There’s no better way to procrastinate with your new pandemic dog than by bringing them to the dog park. And in Los Angeles, there is no shortage of beautiful locations to sweat under the merciless desert sun. One such haunt is the Silver Lake dog park, which abuts the two immense concrete basins making up the “Silver Lake Reservoir Complex:” the Ivanhoe and Silver Lake Reservoirs. Owned and maintained by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the two reservoirs once provided potable drinking water to some 600,000 Los Angeles residences, with the Ivanhoe Reservoir alone holding upwards of 795 million gallons of water at any given time. During its 1907 construction, the task of excavating an estimated 94,000 cubic meters of mud to house the reservoirs enraptured civil engineers from around the world, and provided a template for the later construction of the famed Panama Canal. It was not until the centennial in 2007, that the city was forced to drain these two feats of engineering due to a proliferation of carcinogenic pathogens. (Some of you may remember when, in 2008, the city filled the reservoirs with small black balls to quell the propagation of carcinogens, causing them to resemble oversized, Chuck E. Cheese–styled ball pits).

Unaware of the history that surrounds me daily, like most Angelenos, I had no idea that the reservoirs once provided water for a lion’s share of the city, nor that they were now defunct. All I knew was that, given its teaming with fashionably pajama-clad Eastsiders day and night, the Silver Lake dog park is considered “a scene.” Many visitors to Silver Lake may also be unaware that that their appropriately named neighborhood is home to the city’s most prolific collection of modernist housing. Looking out from the dog park in any direction, you’re sure to be staring directly at a home designed by one of LA’s best-known architects, including John Lautner, Richard Neutra, Rudolph Schindler, Raphael Soriano, Gregory Ain and numerous others. In fact, just across the street from the park’s Eastern edge are nine stunning domiciles by Richard Neutra. The collection of Neutra homes in the area span the Southern California architect du jour’s career, with projects from the years 1948 to 1966. The homes are a testament to the architectural and political history that enlivens the dog park “scene,” amidst a small sliver of a community bursting with architectural marvels.

In the midcentury, Silver Lake and Echo Park were known by locals as “The Red Gulch,” being the preferred destination for the city’s thriving population of card-carrying Communists. The architecture is a direct result of the area’s political history, as “Reds” constructing houses around the man-made lake sought to construct projects that reflected their progressive political vision. Next time you’re at the dog park, come say hi (my dog is the one barking, due to her incessant FOMO), and be sure to look around at the architectural totems of a now quashed political coterie.