The Halloween Series

Placed by: Buzzard
Placement date: Oct 19 2003
State: California
County: Los Angeles
Nearest city: Pasadena
Number of boxes: 6

Clues
Difficulty: Easy. Dogs on a leash are okay, as are children in
strollers. Wheelchairs can get to some of these letterboxes, please
email me for details.

We Pasadenans love holidays. We put holiday-themed lights on our
houses, fly banners outside our houses, and decorate our lawns with
lighted figures for St. Patrick's Day, July 4th, Easter, Presidents'
Day, and, most of all to celebrate our favorite holidays: Halloween
and Christmas. As a true Pasadenan, I love all holidays, but my all-
time personal favorite is Halloween! By October 7th, the French Hen
and I have decorated our house with Halloween lights, vintage die-
cuts, and special effects (black lights, fog machine, strobe light,
scary music, etc.). On Halloween night, I've been known to don a
spooky costume and hide in bushes around the neighborhood in order to
jump out and scare trick-or-treaters.

As I introduce my Halloween letterbox series let me make this
perfectly clearI'm a believer in a scary Halloween. You won't find
any smiling ghosts or cutesy benevolent witches in my Halloween
Seriesit's scary! So if you letterbox with an impressionable,
possibly nightmare-prone child (or adult . . .), you may want to
reconsider tackling this series.

#1 Suicide Bridge
This beautiful 1,467 foot concrete bridge is the scenic gateway into
downtown Pasadena, just northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is also
well-known to Angelenos as "Suicide Bridge."

Constructed in 1913, the 150 ft. high structure crosses the dry
Arroyo Seco riverbed. A decades-old story maintains that the body of
a worker who toppled into a just-poured concrete support could not be
recovered and remains entombed in the bridge to this day. Supposedly,
his soul cries out to other desparate beings. While this particular
story may be unfounded, a number of men did die awful deaths in the
bridge's construction. This may explain why the bridge became a hot
spot of sorts during the early part of the last century and the
Depression when 95 people jumped to their deaths between 1919 and
1937.

One of the most famous suicides occurred on May 1, 1937, when a
despondent mother threw her baby girl over the railing and then
jumped over herself. The mother died, but miraculously, the little
girl survived the plunge. Her mother had inadvertently tossed her
into some nearby trees, and she was later recovered from the thick
branches.

It was reported to me by Doughnut that while looking for this box,
small children sometimes poke their heads out from the guardrail a
little too far out into the traffic lanes, and those cars do whizz by
pretty fast, so be aware. This is a pedestrian sidewalk, though, so
you are supposed to be safe here. Exit the 210 Freeway at Orange
Grove Avenue in Pasadena and drive south to the corner of Colorado
Boulevard and Orange Grove. From this point, travel one block south
on Orange Grove to Green Street. Turn right on Green Street for one
block, then right on Grand for one block until you come to a circular
dead end in a park area. Park your car where you are allowed (check
the signs), and walk along the paved path west toward the bridge. On
the bridge, you will see regularly-spaced, inset benches. Count them
until you get to bench number six on the bridge's south side; here,
sit and rest, and notice that you are at the one of the bridge's
highest pointsthe place where someone committing suicide would have
likely climbed over the railing. In front of you, separating the
sidewalk from the street, are double metal guardrails mounted on
evenly-spaced metal posts. Look beneath the lower rail behind the
left-most post you see in front of you for the letterbox.

#2 Rialto Theater