Sunday, November 8, 2009

New Road Under the Freeway -- Part 1: Kinneloa Extension


It is not every day that we get a new route under the freeway. Above is a picture of the work in progress to extend Kinneloa Avenue from Colorado Blvd., under the 210 to Foothill Blvd. That's Team Chevrolet on the other side of the tunnel. All of this is courtesy of city plans which call for the street extension to offset increased traffic expected with more development near the Sierra Madre Villa metro.

View Lamanda Park, CA in a larger map

Toward the bottom of the map you can see Kinneloa Ave. Seems likely that Kinneloa Ave. once led to Abbot Kinney's estate, which was located on the mesa above present day New York Drive. Over time the length of Kinneloa was chopped up until all that was left of the avenue was a short stretch of road running south of the 210 to Del Mar.

Don't know whether the Kinneloa extension will help traffic, but it stands to be an important link to establishing the long-planned Eaton Wash trail. The thin blue line on the map is the Eaton Wash. The opening of Kinneloa will provide a route for trail users to traverse the freeway and stay near to the wash.

4 comments:

Petrea Burchard said...

Your post prompted me to read up on Abbot Kinney. What a guy!

Michael Coppess said...

Guess you'd have to have something special going on to move to the frontier in the 1880s and then give your place a Polynesian sounding name. Don't know that they make them like Kinney any more.

Ron Guthrie said...

I lived on E. Green St just below Colorado near Madre when growing up. I attended Sunday School at the Church of the Nazarene further up on Colorado near the Uptown theatre. Our church bus used to stop to pick up a girl I went to school elementary & HS with. She lived in a small wooden house right at about where this underpass is.

Kinneloa crossed the train tracks there back in the 60's and early 70's when Fedco was still there. The little girl lived just north of that crossing there.

If you ever find info on Besse Park I'd be interested in reading about it or seeing any images you find. Besse Park was where the old East Pasadena Boys Club once stood....and yep, I was a member there, haha. Love your Blog!

Michael Coppess said...

Hi Ron - I always like hearing of folks who grew up around here. Most of the comments I see are from those who were born or worked at St. Lukes. But, I've certainly heard of Besse Park and the Boy's Club. If I come across any photos or info I'll post it. I have seen photos of the old Uptown Theater on the Internet.