Mean Streets--Life on an Angle

They’re the steepest roads in L.A., and along with the slopes comes everything from runaway cars to crazy kids on skateboards. But there’s country-style living and mountain views, and residents say they wouldn’t have it any other way.

For those who hang their hats in homes on 28th, Academy, Eldred, Fargo, Ewing or Baxter streets, life is a series of ups and downs.

These are Los Angeles’ steepest streets. And the Angelenos whose nests are precariously perched on what at first glance appear to be ersatz ski runs wouldn’t have it any other way.

Runaway cars, panicked drivers, out-of-control trucks, grousing mail carriers, fit bicycle racers, crazy kids on skateboards--it’s all part of life on an angle. But so are dramatic city and mountain views, country-style living amid urban sprawl and even an occasional visit from a golden eagle.

Of course, not everyone appreciates the thrill of trudging halfway to the stars.

Neil McClaflin, who lives on Los Angeles’ steepest full-length road, Eldred Street, recalled that a substitute mail carrier apparently took one look up the incline to Mt. Washington and threw in the towel. McClaflin knows because he stopped getting mail one day.

No Mail, Post Office Claimed

“The post office said we didn’t get any mail,” McClaflin said. But he claims he found out otherwise.

According to the city’s Bureau of Engineering, these are the steepest streets in the city:

- 28th Street, for just a few yards between Gaffey Street and Peck Avenue in the San Pedro community, which climbs at a 33.3% grade.

- Eldred Street, at the foot of Mt. Washington between Avenue 48 and Cross Avenue, 33%.

- Scott Place, a short, narrow alley-like street in the Silver Lake district between Silver Lake Boulevard and Westerly Terrace, 32.6%, primarily steep for a few yards at the top.

- Academy Street, in the El Sereno neighborhood, which climbs from a winding Hillsdale Drive that hooks around to the top of Academy, 32%.

- Fargo, Ewing and Baxter streets, between Allesandro and Alvarado streets, astride the Echo Park and Silver Lake neighborhoods, 32%.

Indeed, Los Angeles gives San Francisco, internationally renowned for its hills, a good run for its money.

San Francisco’s steepest road, Vallejo Street, between Taylor and Mason streets on Russian Hill, has a 39.1% grade, according to Ken Hui, an assistant city engineer. After that, however, Hui said, the next steepest street is “only” 31.5% in the city’s Outer Mission area.

28.6% Grade in San Diego

Closer to home, Laguna Beach has a number of “transmission-testers” in the hills adjacent to its business district. In this area is 3rd Street, between Mermaid Street and Park Avenue, which has a 30% grade.

Farther south, San Diego has a number of steep hills. But its toughest slope is merely 28.6%--Poe Street, running upward from Evergreen Street toward a dead end on Point Loma.

Los Angeles’ cliff dwellers take a sort of perverse pride in life on the hills.

“I’ve been on this street since 1948,” said Bo Allen, 82, a retired city Fire Department captain, standing in front of his black and white, two-story redwood house that was built in 1902 before 28th Street was paved. “Once a car lost its brakes and ran right into my ivy.”

Irving Wright, 76, his neighbor across the street and a retired stevedore foreman, recalled the tale of a waitress who, he said, had done a little imbibing one evening long ago and then got a cabbie to haul her home--to the hilly edge of 28th Street, of course.

But, unfortunately, she wasn’t ready to call it a night and asked the driver to run into her house and fetch something before taking her elsewhere. Well, Wright said, the taxi driver dutifully set the hand brake, left the waitress in his cab and dashed into her house.

“But the brakes let go,” Wright said, and the cab, with the waitress, went flying past Peck and came to rest at the bottom of what is now a steep dirt path extension of 28th Street. “She didn’t get hurt,” Wright said, while gazing out toward a spectacular view of Los Angeles Harbor to the east.

‘Roller Coaster’

Regina Evans, a nurse who has lived next door to Wright for 11 years, said the end of 28th Street is a veritable “roller coaster.” She pointed to a smashed-in portion of a city-maintained steel fence along the curb in front of her house to make her point.

