I want to be clear. I don't have any particular reason to be worried about my mammogram -- but you never know. Just look what happened to Katie Couric. So, I'm ok with allowing myself to be nervous. And I will be glad when I get my results.
So it was a good day to treat myself on the way home from the mammogram. (Ugh). And it was way fun (as Cher would say) to see the fountain up close.
It is the most famous fountain in Beverly Hills and is called the "electric fountain," at the corner of Santa Monica and Wilshire Blvd in Beverly Gardens Park. It is listed as #20 on the city’s Register of Historic Properties. The fountain is the demarcation point between Westwood, Century City, and Beverly Hills.
The fountain opened in 1931 and is rumored to have stopped moving traffic for hours when it first opened. Though it may not stop traffic today, (the corner is a lot more built up nowadays) it still turns heads.
The original cost of the fountain was $22,000.
The Fountain was designed by Robert Merrell Gage, and Ralph Carlin Flewelling.
The fountain prominently features a relief of a native Tongva/Gabrieleno tribe (NOT THE GREEK relief I assumed in the video). And, on top of the middle pedestal is a granite sculpture of a Tongva/Gabrieleno tribe member, kneeling in prayer, on a 20-foot (6.1 m) stone column.
Before Beverly Hills was Beverly Hills - the land was part of the Rancho Rodeo De Las Aguas (Translated roughly to mean “coming together of waters”). In the early history of Beverly Hills long before Rodeo Drive and Multimillion-dollar mansions, there were underground artesian streams flowing from both Coldwater Canyon and Benedict Canyon (intersecting at the present-day location of the Beverly Hills Hotel) which is where the inspiration for the Rancho name originated.
The fountain is symbolic of Beverly Hills’ early history - and was just what I needed on my way home today!
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Thanks to Jason Colin Campbell for the history lesson! https://www.jamescolincampbell.com/beverly-hills/fountains/