Walk along Arroyo Seco to "Suicide Bridge"
Details
We'll go on a walk approx 3 or 4-6 miles RT to "Suicide Bridge." It is an easy flat walk.
This is a little over 2 miles RT. Hence, to make it longer, we'll walk back to meeting location--can either leave there or walk longer with us past meeting location.
It is along a wash basin (a river flowing over pavement) with lots of trees. http://articles.latimes.com/2011/aug/22/health/la-he-walks-arroyo-20110822
Parking is at a park.
http://photos2.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/5/4/2/a/600_436701546.jpeg
Directions:
Map/directions (http://www.rovingarchers.com/map/)
From the West: 134 Freeway east; exit at Orange Grove Blvd. Turn right on Orange Grove Blvd. Turn right at California Blvd. California ends at Arroyo Blvd. Turn right. Go about 1/4 mile; there will be a driveway to your left. The parking lot is at the bottom of the hill.
From the East: 210 freeway west; exit at Orange Grove Blvd. Turn left on Orange Grove Blvd. Turn right at California Blvd. California ends at Arroyo Blvd. Turn right. Go about 1/4 mile; there will be a driveway to your left. The parking lot is at the bottom of the hill.
From the South: 110 Freeway north; exit at Orange Grove Blvd. Turn left on Orange Grove Blvd. Turn left at California Blvd. California ends at Arroyo Blvd. Turn right. Go about 1/4 mile; there will be a driveway to your left. The parking lot is at the bottom of the hill.
From the North: 210 Freeway south; exit at California Blvd. Turn right at California Blvd. California ends at Arroyo Blvd. Turn right. Go about 1/4 mile; there will be a driveway to your left. The parking lot is at the bottom of the hill. Park.
"Suicide Bridge"
The Colorado Street Bridge curves over the river bed, giving the bridge a rather unique perspective as you drive over it. Along with the lamps located at regular intervals, the bridge has a very romantic and old charm look from a distance. But this unique structure has seen over 100 people commit suicide from it, plummeting the 150 feet to the ground below.
The first suicide was on November 16, 1919, and nearly fifty of the suicides occurred during the Great Depression from 1933 to 1937. Another report predicts that ninety-five people committed suicide from the bridge between the years of 1919 and 1937. The Pasadena Central Library has three thick binders on the bridge filled with all sorts of interesting articles and historical facts on the structure. The bridge underwent a twenty seven million dollar renovation in 1993, during which it received a suicide barrier. This has reduced the number of suicides, although the bridge still retains its nickname.
Looking along the Colorado Street Bridge
Urban legends of course surround the history of the bridge. During the bridge's construction, a worker apparently toppled over the side of the bridge and fell into wet concrete below. He was, according to rumor, left to die in the quick drying cement, entombed forever. Of course, he's now a ghost haunting the bridge. Some legends state that he's the reason the bridge has claimed so many lives, that his ghost calls to those in crisis, urging them to come to the bridge and take their own lives.
Vintage Postcard of the Colorado Street Bridge
Another story surrounds a suicide attempt that happened on May 1, 1937. Myrtle Ward, a despondent 22 year old mother, took her three year old daughter, Jeanette, to the bridge that morning. One story says she had supposedly been left by Jeanette's father. Myrtle walked up to the side of the bridge and threw her baby girl, Jeanette, off. And then immediately jumped over herself (apparently so they could be together in the afterlife). In a remarkable twist of fate, somehow, the baby landed in thick branches of a nearby tree, slowing her descent until she came to the ground mostly unharmed, but her mother, Myrtle, plummeted to her death. She now is also rumored to haunt the bridge still searching for her baby.
Another unusual suicide was in 2008 when a man who had stabbed and killed both his son's mother and maternal grandmother, went to the bridge soon after the murders and jumped.
http://www.weirdca.com/location.php?location=57
http://www.kcet.org/socal/departures/fieldguides/highlandpark/lower-arroyo.jpg
Walk along Arroyo Seco to "Suicide Bridge"