Urban planning that's more than child's play

Inspiration was flowing like the Verdugo Wash after a five-day rainstorm for Alex Dann.

"Where's the zoo?" he asked, sizing up the table-size tableau in front of him. "Over there? Cool."

The 7-year-old Tarzana boy was at a downtown Los Angeles art gallery Saturday, poring over an exhibit called "Five Models Afloat." A moment later, he was participating in it.

He carefully studied the 4-foot foam-board square, which was divided into thirds by a bright blue plastic slash that depicted the Los Angeles River where it is joined by the Verdugo Wash at the Glendale-Los Angeles border.

One part of the square was covered by a miniature "mountain" molded out of window screen material to represent the Hollywood Hills. The other two, depicting flatland areas, were grids marked with a series of green swatches.

Dotting the areas around the swatches were tiny movable structures formed from small blocks of wood, Lego pieces, parts of toys and objects such as toothpaste caps.

Alex moved a wood-block figurine resembling a high-rise apartment house away from the edge of the river. He was asked if he had ever seen the real Los Angeles River and what it was like.

"Yeah, I've seen it. It's a sewer," he replied as his mother, Holly Dann, blanched.

"Well, it \o7is\f7," Alex said, standing his ground.

The pair, along with father David Dann and 11-year-old sister Abby, had stopped at the gallery while shopping downtown.

The three-dimensional scene Alex was working on is a representation of one of five points along a 32-mile stretch of river for which officials have launched long-range plans to beautify the waterway and make it appear more natural.

Los Angeles officials, consultants and the Army Corps of Engineers spent two years conducting formal public workshops seeking ideas for the rehabilitation of what is now a mostly concrete-lined flood channel. Last month, they issued a draft report suggesting that a $2-billion makeover over the next 50 years could replace industrial land along the banks with park space. The steep concrete walls could be landscaped and rebuilt with step-like channelization.

There are professionally drawn maps and computergenerated renderings of what the future river could resemble. But it took transportation planner James Rojas to give it a threedimensional look.