Saving Grace : Repairs on Scenic Colorado Street Bridge Near the Midpoint; Work on the Local Landmark Is Due to Be Completed by 1994

The Colorado Street Bridge has the battered and trussed look of an accident survivor these days, with its graceful arches slung in puffy tarpaulins and an army of workers fussing at its sides.

The deck, across which 5,000 vehicles used to glide daily, has long since been peeled away, exposing the bridge’s ribs.

But the beloved old structure, a favorite of landscape painters for almost 80 years, is definitely on the mend, city officials say.

About halfway into the $27.4-million fix-up project, workers have replaced deteriorated concrete, bolstered the bridge’s arches and replaced its crumbling abutments.

Now the work has reached a kind of turning point, says Alan Charmatz, a principal engineer with the city’s Public Works Department.

“We’ve been strengthening all the elements that are being retained,” he says. “Now we’re starting to put in new materials.”

The Pasadena landmark, designed by engineer John Alexander Low Waddell and built in 1913 by the Mercereau Bridge and Construction Co. at a cost of $220,000, has been closed since 1989. That’s when engineers advised the city: Either fix it or lose it.

Mortar was cracking, beams were rusting and the quaint guard walls, with seating alcoves and cast-iron ornaments, did not meet federal safety standards.

Most city officials knew better than to talk about demolition. One proposal to replace the Colorado Street Bridge (it was named that before the city’s main business street became Colorado Boulevard) had been beaten back in 1951 by outraged citizens.

When the Foothill Freeway offered another route across the Arroyo Seco in the early 1970s, battle-hardened preservationists were prepared to fight again for the bridge, which is on the National Register of Historic Places and the Register of Civil Engineering Landmarks.

Freeway or no, the bridge was still the picturesque “gateway to Pasadena,” residents said. Even the bridge’s reputation as the “suicide bridge” just seemed to add to its romance. Since the bridge opened, about 100 people have killed themselves by leaping to the arroyo floor 160 feet below.

By 1987, the preservationists, with the support of most of the City Council, were pressing not only to save the bridge but to retain every inch of its elegant silhouette.

The federal government stepped in with the money. Most of the repairs--about $20-million worth--are being financed by the Federal Highway Administration, the rest by the city and the county.

Kiewit Construction Co., the job’s general contractor, began work in March, 1991, and expects to complete it by November, 1993.

Sometime in the fall of 1994, workers will install a balustrade with urn-shaped supports, 48 ornamental lampposts with hanging globes and a spiked suicide-prevention fence.

Then the bridge will be pronounced in good health, ready for another 80 years of service.

BACKGROUND

The Colorado Street Bridge opened in 1913, before the roadway it carries across the Arroyo was renamed a boulevard. It’s a national landmark, famous for graceful arches, fine detail--such as the old fashioned lampposts with globe lights and ornamental balustrade--and suicides. There have been about 100. The city closed the bridge in 1989 after engineers advised it was dangerously weak. Preservationists made sure that every inch of its elegant silhouette would be retained. The $27.4 million fix-up is about half-finished.