L.A. River Freeway

I have long believed that what keeps Los Angeles from universal recognition as a great city (like Paris, London, Vienna and Chicago, to name only a few) is our lack of a great river flowing through our urban center. Without such a river we don’t seem fully alive.

But now Assemblyman Katz proposes to turn even our pathetic concrete excuse for a river into a freeway. Well, why not?

His additional ideas for flanking the new freeway with greenbelts, trees, bikeways and pocket parks sound wonderful. The next order of business, however, must be to dig up the Harbor Freeway and turn it into that great river we’ve always deserved.

Let the city planners fill in all the transit lines and new roads to keep the traffic moving--no doubt the river itself will move people and goods more rapidly than the freeway ever did. And the postcards of the downtown skyscrapers reflected in the river will pay for the project in new tourism.

PAUL SARGENT CLARK

Hollywood