Nichols Canyon is a residential area in the
Hollywood Hills
The Hollywood Hills are a residential neighborhood in the central region of Los Angeles, California.
Geography
The Hollywood Hills straddle the Cahuenga Pass within the Santa Monica Mountains.
The neighborhood touches Studio City, Univer ...
in
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
, bounded by
Hollywood Boulevard
Hollywood Boulevard is a major east–west street in Los Angeles, California. It begins in the east at Sunset Boulevard in the Los Feliz district and proceeds to the west as a major thoroughfare through Little Armenia and Thai Town, Hollywoo ...
on the south and
Mulholland Drive
Mulholland Drive is a street and road in the eastern Santa Monica Mountains of Southern California. It is named after pioneering Los Angeles civil engineer William Mulholland. The western rural portion in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties is nam ...
on the north, lying between
Laurel Canyon
Laurel Canyon is a mountainous neighborhood in the Hollywood Hills region of the Santa Monica Mountains, within the Hollywood Hills West district of Los Angeles, California. The main thoroughfare of Laurel Canyon Boulevard connects the neighb ...
and
Runyon Canyon. It was also known as Miller Canyon.
History
Ownership
Nichols Canyon was named after
John Gregg Nichols Jr., reputed to be "the first child born of American parents in Los Angeles" (in 1851). Nichols' ranch in the canyon was referred to as a "goat pasture."
[Alice Koons, "They Were Her Pets," ''Los Angeles Times,'' images 91 and 92]
/ref>
Jacob Miller, a "pioneer avocado grower," and his wife, Dorothy, bought seventy acres of the property in 1879, and the area became known as Miller Canyon.[ Mrs. Miller said in 1926:
]Of course we had many hardships, not the least of which was having to drive through dust in summer and mud in winter to the hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...
of Los Angeles for our mail and supplies. There was nothing where Hollywood is now except a small ranch house. But we loved the hills and our beautiful canyon and were happy in our home and family."
Roadway
Nichols Canyon Road, leading north from Hollywood Boulevard
Hollywood Boulevard is a major east–west street in Los Angeles, California. It begins in the east at Sunset Boulevard in the Los Feliz district and proceeds to the west as a major thoroughfare through Little Armenia and Thai Town, Hollywoo ...
, was completed to Mulholland Highway
Mulholland Highway is a scenic road in Los Angeles County, California, that runs approximately 50 miles through the western Santa Monica Mountains from near US Route 101 (Ventura Freeway) in Calabasas to Highway 1 (Pacific Coast Highway) nea ...
via Courtney Street in 1925. In 1926 the Automobile Club of Southern California
The Automobile Club of Southern California is the Southern California affiliate of the American Automobile Association (AAA) federation of motor clubs. The Auto Club was founded on December 13, 1900, in Los Angeles as one of the nation's first mo ...
reported that Nichols Canyon was traversed by a "good dirt road."
In 1929, plans were made to widen the Nichols Canyon thoroughfare to serve "as a major gateway for traffic flowing between North Hollywood
North Hollywood is a neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, located in the San Fernando Valley. The neighborhood contains the NoHo Arts District, the El Portal Theatre, several art galleries, and the Academy of TV Arts and Sciences. The North ...
, Burbank, San Fernando Valley
The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, California. Located to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it contains a large portion of the City of Los Angeles, as well as unincorporated ar ...
cities, Pasadena
Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district.
Its ...
and West Hollywood
West Hollywood is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Incorporated in 1984, it is home to the Sunset Strip. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 U.S. Census, its population was 35,757. It is considered one of the most ...
." The idea was to widen the roadway, referred to as a northward "extension" of Genesee Street, to 46 feet, "with six inches of asphaltic concrete, through Hollywood Boulevard Estates to Mullholland High Way." Work would include " sewers, water
Water (chemical formula ) is an inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms (in which it acts as a ...
, gas
Gas is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being solid, liquid, and plasma).
A pure gas may be made up of individual atoms (e.g. a noble gas like neon), elemental molecules made from one type of atom (e.g. oxygen), or ...
, lights
Light is an electromagnetic radiation, part of which stimulates the sense of vision.
Light or Lights may also refer to:
Illumination
* Light bulb
* Traffic light
Arts and entertainment Music
* Lights (musician) (born 1987), Canadian singer-son ...
