04/10/2026
River Revitalization to Replace Retired Railyard
by Alexandra Applegate
After devastating floods in the 1930s, the LA River was wrapped in concrete, which essentially turned it into a 51-mile storm drain. This stopped the flooding, but it also severed ecosystems and cut Angelenos off from the waterway that flows through the city.
For decades, myriad public agencies, environmental groups, and nonprofits have slowly been renaturalizing the river and creating new life in the corridors around it. Now that process is taking another step forward with a plan to transform 100 acres of land next to the LA River into a massive public park. I recently got a chance to see it starting to take shape.
“What's happening on the river right now is a once-in-a-generation transformation of industrial land into public green space,” says Candice Dickens-Russell, CEO of the Friends of the LA River. “And that's worth getting excited about.”
It all starts with the Bowtie Wetland Demonstration site.
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The Bowtie Wetland Demonstration site is currently covered in seedlings under protective cages.
Photos by Alexandra Applegate/KCRW
In an industrial area of Glassell Park, crews are turning an old rail yard into both a wetland and a park. It’s about two-thirds complete and will likely open sometime next year.
The Bowtie is only three acres. But it's billed as a test case to show what’s possible along the LA River and lead the way in turning the river’s concrete straitjacket a little greener.
“For decades, people only saw the LA River as concrete or as infrastructure,” says Dickens-Russell. "We're finally seeing it as a landscape again, a place where ecology, community, culture can all kind of come together.”
“The vision is to see projects like this all across the region,” says Kelsey Jessup, project director at the Nature Conservancy. “That would be a game changer.”
The Bowtie is resurrecting the land’s ecosystem before it was paved over and developed. The site exemplifies a new model of urban restoration by wrapping environmental benefits, water treatment, and climate resilience into one park.
“Reducing temperatures, improving water quality, improving air quality, and providing access for people to the LA River and to nature,” Jessup says, “and also creating really important habitat for native and migratory species.”
KelseyJessupThe Nature Conservancy’s Kelsey Jessup in front of the Bowtie Wetland Demonstration site.
So how will the wetland do all that?
The project’s main goal is to clean water from a nearby storm drain before it flushes out into the LA River.
First, the water will be diverted into an underground filtration system where screens will filter out larger trash. Then it will be pumped above ground into a winding wetland channel, which will oxygenate and further clean the water.
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Meanwhile, 9,000 native plants, including scrub oak trees, coastal sagebrush, and scarlet monkey flowers, will also cleanse the water with their roots.
Genevieve Arnold, seed and conservation program manager at the Theodore Payne Foundation and SEED LA, helped select, source, and plant all the seedlings in the Bowtie, and calls the native plants “majestic powerhouses.”
“They provide canopy cover, once mature. They provide cover for birds and animals to live out their life cycles,” she says. “They reduce heat islands. They sequester carbon and clean the air with their root systems.”
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A rendering shows the Bowtie Wetland Demonstration once it’s completed. Courtesy of the Nature Conservancy.
When the self-sustaining wetland is up and running, it’s expected to clean enough water to fill 53 Olympic-sized swimming pools. And data collected from the site will help inform the Los Angeles River Ecosystem Restoration project. The City of LA and its partners are looking to create more wetlands along an 11-mile stretch of the LA River between downtown and Griffith Park.
The Bowtie will also be the first project to open as part of the planned 100-acre park in Taylor Yard. It’s still in the review stage, but the idea is to create walking trails, green space, and another wetland around a kayak launch, a museum, and an outdoor music venue.
Dickens-Russell says greening up the river corridor will offer an invaluable asset to Angelenos that’s long gone unused and unappreciated: “Helping Los Angeles rediscover and reclaim that connection to nature is exactly the role that the LA River can, and should, and will begin to play.”
