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Image / Plan to make Colorado Street Bridge 'Suicide Proof

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Title
Plan to make Colorado Street Bridge 'Suicide Proof
Alternative Title
Los Angeles Herald Examiner Photo Collection
Date Created and/or Issued
1936
Contributing Institution
Los Angeles Public Library
Collection
Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection
Rights Information
Images available for reproduction and use. Please see the Ordering & Use page at http://tessa.lapl.org/OrderingUse.html for additional information.
Description
Title supplied by cataloger.
The Colorado Street Bridge was designed and built in 1913 by the Kansas City (MO)-based firm of J.A.L. Waddell. With a span of 1,486 feet and known for its distinctive Beaux Arts arches, lights, and railings, the bridge is on the National Register of Historic Places and has been designated a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers. In 1989, after the Loma Prieta earthquake in Northern California, the bridge was declared a seismic hazard and closed to traffic. It was reopened in 1993 after a substantial retrofit.
Photograph caption dated January 23, 1936 reads, "Here is how the famous Colorado street bridge over the Arroyo Seco in Pasadena will be made "suicide proof." A steel woven fence 5 feet high and topped by barbed wire will make it impossible for despondent persons to leap to their deaths, according to Chief of Police Charles Kelley of Pasadena. Plans are being made to start in the near future on the work, which has long been advocated by The Evening Herald and Express in an effort to halt the suicides on the bridge. A total of 72 persons have plunged to their death from the area."
Type
image
Format
1 photographic print :b&w ;17 x 27 cm. on sheet 18 x 28 cm.
Photographic prints
Identifier
00099440
Herald Examiner Collection
HE box 45
CARL0005109586
http://173.196.26.125/cdm/ref/collection/photos/id/30253
Subject
Arch bridges--California--Pasadena
Fences--California--Pasadena
Bridges--California--Pasadena
Suicide--California--Pasadena--Prevention
National Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks
Colorado Street Bridge (Pasadena, Calif.)
Arroyo Seco (Los Angeles County, Calif.)
Pasadena (Calif.)
Los Angeles Evening Herald and Express photographs
Herald-Examiner Collection photographs
Waddell, J. A. L.(John Alexander Low),1854-1938

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