L.A. RIVER PLAYS TO CROWD VISITOR CENTER HAS GRAND OPENING.

Byline: Steve Carney Staff Writer

The raccoon, the duck and even the gurgling stream winding through the reeds are all fake, but restoration advocates hope they offer a glimpse of what the Los Angeles River once was - and could be again.

The 32-foot long diorama is part of the Los Angeles River Visitor Center, a gallery and educational facility that had its grand opening Saturday. About 500 people came to tour the gardens and Spanish-style buildings in Atwater Village, former home of Lawry's California Center.

The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy bought the 6.8-acre property in 1998 for $7 million. The facility now offers photos, poems and displays on the river's history, its importance to the very founding of the city, and its current state.

``I hope it opens peoples' eyes,'' said Mark Vincent, a construction supervisor with the conservancy. The Los Angeles River is ``not just a concrete thruway throughout the city.''

Though the 51-mile river was paved 60 years ago to create a flood-control channel, conservancy members and others want to highlight and expand the 11 miles that remain somewhat natural. They want to expose the public to those stretches that still have muddy, unpaved bottoms and support reeds and rushes, willows and sycamores, and animal life ranging from herons to coyotes.

``I thought it was just trash and graffiti,'' said Edward Gamino, who visited the center Saturday with his twin brother, Robert, and their friend, Andrew Amy, all 13-year-olds from nearby Arroyo Seco Alternative School.

``I thought people would just tag all over it,'' Amy said. ``I didn't think the river had animals and snakes and stuff.''

The three were visiting with Amy's mother, Valerie Shaw, an English teacher at Crenshaw High School. She said the center is an invaluable resource to bring a little nature to the inner city.

``Now young people don't have to leave. You can show them the flora and fauna within reach,'' Shaw said.

But the conservancy hopes to expand far beyond the center and the few riverside parks that now exist. It plans to acquire more land along the river and create a necklace of parks and paths through the city, linking communities and bringing green space to inner-city areas now devoid of such natural escapes.

``We need to do everything we can to restore it to its natural habitat. It's there and it's beautiful and we should do it,'' said state Senate Majority Leader Richard Polanco, who joined Saturday's chorus of speakers praising the partnership between volunteers and local, state and federal officials that made the River Center possible.

``Urban areas have very little environmental equity. There's an opportunity here,'' said the Los Angeles Democrat. ``We're looking at a 10-year project. If we do it a little bit every year, we'll get there.''

U.S. Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Los Angeles, compared the river's potential to the river walk along the Rio Grande in San Antonio, Texas, which features cafes, hotels parks, boat rentals and other amenities.

``In L.A. we want to build, but it doesn't always have to be up, and filled with concrete. It can be green and it can be flowering,'' Becerra said.

``We have the greatest natural resource L.A. still has not tapped - its river,'' Becerra said. ``What we'll end up doing is having a river we can all be proud of. What San Antonio did, we can do and do it better.''

Bette Temple of Glendale said she often bicycles or walks along the L.A. riverbank and looks forward to the extension of the parkway.

``With the vegetation growing along the river and the sun coming through and reflecting on the water there, you sort of feel away from the city,'' she said. That is, until a discarded shopping cart or Doritos bag mars her reverie.

``It drives me crazy, the litter,'' she said.

Keeping the river parks green and clean may be an ongoing challenge. Even at Saturday's festivities, while Polanco was telling the crowd about ``improving greater stewardship of the environment,'' a woman in the audience crumpled a cellophane wrapper and dropped it on the ground.

Shaw, the Crenshaw High teacher, said she's confident the River Center can help remind kids, at least, of the importance of living in harmony with the environment.

``They dump things on the ground without any thought of where it's going. They think garbage is something somebody else picks up,'' she said.

Mark Williams, 37, came to the open house with his wife, Madlyn, and their son, daughter and nephew, ages 8, 4, and 10.

While the children played nearby, with park rangers demonstrating fire hoses and other equipment, Williams said the conservancy is working on a 10-acre nature park in their Southeast L.A. neighborhood, at Slauson and Compton avenues, so they want to support the agency's other environmental efforts.

He also cheered the conservancy's push to restore the river and let it bring nature to neighborhoods along its path, while perhaps uniting the city at the same time.

``The river can tie different communities together. If you green it and turn the banks into park space, it would be a great thing for everybody,'' he said. ``It's a resource for all of us. It would be something we could all be proud of.''

The center is located at 570 W. Avenue 26. For information, call [phone].

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1) Marina Ybarra, 8, of Los Angeles finds the tiny California tree frog in the Los Angeles River Center display on Saturday.

Charlotte Schmid-Maybach/Staff Photographer

(2) Dalton Aguayo, 9, of Simi Valley sprays a Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority fire hose at the visitors' center.