Because Nothing Endures

In Letter to an Imaginary Friend, Thomas McGrath makes frequent reference to the geography of Los Angeles, most notably to the Los Angeles River, the construction of freeways, and his home at 2714 Marsh Street (which is referenced in the poem's initial lines). McGrath's home, which was located where the 2 and the 5 freeways intersect today, is described as a place of isolation and darkness, as if it were cut off from the city proper. Paradoxically, it also becomes an oasis--a quiet, green place surrounded by the concrete of Los Angeles. Unfortunately, the Los Angeles concrete would eventually spread to McGrath's home as well.

In 1956, proposals for the construction of the I-5 were presented by the State Highway Commissions Board. The highway originated in Seattle and was to extend through Los Angeles, but the plan was met with opposition. Residents formed the Boyle-Hollenbeck Anti-Golden State Freeway Committee and argued that the freeway was purposefully being built through ethnic neighborhoods in order to destroy housing. The residents ultimately lost. The destruction of McGrath's home is mourned in his poem, "Return to Marsh Street," which depicts the consequences of the I-5’s progress through Elysian Valley. It is difficult not to contrast the poem’s startling images of rubble and decay with McGrath’s earlier depictions of his green place at 2714 Marsh Street.

The pluralistic concrete where the new freeway blinds through.

All's adrift and dream.

Here stood a happy house,

Once: one blink of the eye and it's lost.

                                                                            Our whole history 

                                                                         Seems only a simple catalogue of catastrophe leading here...

                                             – From Letter to an Imaginary Friend