“They get right here and scream,” she said.

Still, 28th Street’s steepness covers a relatively short distance. Actually, Eldred Street at the foot of Mt. Washington about five miles from downtown, wins the mythical steepness trophy for a full-length street. The cracked pavement runs about the length of two city blocks.

In fact, street engineers appear to have thrown in the towel on Eldred, a turn-of-the-century road named after former property owner Delos W. Eldred, and decided to top the street off with steps rather than pavement.

Starting at an elevation of 503 feet above sea level at Avenue 48, Eldred rises sharply until it becomes a flight of wooden steps--190 to be exact (including one that’s missing)--up to Cross Street. At the top, the elevation, according to a city survey, is 722 feet.

Oscar Chavez, 58, who has lived near the foot of Eldred for 27 years, pointed to a bent palm tree in his front yard, the product of a head-on crash when a woman driving a pickup truck downhill lost control. Fortunately, the woman survived in good shape, he recalled.

John Becker, 70, a playwright, lives on the high end of Eldred, just under the wooden steps. From his cozy red frame bungalow, surrounded by azaleas, an assortment of orange and lemon trees, Toyon shrubs with bright red berries and an imposing yucca plant, one can see the peaks of Mt. Baldy and Mt. Wilson to the east.

“The only time I walked up here (from the bottom) was when my car was out of commission last spring,” the bearded Becker said while Sherman, his mutt, barked approvingly in the background.

Visits by Golden Eagle

How high is high? Well, with some regularity, Becker said, a golden eagle, possibly from a sanctuary on the other side of Mt. Baldy, flies over and curls its talons around the top of a telephone pole extension in front of his house.

“The eagle comes around once a month and hangs around for two days,” he said.

Those who provide the basic services for the city’s hill people--mail carriers, truck drivers and the like--don’t always appreciate the natural amenities of living close to nature.

Witness these tales, possibly apocryphal, of Eldred Street:

A truck loaded with heavy drinking water bottles overturned near the top of the hill, sending an avalanche of potentially lethal missiles crashing down the incline.

Garbage trucks invariably back up the street for fear of tipping over at the top where turnaround room is tight.

One woman last month drove to the top of Eldred, where the stairs begin, and panicked. She called a motor club to tow her to the bottom. But the motor club refused, and a local resident had to maneuver her car back down the street.

Even Eldred Street veteran McClaflin, 48, who lives in a 60-year-old house near the top, grudgingly admitted he sometimes has a difficult time arriving at his perch in the sky. During a recent storm, he said, it took two attempts to drive up the street’s slick pavement before reaching his driveway.

Not far across the city on Fargo Street, a bespectacled Larry Pogoler stood on the steps of his small frame home high atop the hill where he has lived for 23 years, and said that Fargo has long been perceived by many as the steepest street in the city.

“Whether it’s true or not, we have the reputation,” he said, gazing westward where, even on a recent overcast day, a visitor could clearly see the Griffith Park Observatory and the Hollywood Hills.

Pogoler, 30, said “anyone with any sense” drives down to his house rather than negotiating uphill from Allesandro Street.

But, he said, daredevils love to test their cars on the hill. “It sounds like people kicking cargo boxes” up the hill, he said of autos grunting up the incline.

Kids also love to try out their skateboards on the street, Pogoler said, but it is rare that even veteran skateboarders can remain upright all the way down.

And once a year, he added, there is a bicycle race up the 32% grade, and some cyclists even make it to the top before they collapse.

Bob Deveyre, a real estate salesman whose territory covers some of the city’s most tortuous streets, said, “It takes a specific type of customer” to buy a house on such hills. “Some people like the fantastic views,” he said, but others take one look up and just shake their heads.

Alas, streets as steep as Fargo aren’t being built anymore.

For the last 25 years, said Larry Burks, a city engineer, “the maximum guideline has been about 15%” because of vehicle and drainage problems.

So if someone proposed the laying of a modern-day Eldred Street, he said, the answer would be a firm “no.”