, storm drains and electroliers." Grading of the Nichols Canyon road had already been "completed and paid for by individual property owners, who have installed water connections the full length of the thoroughfare."["Major Gateway Assured," ''Los Angeles Times,'' December 22, 1929, image 54]
/ref>
A 1930 report also stated that the canyon road would be renamed Genesee and would be extended north "to the Hollywood Boulevard Estates property line on Mulholland High Way." It was to be "developed as the main west lane of traffic through the hills" and would be "comparable with Cahuenga Pass
The Cahuenga Pass (, ; Tongva: ''Kawé’nga'') is a low mountain pass through the eastern end of the Santa Monica Mountains in the Hollywood Hills district of the City of Los Angeles, California. It has an elevation of . The Cahuenga Pass connec ...
, the main east channel."[
]
Afforestation
The beginning
In 1914, the canyon had a "sparkling stream which the trail crosses about twenty times" and which "splashes over rocks fifty feet high," forming a pool below.
It was Dorothy Miller who was responsible for the exotic trees and shrubbery that eventually came to blanket Nichols Canyon. She planted and nurtured tropical seeds which an uncle gave her. They would not grow in the climate of his nursery in Downtown Los Angeles
Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) contains the central business district of Los Angeles. In addition, it contains a diverse residential area of some 85,000 people, and covers . A 2013 study found that the district is home to over 500,000 jobs. It is ...
"but grew wonderfully in the frostless foothill belt." The Millers used Chinese laborers.[Jane Frederickson, "First Hollywood Settlers Went There to Raise Vegetables," ''Los Angeles Times,'' March 14, 1926, image 34]
/ref>
The ''Los Angeles Times'' said, "It was due to the love of a woman for plants, in a day when it was not fashionable for ladies to garden, that most of the subtropical plantings in Nichols Canyon, or Miller Canyon, as it is sometimes called, were begun."[
]
The result
In 1997, James Sowell, the manager of environmental compliance for the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority
The Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority (sometimes referred to as LAMTA or MTA I) was a public agency formed in 1951. Originally tasked with planning for rapid transit in Los Angeles, California, the agency would come to operate the vestig ...
noted the natural beauty of the three-mile-long canyon: "It's spectacular," he said. "The water comes down from two different directions. If you've driven up Nichols Canyon, part of it looks like a rain forest
Rainforests are characterized by a closed and continuous tree canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforest can be classified as tropical rainforest or temperate rainforest ...
."[
Flora in the area by the end of the 20th century included ]Western sycamore
''Platanus racemosa'' is a species of plane tree known by several common names, including California sycamore, western sycamore, California plane tree, and in North American Spanish aliso. ''Platanus racemosa'' is native to California and Baja ...
, acacia
''Acacia'', commonly known as the wattles or acacias, is a large genus of shrubs and trees in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the pea family Fabaceae. Initially, it comprised a group of plant species native to Africa and Australasia. The genus na ...
, laurel sumac and California holly
''Ilex'' (), or holly, is a genus of over 570 species of flowering plants in the family Aquifoliaceae, and the only living genus in that family. ''Ilex'' has the most species of any woody dioecious angiosperm genus. The species are evergreen o ...
. "Lush canyon bottoms," said the ''Los Angeles Times,'' "made a carpet of verdure which became "oases for wildlife
Wildlife refers to domestication, undomesticated animal species (biology), species, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wilderness, wild in an area without being species, introduced by humans. Wildlife was also synonymous ...
."[
]
Fires
Brush fires
A wildfire, forest fire, bushfire, wildland fire or rural fire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identif ...
have struck the canyon over the years. One fire in 1904 was reported to have "utterly devastated" not only Nichols Canyon but also "Laurel Canyon
Laurel Canyon is a mountainous neighborhood in the Hollywood Hills region of the Santa Monica Mountains, within the Hollywood Hills West district of Los Angeles, California. The main thoroughfare of Laurel Canyon Boulevard connects the neighb ...
adjacent to it," "many square miles" being "denuded of timber and all vegetation." A fire was extinguished on an extension road in Astral Drive between Curson and Nichols Canyon in September 1956. Three years later, residents had to flee another blaze that whipped through Laurel land Nichols canyons and destroyed homes.["Laurel Canyon Fire Rages; Hundreds Flee for Lives," ''Los Angeles Times, July 11, 1959,'' image 2 (with map)]
/ref>
Fire believed started in a homeless encampment
A tent city is a temporary housing facility made using tents or other temporary structures.
