The Sunken City

Sunken City sits on six acres of slipping, eroding, and sinking land adjacent to Point Fermin Park. The “city,” at the southernmost point in Los Angeles County, was once a neighborhood of exclusive homes. Waves undercut the base of the sandstone and shale cliffs, which began slumping and sliding in 1929 and again in the early 1940s. It is now a jumble of rolling land with palm trees, isolated slabs of the old road, tilting sidewalks, streetcar tracks, and remnants of house foundations, and chimneys above the surf-swept rocky seashore.