This is 99% invisible. I'm Vivian Lay sitting in for Roman Mars.

I've lived in Los Angeles for give or take eight years now, and I wanted to take you to a place here in the city that's a little

weird but also pretty special. Maybe it's a different spot in the we get in? I feel like this is going to be a lot of guests in check.

It's also kind of hard to get into. Luckily I had backup with me.

This street that we're on is about as close as you can get to the river.

Okay. I know that there is some way to get down there like an access tunnel point which I don't know

what your appetite is for getting it into a time.

Reporting the story with me this week is Gillian Jacobs.

Gillian is an actor, a director, and of course a fellow LA resident.

Yes, and that elusive spot we were trying to get to was the L.A. River.

There it is. There's the river. There's our guy.

What is the predominant emotion you're feeling right now?

Ah?

It's a lie.

When you hear the word river, you probably picture a majestic body of water flowing through a natural habitat.

Well, the LA River looks nothing like that.

Most people who see it probably mistake it for a giant storm drain. It's a deep

trapezoidal channel with steep concrete walls and a flat concrete bottom.

In the spot we were at the riverbanks were lined with railroad tracks,

industrial warehouses, and commuter traffic.

The water part of it, as in the thing that rivers are most known for having,

exists as just a tiny stream at the bottom of the concrete for most of the year.

...