State governments or military organizations set up tent cities to house evacuees, refugees, or soldiers. UNICEF's Supply Division supplies expandable te ...
, or by a homeless
Homelessness or houselessness – also known as a state of being unhoused or unsheltered – is the condition of lacking stable, safe, and adequate housing. People can be categorized as homeless if they are:
* living on the streets, also kn ...
man cooking dinner in the brush above Hollywood Boulevard
Hollywood Boulevard is a major east–west street in Los Angeles, California. It begins in the east at Sunset Boulevard in the Los Feliz district and proceeds to the west as a major thoroughfare through Little Armenia and Thai Town, Hollywoo ...
, threatened between forty and sixty homes in August 2005 but was quelled by firefighters.
Flood control
In 1913 the canyon was centered by a natural channel, or a wash, which crossed Sunset Boulevard
Sunset Boulevard is a boulevard in the central and western part of Los Angeles, California, that stretches from the Pacific Coast Highway in Pacific Palisades east to Figueroa Street in Downtown Los Angeles. It is a major thoroughfare in t ...
at the south. A storm on February 25 of that year washed out the crossing.
Homes in Nichols Canyon suffered major damage or were swept away when a rainstorm drenched Southern California
Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most po ...
on New Year's Day
New Year's Day is a festival observed in most of the world on 1 January, the first day of the year in the modern Gregorian calendar. 1 January is also New Year's Day on the Julian calendar, but this is not the same day as the Gregorian one. Wh ...
, 1931. The next August, the City Council allocated $46,000 for a large debris basin
Debris flows are geological phenomena in which water-laden masses of soil and fragmented rock rush down mountainsides, funnel into stream channels, entrain objects in their paths, and form thick, muddy deposits on valley floors. They generally ...
at the foot of the canyon, which residents had sought for years.
In 1981 Nichols Canyon, as well as Laurel Canyon
Laurel Canyon is a mountainous neighborhood in the Hollywood Hills region of the Santa Monica Mountains, within the Hollywood Hills West district of Los Angeles, California. The main thoroughfare of Laurel Canyon Boulevard connects the neighb ...
, Mandeville Canyon
Mandeville Canyon is a small, affluent community in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. Its center is Mandeville Canyon Road, which begins at Sunset Boulevard and extends north towards Mulholland Drive, though it stops short of Mulholland ...
and Bandini Canyon, was threatened by the possibility of heavy rain damage when it was revealed that the city lacked funds to continue with flood control
Flood control methods are used to reduce or prevent the detrimental effects of flood waters."Flood Control", MSN Encarta, 2008 (see below: Further reading). Flood relief methods are used to reduce the effects of flood waters or high water level ...
projects.[Josh Getlin, "Threats to Canyons: If It's Not Floods, It's Condo Development," ''Los Angeles Times,'' January 15, 1981, images 256 and 261]
/ref> The ''Los Angeles Times'' reported:
Ironically, funds were once available to correct the major flood-control problem in Nichols Canyon. But the repeated opposition of canyon residents to construction of a storm-drain system serving the length of Nichols Canyon Road caused the city to divert funds elsewhere.[Josh Getlin, "Canyons: 'Critical Danger' Feared in Storms," ''Los Angeles Times,'' January 15, 1981, image 261]
/ref>
Satanite
In 1908, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors (LACBOS) is the five-member governing body of Los Angeles County, California, United States.
History
On April 1, 1850 the citizens of Los Angeles elected a three-man Court of Sessions as their first ...
approved the establishment of a factory in the canyon to manufacture an explosive called Satanite, even after "Hollywood
Hollywood usually refers to:
* Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California
* Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States
Hollywood may also refer to:
Places United States
* Hollywood District (disambiguation)
* Hollywood, ...
citizens and representatives of civic bodies" had protested. The approval followed demonstrations of the safety of the new product by company officials while a crowd of a hundred watched.
Quarries
Complaints were raised in 1912 about dust from the quarries
A quarry is a type of open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some jurisdictions to reduce their environ ...
in Nichols Canyon. The City Council ordered the road closed, but "this was not satisfactory." The quarry owners agreed to "furnish free of cost and spread upon the street the necessary gravel
Gravel is a loose aggregation of rock fragments. Gravel occurs naturally throughout the world as a result of sedimentary and erosive geologic processes; it is also produced in large quantities commercially as crushed stone.
