The herald., 1897-05-31
From Los Angeles to Santa
Monica
"A DOUBLE CARRIAGE DRIVE
FouRrEEN MILES OF SUBURBAN
HOMES
A Combination Of Electric Cars, Car
riages and Bicycles Between
the City and the Sea

A magnificent drive or boulevard from
Los Angeles to Santa Monica is one OF
the improvements that is surely slated
for the future When that Improvement
will be made no one is able juseat pres
ent to state.
The boulevard from Los Angeles to
Pasadena is an assured fact, and it will
rrove to be very profitable investment,
not only for the two cities most inter-
ested, but also for the section of country
through which the great drive will pass
Fine drives, easy of access to the peo-
pie of a great city. are not now classified
in the list of luxuries-they are necessi-
ties. The boulevard to Pasadena is
start in the right direction, but it is only
start.
When these great Improvements are
er:-improvements that are to
last for all time-they should be made is
complete and as perfect as human in
genuity, engineering skill and money
can make them. 1t will not pay to half
do the job and then get along to point
very soon where the work is not salts
factory anu yet IL udS ScilS ~ Aei eiAe'@
the evils complained of cannot be reme-
died
A good street is an improvement and
it makes the property thereon valuable.
very fine street is greater Improvement
for it makes the property abutting there
on more valuable.
When Euclid avenue was laid out at
Ontario the tier of twenty-acre lots
abutting thereon sold for $500 an acre
more readily than lots further back did
for $3.50 an acre There We're sixteen of
those twenty-acre lots abutting on each
mile of avenue on which there was
profit of $1,000 lot, or $4,000 mile.
Euclid avenue was laid out 200 feet wide
and seven miles long. Here was profit
on the land abutting on that avenue of
$4,000. This profit did not call for
very large expenditure in constructing
the avenue. A thousand dollars mile
would probaly grade the avenue and
set out the trees. The settlers did the
rest.
A double drive from the city limits Of
Los Angeles to the city limits of Santa
Monica, a distance of about twelve
miles, would be a great Improvement
and the advance in the price of the
abutting property and the increase in
the price of property adjacent to the
abutting property would be in propor-
ton to the money and work expended
in making that drive "a thing of beauty
and joy forever" In any event the
advance in the price of the property
would more than double the cost of the
right of way and the improvements.
The most feasible plan suggested for
this double drive boulevard is to secure
a strip of land say 200 feet in width.
along the line of the Pasadena and
Pacific electric railroad-the short line
now being built westward from Six
teenth street. A narrower drive could
be made, but we figure on this width be-
cause we have such a fine model to pat
tern after at Ontario. In this 200-f
strip the car line could occupy forty feet
in the center. On either side of this right
of way there should be planted a row of
shade trees. Next to these rows of shade
trees should be a bicycle road ten feet
in width, then another row of shade
trees. Next the carriage drive, sixty
feet wide, then the sidewalk ten feet
wide. Another row of shade trees should
separate the carriage drive from the
sidewalk.
The entire boulevard should be graded
to a level with the electric car line bed
The cuts would furnish material for the
fills, and fortunately there would be but
little Cf this heavy work to be done.
The drives for both carriages and bicy-
cles should be macadamized and should
be made first-class for the purposes for
which they are intended. The sidewalks
could be graveled until the character of
the Improvements along the line should
warrant more expensive material which
would be supplied by the abutting prop
erty owners in the future.
The drives should be sprinkled daily
sufficiently to keep them in good order
and keep down the dust. For this work
and other purposes water would be re-
quired. Much of the country through
which this boulevard would pass has
no water supply for either domestic or
irrigation purposes Midway between
the two cities however, is a large tract
of cienega country where an abundance
of water can be had to irrigate tract of
country half a mile or mile in width
extending the entire length of this pro-
posed boulevard. This water could be
pumped up by cheap electric power,
generated by the mountain streams, and
put where it is most reeded. 1t could be
conveyed in pipes under pressure both
east and west from the source Of
supply and furnished to the people
needing it for Improvements on the
lands adjacent to the boulevard.
The land today is comparatively
cheap, as it is mostly unimproved. hav-
ing been used for few years past for
barley and other farm crops. If this
land were furnished with water under
pressure for domestic and irrigation
purposes, with such drive and such
an electric car line running through it
and connecting it with such a city as
Los Angeles and such a seaside resort
as Santa Monica, this entire country
would become very valuable for subur-
ban homes, and all the property fronting
on the boulevard would sell by the front
foot rather than by the acre.
Along this great popular drive there.
would be found the finest residences and
the most beautiful homes in Southern
California. People living along this
drive would have all the advantages of
the city and none of the disadvantages
of the country. They would be in easy
reach of the city either by private con-
veyance or by the electric car line, with
a fifteen minute service. They would
have pure water under pressure for do
mestic use and for beautifying the home