Echo Lake

Motorists on the 2 Freeway for the last couple of months have noticed a shadowy figure or two gazing into the distance from the hills above. Cardboard cutouts of Clint Eastwood, John Wayne and Gene Autry, bearing labels that read "Glendale Public Art Project 2012," have been a mystery — something their creator says is intentional. Justin Stadel, the Glassell Park resident and artist behind the cowboy cutouts, said he created the works so viewers could draw a spiritual feeling, a sense of freedom, from L.A.'s varied landscape.

One thousand pounds of live trout are scheduled to be dumped into the Echo Park lake for the third annual Becky Thatcher / Tom Sawyer Fishing Derby and Easter Egg Contest this weekend. The event, sponsored by Concerned Citizens of Echo Park, Friends of Echo Park Lake, the Los Angeles Police Department's Rampart Division and local merchants, is scheduled for Saturday at Echo Park and is free and open to the public.

After its two-year, $45-million makeover, Echo Park Lake will soon shed the green tarp-covered fence that lines its circumference, revealing to the public a similar-but-spruced-up version of the neighborhood's landmark. "Welcome to 29 acres of paradise," L.A. City Engineer Gary Moore said at a news conference Friday, where officials announced the lake would reopen June 15. Before it was refilled and restocked with plants, the lake was completely drained and cleaned. During the cleanup, Moore said, workers found two guns, one toilet, 20 Frisbees and a pay telephone.

MY NEW angling pals at Echo Park Lake had never seen a trout fly until I pulled a box from my fishing vest and opened it. My ties look good, and they seduce wily native trout. The boys peer in, "Are they real flies?" We're at the old boathouse this summer day as I share my 45 years of experience on this small lake. I give Eduardo Balldovenos, 13, and Kevin Ramirez, 12, each a woolly bugger, a deadly subsurface pattern, and tie the flies with a simple clinch knot.

A search for a missing little girl last year in the murky waters of Echo Park Lake may pay off in unintended dividends with cleaner water for the popular spot. The lake cleanup is part of an ambitious $1-million plan that will also target Machado, MacArthur Park, Debs and Reseda Park lakes. Officials said that plans were in place last summer but were accelerated, in part, by Jessica Cortez's disappearance Aug. 4 at Echo Park, just west of downtown Los Angeles.

In less self-conscious times, Los Angeles was the epicenter of American exoticism. And if the spirit of uninhibited fantasy that gave rise to apartments that resemble Moorish villas, shaped restaurants like hats and combined crocodile farms with beer gardens has a surviving visual symbol, it is the water lotuses of Echo Park.

The small tank truck with its strange cargo rumbled through downtown Los Angeles late last Friday night, arriving at Echo Park Lake shortly before midnight. There it discharged 900 pounds of catfish into the historic pond, which has become the crown jewel of the California Department of Fish and Game's urban fishing program. The next day was the second of California's two annual free fishing days, when no license is required.

A wealth of wildlife was stirring in Echo Park on this first evening of spring. The squawking of geese and gulls drifted across the lake, mingling with children's calls from the little playground. Palms barely swayed in the cool air. But in the lake's famous lotus beds, only dry orange-brown stalks protruded from the murky water, most bent over like weary elders.

It's not the Lotus Festival that's gone missing this weekend. The dragon boats are still speeding across Echo Park Lake, the drums are beating and the scent of chicken satay and papaya salad wafts through the crowds. It's the lotuses that are gone, dead after gracing the lake with their broad leaves and delicate flowers for decades. Visitors stood solemnly Saturday, alone and in small groups, gazing at the empty water as if paying their respects at a gravesite.

Randy McDonald darted his eyes between the lotus bed and a pack of police officers, wondering if he could get away with it. He figured it was worth a try and walked from Echo Park Lake back to his car. After opening the glove compartment, he pulled out a hacksaw blade and stuck it into his back pocket. He tugged his T-shirt to cover it and returned to the lake. He worked his way through the thick crowd of revelers gathered for the 28th annual Lotus Festival and then crouched down at the water's edge.