(A geographic riddle for you Northeast LA locals. First person to guess the spot wins an all expense paid trip to said location.)
The clouds are starting to move and I need to get going as well. It doesn’t take long to get from the night cell to the daytime prison but the path is twisted. I pick up the pace, hoping to avoid an uncomfortable encounter with those that make this short distance their terrain.
It’s not a leisurely stroll, even when THEY keep watch via that electronic black eye. ‘For My Protection’ they claim. Yeah, sure it is. We all know better.
This is the dark corridor, shuffling the young from one pen to the next. On average, this Institute holds them for 3-4 years, though once they’ve done that time the probability is high that they will get transferred to yet another one, even with good behavior.
Some can’t take the pressure and they hang up the shoes before they make the trek. RIP-PED.
The wire corridor is long.
Once you make it across, you are still fenced in by the reality of your daily enclosures: the sky is not the limit. In a few hours, you’ll be heading back across that same treacherous expanse.
Where am I? Submit your thoughts in the comment section.
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That’s how the kids from LH get from Lacy St. (? by the auto junkyard/auction) over the freeway and onto Cypress to go to Nightengale, right?
This has to be the walk to school for some. An urban concept of a bridge from home to school. Not being local I do not recognize the path but tell me it’s safe for children.
You’re in Guantanamo dude! Sorry, man, I knew they’d get you one of these days. . . .
pitbullgirl wins! This is the path many kids from LH take to get to Nightingale Jr High, I guess it’s safe enough (mostly taggers linger here) but the design of this walking corridor is very creepy.
Umm, since you can just walk to this spot I guess I’m not going to be buying you airline tickets pitbullgirl. But get yourself an elote or a raspado on the way there and I’ll reimburse you later. Yeah, later. 😉
I wonder how many people remember what this “new bridge” replaced?
Yea probably not many except old timers like myself, it was the old wooden bridge called by everyone the old white bridge and it had been there since my parents went to Nightingale Junior High in the Forty’s.
Lots of gang fights took place on the Lacy St side and it was a sometimes scary situation when you crossed that bridge at night and ran into a bunch of gangsters who would throw a ratpack on you. It was dark and mainly an industrial area and there was no escape. Every so often some kids would throw rocks down onto the Pasadena Frwy and bust someones windshield so the city eventually replaced the the old white bridge with what you have now, doesn’t seem to be much of an improvement to me.
There used to be another wooden bridge for pedestrians that took you from N. Broadway at Elysian Park across and over the old railroad yards to Dogtown on N Main St. It was even featured in a movie “DOA” I think .
It was also a scary place to run into someone you didn’t want to and there were stories that people were thrown off it onto oncoming trains.
Lots of Bridges in Lincoln Hts and lots of stories about them too.
wow, no wonder kids dont want to go to school!!!
Darn, I could have totally guessed this. Having recently rode through (single-file) on a recent Flying Pigeon ride.
I was working at Nightingale in 2001, when they reopened that bridge. It was fenced off for many years because of the reasons sited. I remember, for a while after it was opened, the kids still preferred to walk down to Avenue 26, rather than take that short cut of doom.
Wow!! Memories! I hated crossing that bridge during the rain. It would flood at a certain spot and we had to climb up on the rails and crab walk across, holding onto our books and the fence at the same time. Life was simpler back then…