Feb. 20, 1958

Photograph by the Los Angeles Times
If you drive the Pasadena Freeway regularly, you will recognize immediately that it no longer looks anything like this. Yes, the ramps are entirely different. (And the Golden State Freeway hadn't been built when this picture was taken). But my point for now is the hillside in Elysian Park, which kept dropping mud and boulders on the southbound lanes, as occurred in February 1958.
Photograph by Frank Q. Brown / Los Angeles Times
Here's a picture of the freeway after cleanup allowed some lanes to be reopened. In 1958, the southbound Pasadena Freeway carried 120,000 cars a day, the Mirror said. The Mirror also noted that another mudslide took out a bridge in 1937.

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Comments

[Richard H]

The two pictures of the Pasadena Freeway through Elysian Park are graphic evidence of two separate mindsets in building the auto thoroughfare through Elysian Park.

Look at the top picture. On the left are the Figueroa Tunnels. Built during the early 1930's and designed to blend into the environment of Elysian Park. Made for a wonderful drive through the park (at the time, and to some degree, even today) and didn't impede the experience of noncommuters using the park.

On the right are the inbound lanes of the Pasadena Freeway built years later to complete the freeway to Downtown L.A. and the four level interchange. Figueroa Street through the tunnels was drafted to become the outbound lanes of the Pasadena Freeway. Bulldozed right though. So much for aesthetics.

Picture Elysian Park WITHOUT the inbound lanes of the Pasadena Freeway. It is obvious that the Pasadena Freeway took priority over the Park or the local community.

Notice the separation between the outbound and inbound lanes of the Pasadena Freeway over the Los Angeles River. Believe it or not, that is a walkway from San Fernando Road to Elysian Park. Access to Elysian Park from Lincoln Heights after the Figueroa Tunnels were closed to pedestrians. It continues on in the lower picture between the two fences on the right of the picture. That accessway from San Fernando Road to Elysian Park is still there, fifty years later.

Somebody explored this walkway recently here:
http://blogging.la/archives/2007/03/freeway_fun.phtml