Gravel is classifi ...
and crushed rock, and the city will oil the street."
Subway water diversion
In 1997, Nichols Canyon residents reached a settlement with the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority
The Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority (sometimes referred to as LAMTA or MTA I) was a public agency formed in 1951. Originally tasked with planning for rapid transit in Los Angeles, California, the agency would come to operate the vestig ...
because, the residents said, the construction of a subway through Hollywood was drying up the foliage in the canyon and surrounding areas. Pumping of water flooding the tunnel beneath the Santa Monica Mountains
The Santa Monica Mountains is a coastal mountain range in Southern California, next to the Pacific Ocean. It is part of the Transverse Ranges. Because of its proximity to densely populated regions, it is one of the most visited natural areas in ...
was draining the entire Hollywood basin of up to a third of its annual capacity.[Frank Clifford and Richard Simon, "Tunneling Is Drying Up L.A. Canyons, Experts Caution," ''Los Angeles Times,'' August 10, 1997, image 170 (with illustrations)]
/ref> Resident John Chickering said: "It was unbelievable. I looked out of my window one morning, and the falls were no more. The water had stopped. It was like a curse."[
]
Police activity
In 1924, policemen from the Hollywood Station "rigged up a range in Nichols Canyon . . . where they can shoot against a wall of earth with perfect safety to others."
A score of police officers "beat the brush of isolated Nichols Canyon Road" on August 17, 1951, in an unsuccessful effort to find two .38-caliber revolvers that were used in the gangland killing of Tony Trambino and Tony Brancato just eleven days before. They searched "Beside the winding roadway here
Here is an adverb that means "in, on, or at this place". It may also refer to:
Software
* Here Technologies, a mapping company
* Here WeGo (formerly Here Maps), a mobile app and map website by Here
Television
* Here TV (formerly "here!"), a TV ...
runs a densely overgrown culvert
A culvert is a structure that channels water past an obstacle or to a subterranean waterway. Typically embedded so as to be surrounded by soil, a culvert may be made from a pipe, reinforced concrete or other material. In the United Kingdom ...
which at places deepens to a 30-foot ditch and elsewhere widens into the enormous unused Nichols Canyon Reservoir."
Boy Scout camp
A Boy Scout camp was operating in the canyon as early as 1918, the year that Arthur Letts
Arthur Letts Sr. (June 17, 1862 – May 18, 1923) was an immigrant from England who made his fortune in Los Angeles, California, in the early years of the 20th century. He built his wealth by transforming a small, bankrupt dry goods store in Downto ...
bought property for a permanent camp at a cost of $6,000.
Notable residents
* Charles Coburn
Charles Douville Coburn (June 19, 1877 – August 30, 1961) was an American actor and theatrical producer. He was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award three times – in ''The Devil and Miss Jones'' (1941), ''The More the Me ...
, actor[
* Susan Cummings, actor][
* ]Kaz Kuzui
is a Japanese film producer. His wife, Fran Rubel Kuzui, has also directed movies.
Along with his wife, Kaz founded Kuzui Enterprises, which distributes US films in Japan and imports Japanese films for the US market. In addition to holding a po ...
, film producer
* Stephen Merchant
Stephen James Merchant (born 24 November 1974) is an English comedian, actor, director, presenter and writer.
Alongside Ricky Gervais, Merchant was the co-writer and co-director of the British TV comedy series ''The Office'' (2001–2003), and ...
, actorStephen Merchant snags L.A. home
variety.com; accessed 8 March 2015.
* Mircea Monroe
Mircea Monroe (born March 11, 1982) is an American model and actress, known for her roles on the TV series ''Episodes'' as Morning Randolph (2011–2017), ''Hart of Dixie'' as Tansy Truitt (2011–2015), ''Impastor'' as Alexa Cummings (2015–201 ...
, actor and model
* Luciana Paluzzi
Luciana Paluzzi (born 10 June 1937) is an Italian actress. She is perhaps best known for playing SPECTRE assassin Fiona Volpe in the fourth James Bond film, '' Thunderball'', but she had important roles in notable films of the 1960s and 1970s in ...
, actor[
]
External links
Hockney Painting
References
{{Greater Hollywood
Neighborhoods in Los Angeles
Hollywood Hills
Populated places in the Santa Monica Mountains