of stairs and make a hairpin right turn. Go through a gate and up a series of staircases, walking parallel to the northbound freeway (the lanes you’ve just walked under). Continue to the top of the stairs, where you will meet the southbound freeway lanes and, through a swing gate, one of Los Angeles’s weirdest public walkways.
Below you is the original Arroyo Seco Parkway (SR 110), the first freeway in the Western United States. There used to be just one road running from Pasadena into downtown. It was a broadened expansion of the old Figueroa Street that cut through the hills via four tunnels built in the 1930s. Then, in the 1940s, when traffic outgrew the Parkway’s original four lanes, the roadway was doubled to include what are now the southbound lanes—the lanes uphill to your left.
A view of downtown L.A. from above the freeway.
Because this new construction eliminated the pedestrian sidewalks that had run alongside Figueroa, a new sidewalk was built, running parallel to the southbound freeway lanes—in effect, halfway between the two sides of the roaring expressway.
Turn right into this narrow, fenced-off walkway, and begin walking north toward the southbound traffic. (For future walks, or to extend this one, note that this walkway runs all the way into Chinatown if you head south.) On your right side, you will see concrete walls overgrown with Boston ivy. Above you are elegant bridges and period lamp posts. And to your left, seemingly inches away, are automobiles moving at sixty miles per hour—unless it’s rush hour, when they’re barely moving at all.
The walkway will pass beside some well-established homeless encampments down the slopes to the right (behind a chain-link fence). As you go, it will also offer increasingly broad views of the mountains above Pasadena and Altadena. Eventually it will emerge and present even broader views of the Los Angeles River, the massive County Hospital in East Los Angeles, and the train lines and Gold Line subway line running up from downtown.
The sidewalk will end at a circular staircase above the complex merging of the Arroyo Seco Parkway and the Golden State Freeway (I-5). Take the staircase the equivalent of several floors down to an intersection of several pathways. Walk straight on from here, beside what is now the fast lane of the northbound freeway.
As you walk along, you will get a perhaps too-close look at the ironwork that supports the southbound freeway lanes, as well as an uglier stretch of the concrete-lined L.A. River.
Walk on. The sidewalk will end again in another hairpin turn, this time to the left. Drop down a (sometimes very dirty) set of stairs, and at the bottom turn left onto San Fernando Road.
This will lead you past a freeway onramp and, a few blocks on, underneath the Gold Line tracks as they head toward the Lincoln Heights/Cypress Park Station. This section of San Fernando, which is also part of historic Route 99—the state’s main north—south highway before the I-5 was built—isn’t particularly beautiful. But it will treat you to views of the vehicle storage yards for the Department of Sanitation, the Fire Department, and the Department of Transportation, all on your right.
On your left, you’ll find a couple of thrift store options: Goodwill Industries, with its period “Not Charity But A Chance” sign, and, to the left up Humboldt Street, a Saint Vincent de Paul Society outlet. You’ll also have several chances to fill your medical marijuana prescription.
Turn right from San Fernando onto Pasadena Avenue. Walk a few blocks, past the massive Young Nak Presbyterian Church compound across the street to your left, until Pasadena meets North Broadway. Turn right, pass the gates of the city, and cross the elegant Buena Vista Street Viaduct, a 1909 bridge over the L. A. River.
Here you’ll find lovely views of the downtown skyline and Los Angeles State Historic Park, also known as “The Cornfield” (so nicknamed in the 1870s, the story goes, after seeds spilling from passing trains sprouted on the site).
On the other side of the bridge, near the Portola Trail marker, turn right onto Meadow Street. You are back at your starting point.
The Observatory, inside Griffith Park.
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