N. Hollywood Pedestrian Tunnel Closed : Vandalism: Los Angeles city officials say Beck Avenue walkway was a haven for gangs, graffiti artists and vandals.

Los Angeles city officials Thursday closed another pedestrian tunnel in North Hollywood that residents said had long been a haven for gangs, graffiti artists and vandals.

The closure of the tunnel under the Ventura Freeway at Beck Avenue marks the third time in 18 months that the city has boarded up a pedestrian tunnel in North Hollywood.

Two tunnels under the Hollywood Freeway at North Hollywood Park were closed in June, 1988, because police said they had become hide-outs for drug dealers and prostitutes.

Moreover, city officials in recent years have closed more than 30 of Los Angeles’ 221 pedestrian tunnels, which were built as a way to cross busy streets and freeways.

“It’s really a shame, but the tunnels are just being used for the wrong purposes,” said Mary Presby, a field deputy for Councilman John Ferraro, who backed the closure of the Beck Avenue tunnel.

Seven tunnels remain open in North Hollywood, said Sam Matsumura, an engineer in the city’s Bureau of Engineering.

Workers early Thursday nailed plywood across the two entrances to the Beck Avenue tunnel, which was dark, smelly and covered with graffiti.

Presby said Ferraro will ask the City Council to approve spending about $53,000 to close the tunnel permanently by filling it with sand and concrete.

Earlier this fall, about 120 residents of the single-family neighborhood north of the Beck Avenue tunnel submitted a petition asking Ferraro to have the tunnel boarded up because of vandalism, which they attributed to students from nearby Walter Reed Junior High School.

In addition to painting graffiti on the tunnel’s walls, residents said, vandals had dumped trash cans, broken off car antennas and set brush fires.

“Even when I went to school at Reed more than 20 years ago, the tunnel had a reputation as a tough place,” said Larry LaFace, 40, the resident who collected the petition’s signatures. “Everybody is elated that it’s closed.”

Capt. Rick Dinse of the Los Angeles Police Department’s North Hollywood Division said authorities considered the tunnel a haven for student troublemakers and gang members.

He said he supports its closure because he could not devote the manpower necessary to adequately patrol it.

Robert Selsor, Reed assistant principal, said school officials back the closure because “whenever we’d have fights, that’s where they’d frequently occur.”