Secret Stairs #9

Secret Stairs Walk #9 is taken from a book entitled "Secret Stairs" by Charles Fleming.  Mr. Fleming has written a new book, which I will be getting and looking forward to doing those walks.  This walk is shorter than most we have done.

This walk began at the corner of N. Eastern Avenue and Gambier Street, in a seldom visited area of Los Angeles, known as El Sereno.  We parked near El Sereno Middle School and we did this the day before Mother's Day and there were vendors selling flowers and presents for Mother's Day.

The walk took us south on Eastern and then turned left onto Lynnfield Street and the first corner turned right on Phelps Ave.  There was some elevation once we turned onto Lynnfield Street.  We found our first staircase on Phelps.  According to the book, many of the staircases in El Sereno are painted green, but I think a lot of the green has worn off.  This stairway has 83 stairs with several landings.  At the top of the stairs is Lynnfield Circle.  According to the book, you might be able to get a view of Huntington Drive, where in the 1900's, the Pacific Electric Railway line went along the wide median strip.  The railway was designed to link Downtown Los Angeles with Pasadena, San Marino and El Sereno.

Secret Stairs

Secret Stairs-see the green?

Secret Stairs

More Secret Stairs with green

We crossed Lynnfield Circle and went up another 99 steps and landed at Chadwick Circle. There are better views from the top of these stairs.  In the book,  Mr. Fleming talks about barking dogs, but we didn't really run into that issue.  We head down Chadwick Circle to find our next staircase, which descends 95 steps, and then another staircase of 73 steps, which takes us to Ballard St.  We turn left and walk along a flat portion of the street to Chester Street.  We saw three dogs on this street, but they did not bark at us.  At the corner of Chester and Ballard, we turned left and climbed to the top of the hill and turned left onto Lynnfield Street and began another descent.  This is a walk of views as well.

View

We followed Lynnfield to the bottom of the hill and turned right on Phelps.  We walked straight ahead for a couple of blocks and turned right on Templeton.  The author described this neighborhood  as older and calmer with less dogs and small bungalows.  When we got to Castalia ave. we turned left and at the end of a dead end street was a short stairway and then we headed down the hill along Barstow St.   At the corner of Barstow and Phelps, we turned left and turned right at Templeton, which took us back to Eastern and our car.  It was an enjoyable and short walk and perfect for after a week of intense pressure.

Broken stairs that used to lead to a house

Stairs and a view

Wall art