mexican and Chinese Angelenos’ neighborhoods benefited from paving and improvements.

. . . In sharp contrast to the city’s Mexican and Chinese districts, the rest of Los Angeles benefited from rapidly increasing cleanliness as a result of sewers, paved streets, and a building boom. . . The predominantly white districts, especially those west and south of the old Plaza, witnessed the rise of new buildings served by sewers and located on paved streets.

Any thoughts or comments on this topic would be appreciated.

[DWoolley]

Howdy folks,

I am preparing a White Paper comparing the differences between municipal survey control in San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles.

...

Any thoughts or comments on this topic would be appreciated.

Why does it have to be a "White" Paper? That doesn't seem appropriately woke.

DWoolley

[mpallamary]

Forgive me for being asleep.

Any other suggestions?

:)

[Edward M Reading]

How about a Rainbow Paper?

[btaylor]

"A paper which reflects all colors"

"reflecting paper"

[mpallamary]

You guys are killing me. You ought to read the book. it is amazing.

[mpallamary]

I trust you had a pleasant holiday. I have completed my first draft of my white paper on the history and use of the cup hooks, set inside the manholes of Los Angeles. In addition to discussing the use of the hooks, I have included a history of the sewer system and I have contrasted the LA method with the procedures to use in San Diego and San Francisco.

I am seeking a peer review of my paper to make sure I covered everything and to make sure it passes muster with others. If you are interested, I will include your name on the paper. It is a little known subject as you know. If interested, email me at:

mpallamary@pallamaryandassociates.com


Many thanks!

[LS_8750]

Your investigation need go no further than this scene from Blazing Saddles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boO4RowROiw

So where is the Irish part of town again?

The sewer systems followed the money, just like the water systems. It would be a fun exercise I suppose to trace back these ancient parts of town and learn how the infrastructure developed, but I would not expect any surprises. Watch the pre-war land owners lose their lands in the courts while the speculators came in and subdivided it into towns, etc.

I spent two years in the UK working. The old buildings rose higher and the affluent lived up on the higher floors to escape the smell of the open sewers in the streets. Yes, they through the bath water and whatever else out the windows down the the streets below. Before sewers.

[mpallamary]

You are right on!!!!

[LS_8750]

Mr. Pallamary,
Thought this was interesting and sort of in line with some of the discussion above. Have you been involved in this Bruce's Beach matter?

https://spectrumnews1.com/ca/la-west/lo ... d-transfer

[LS_8750]

My family is from Hermosa, never heard of this story.........

https://www.californiabeaches.com/bruce ... k-history/

[mpallamary]

Yes, I have been following this one. Fascinating!

[CBarrett]

What affected survey control along Huntington Drive, aside from the Pacific Electric Railway?
I need to pick up that book.

I just picked up "Los Angeles in civil war days" by John W. Robinson.
It's 4 hours audiobook, so I can go through it right away. Covers 1860-1865. We'll see what it says.

[mpallamary]

Good luck.