"The bridge over nothing

It's a bridge that has been disguised as a street for six decades.

True, it carries a sign that warns drivers not to carry overly heavy loads "on this bridge." But UCLA's Dickson Court bridge looks like just another road passing through, not over, an area of rolling lawns on the east side of campus. Students sit on its guardrails without fear because there is no drop.

Few know that the drop once was a five-story-deep ravine. The bridge, erected in 1927with picturesque Romanesque arches, was known as Arroyo Bridge and was the first structure built at UCLA. Truckloads of construction materials for the new UC campus were carried over it.

In 1947, the ravine was filled with thousands of cubic yards of dirt, burying the brick-enclosed arches and making way for new buildings.

Passers-by today have just a misleading, tip-of-the-iceberg view