Eagle Rock Monument gets Makeover

The gigantic granite rock that the Spanish called "Piedra Gorda" ("Fat Rock") and which gives Eagle Rock its name is surrounded by one of the most industrialized yet open spaces in Los Angeles.

On Thursday, the area immediately around the Eagle Rock got a major facelift: If you drive by there, on 5400 West Eagle Rock View Dr., you will see 21 “brand-new” plants, as one L.A. bureaucrat characterized them, framed by a “broad, new” sign with the words “Eagle Rock Historical Landmark” carved on it.

The project, on 2.2 acres of mostly neglected land, was initially scheduled to be completed in 2014. “We thought that with the centennial year in 2011, we should begin work in 2011 to mark that occasion and get this done sooner rather than later,” remarked , who presided over a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the landmark.

Over the past two years, Huizar and his staff have been part of the so-called Eagle Rock Monument Improvement Project, an effort by various voluntary groups and City departments that included the Bureau of Engineering and the Department of Recreation and Parks.

"Collaborative efforts like this to preserve open space are what makes Eagle Rock unique," said Huizar in his keynote speech.

The improvement project began in September 2011, funded by Prop. K money, and the result is a new-look Eagle Rock—or at least the base of it, along Eagle Rock View Drive.

New features include native drought-resistant landscaping—irrigated by a “smart” sprinkler that measures moisture in the area before coming on—and an “organic” decomposed granite walkway bordered by a split rail fence. The ground, with a natural-grade drainage swale, is interspersed with boulders that both add an aesthetic touch and help divert storm run-off.

In a stimulating speech, Eagle Rock Valley Historical Society President Eric Warren reflected on the 1876 travels to Eagle Rock by an Austrian archduke, Louis Ludwig Salvator, who was related to Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire whose 1914 murder sparked the First World War.

Warren also noted that the City of Los Angeles purchased the front of the Eagle Rock in 1995 for $683,000—and how a man named A. R. Campbell-Johnston, who owned a vast tract of land stretching west of the Arroyo Seco to present-day Loleta Avenue (then called Peyton Avenue), once offered the entire rock to the City for a measly $500.

"The City wouldn't take it," said Warren, adding: "It was a big piece of dirt."