Colorado Street Bridge – Pasadena CA

December 09, 1952 - Aerial view of construction on new six-lane bridge spanning the Arroyo Seco on the Hollywood Freeway (with the old 2-lane Colorado Street bridge in foreground) which is being built to ease traffic from Pasadena and other suburbs in this freeway system.

Top Amer (USA) California – Pasadena Dry River

Bridge Span: 1,467 ft.

Built in 1913

Nick Name: suicide bridge – first suicide was in 1919

Received Historic Civil Engineering Landmark designation and listing in the National Register of Historic Places.

Was part of Route 66 until 1940.

“Significance: The Colorado Street Bridge is an eleven-arched reinforced concrete structure, the longest and highest bridge of its time. It was the first high bridge across the Arroyo Seco, and is an important visual landmark in Pasadena. Through its design and construction, the bridge represents the advancing concrete technology of the twentieth century and the ornamental aesthetic of the late nineteenth century. The Colorado Street Bridge was designed by one of the nation’s foremost bridge engineers, and constructed by a well-known California builder. The local community played an important role in planning and funding construction.” - Historic American Engineering Record (Library of Congress)

Library of Congress HERE 

More information about the bridge HERE

Los Angeles

During our Jenner trip I got real sick with a head cold.

I have been spending my time laying around, being in teacher limbo and looking at pictures from LIFE.

I have specifically been looking at pictures of early Los Angeles.

This one is right by Jonah and Matt and Katy!

“Glendale Boulevard, 1927. The rapid expansion of contiguous suburbs spreading out around L.A. demanded a modern infrastructure. And that meant freeways. How charming that one can actually count the cars on the road in this picture.”

“Pictured: The La Brea Tar Pits, site of a massive fossil repository, c. 1910. The tar pits in L.A. have been around for tens of thousands of years, and have been the final resting place for countless animals — from sabre-toothed cats and dire wolves to mastadons and sandhill cranes — that have been trapped by the tar, and perished. “It’s not too hard to imagine Spaniards coming here 150 years ago to get tar to seal tiles on their roofs,” Heimann says of the place.”

“At one time, there were more than 200 oil companies, large and small, and several thousand oil wells operating within the L.A. city limits. Pictured: Oil fields, Second Street and Glendale Boulevard, 1900.”

The headwaters of the Los Angeles River on the north side of Griffith Park, c. 1898.

Pictured: The intersection of Spring and First Streets looking south, c. 1902.

Laurel Canyon – Early 1900s

“This photo of the almost utterly undeveloped canyon, published for the first time in Heimann’s book, is one of 50 or so from his personal collection, purchased over many years at flea markets and antiquarian book markets around the world.”

Wilshire Blvd. – Brown Derby 1926

I wish this place was around still…. it looks awesome!

There are more photos from the LIFE gallery that can be found HERE

Many of the photos are in the book “Los Angeles: Portrait of a City“