>From "Nuestro Pueblo - Los Angeles, City of Romance" Copyright 1940, by Charles H. Owens and Joseph F. Seewerker ABOUT MR. BROOKS AND PIPES AND A TREE Thomas Brooks has lived long past the Scriptural three-score and ten, and lived all of those years in Los Angeles. Everyone who knows him knows that to Mr. Brooks Los Angeles is a large area with pipes under it. For fifty-five years he was connected with the Bureau of Water Works and Supply, and it was his pleasant work to supervise the laying of water mains. But one other object interests him as much, if sight of it rouses indignation instead of pride. Near the intersection of Riverside Drive and Los Feliz Boulevard stands a sycamore tree, huge and ancient, part of Thomas Brooks's past. 'In 1869, when I was a boy, I climbed all over that sycamore,' he recalls. 'In those days, the youngsters hid in the hollow of the trunk. But, now look at it! They've raised the street around it until a cat can hardly get into it. And they didn't lift the pavement to put water pipes under it, either! There are no water pipes near here. I ought to know!'