"A once-in-a-generation chance to restore the landmark." That is how Daniel Rossman, executive director of the One Arroyo Foundation, described the effort to save the Arroyo Overlook and the Emma E. Dickinson Bird Sanctuary when it was announced this summer, according to the Pasadena Ledger. The site needs the help. Sections of its historic stone walls are collapsing into the canyon, and the memorial fountain hasn't run in years. People walking out from the overlook share a narrow stretch of roadway with cars because no path connects them to the Lower Arroyo trails.
A short distance up the Arroyo, the same weeks look very different. Brookside Park and the Rose Bowl are booked into Thanksgiving, and one of Pasadena's longest-running art events has just moved there. In Linda Vista's part of the Arroyo, the event calendar is growing faster than the physical improvements. The city's own schedules put nearly every major construction project in this corridor after the 2028 Olympics. Everything happening this fall happens on the Arroyo as it stands today.
The Chalk Festival Moved Down to Brookside
The 33rd annual Pasadena Chalk Festival took place September 26 and 27 at Brookside Park, next to Kidspace Museum. The free event listed 200 chalk murals and more than 500 artists. It was the festival's first year in the park. Producer Light Bringer Project moved it away from both the Paseo and its usual Father's Day weekend. The District 6 newsletter gave the reason in one line: space limitations at the Paseo.
The festival has moved before. It started in 1993 as "Chalk on the Walk" at City Hall's Centennial Square and went to the Paseo in 2004. This move put it on the west side of the city. Organizers sent visitors to free parking in Rose Bowl Lot I near Jackie Robinson Field and the Rose Bowl Aquatics Center. Transit riders were directed from the Metro A Line's Memorial Park Station to the northbound 51 bus, getting off at Seco Street and Linda Vista Avenue. That stop is the neighborhood's own corner. Lot I comes up again below.
The Season, Date by Date
The festival is just the first event of a full autumn. Here is what the Rose Bowl, the City and the neighborhood associations have published for October and November, plus a few nearby fixtures:
| Date | Event | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Sat., Oct. 3 | Los Angeles Heart and Stroke Walk, 8:45 a.m. | Rose Bowl |
| Sat., Oct. 3 | Salvation Army donation day, 9 a.m. to noon | Linda Vista Library, 1281 Bryant St. |
| Sat., Oct. 10 | SRNA Movie Night, original Toy Story, about 6:45 p.m. | San Rafael Park |
| Thu., Oct. 15 | Free flu vaccine clinic | Linda Vista Library |
| Sat., Oct. 17 | UCLA vs. Wisconsin, kickoff TBD | Rose Bowl |
| Sat., Oct. 24 | UCLA vs. Michigan State, kickoff TBD | Rose Bowl |
| Sun., Oct. 25 | Autumn in the Garden, 3 to 6 p.m. | Arlington Garden |
| Sat., Oct. 31 | UCLA vs. Nevada, kickoff TBD | Rose Bowl |
| Sat., Nov. 7 | Moby + Underworld, with Fcukers, Nia Archives and DJ Holographic | Brookside at the Rose Bowl |
| Sun., Nov. 15 | CicLAvia Pasadena open streets | Colorado Blvd. |
| Thu., Nov. 26 | Ninth annual Rose Bowl Turkey Trot, 8:30 a.m. | Rose Bowl 5K Loop |
The San Rafael Neighborhoods Association is in its second year of movie nights. SRNA picked the original Toy Story because Toy Story 5 did so well in theaters this summer. The suggested donation is $10 for adults and $5 for kids, and the association accepts cash, Zelle and Venmo. The Turkey Trot asks people of all ages to run, walk or stroll the 5K recreational loop on Thanksgiving morning. Plenty of residents already know that route from ordinary weekdays. Kickoff times for the three UCLA home games are still listed as TBD, and the stadium calendar doesn't show Loop closures for any of the October or November dates.
The stadium has a new room this season, too. The Rose Bowl dedicated its South End Zone Field Club on September 10. The space adds nearly 1,000 field-level premium seats and loge boxes, plus hospitality space and an outdoor patio. It is not an open public lounge. The Rose Bowl Quarterbacks Club, now in its 81st season, holds its five-event speaker series there with $50 advance tickets and no walk-up sales. Among the Arroyo's recent additions, the Field Club is the one that is already built and in use.
Lot I Holds Both Calendars
Lot I is where the event calendar and the construction calendar meet. The Brookside Park Stormwater Capture Project is planned beneath the northern part of Brookside Park Parking Lot I, just south of the Rose Bowl. That is the same lot where Chalk Festival visitors parked last weekend. The facility would intercept storm and dry-weather runoff in the Seco Street drain. Public Works says the project would divert and treat runoff from 1,166 acres. The water would pass through trash capture and pretreatment and then into an underground infiltration gallery. The main goal is recharging the Raymond Basin groundwater. Above ground, the design calls for bioswales, more trees and canopy, structural soil and strips of permeable pavement across the parking lot.
The March 2026 preliminary design report sizes the system for a maximum diversion of 23 cubic feet per second. It would capture about 14.9 acre-feet during an 85th-percentile 24-hour storm, with a subsurface footprint of 0.51 acres. The City's capital budget for fiscal years 2027 through 2031 describes 11 acre-feet of storm-event storage. That is a different measurement, not a revised version of the same figure. The same budget lists a $2.2 million Safe Clean Water Program grant under Measure W and a $16.75 million construction commitment from Caltrans.
Public Works presented the 90-percent design at La Casita del Arroyo on September 23. Ahead of the meeting, Pasadena Now reported that construction had not begun and that the session was a design review, with no vote or approval on the agenda. The City's own schedule is the more telling document. It lists the 2028 Olympics first, then construction starting in spring 2029 and finishing in fall 2030. Under that schedule, Lot I stays a parking lot through two more football seasons and the Olympic summer before any digging starts.
Down the Arroyo, a Landmark Still in Draft
The overlook Rossman described stands on a promontory near the end of California Street, above the Lower Arroyo Seco. The Lower Arroyo is a 150-acre natural park listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The bird sanctuary dates to 1935, after Pasadena resident Emma Dickinson left $45,000 to the city. Its memorial fountain is decorated with tile by Ernest A. Batchelder, the Arts and Crafts tilemaker who lived and worked in the Lower Arroyo. A rehabilitation planned in 2009 never went ahead.
RJM Design Group is the San Juan Capistrano firm behind the recently finished One Arroyo Trail Critical Linkages Project. Its draft concepts for the overlook propose to:
- Restore the sanctuary fountain and its Batchelder tile
- Repair the benches, stairs and historic stone walls
- Improve accessibility and pedestrian safety
- Build a trail from the sanctuary down to the casting pond
- Expand native habitat for birds
Public input so far has come from a small group. RJM held workshops on August 1 and August 26. Twenty-five people took part in the workshop exercise, and the online survey drew 21 responses before it closed on September 15. The One Arroyo Foundation, not the City, is paying for this planning phase with donor support. The work is supposed to produce a final scope, a cost estimate and a site plan to guide later construction and fundraising. No construction date has been announced.
The foundation's volunteer days are more immediate. On September 26, the City, the California Climate Action Corps and One Arroyo planted natives, cleared invasive plants and improved trail safety in the Arroyo. They asked volunteers to park at Nelson Field Park or on San Pascual Avenue and Stoney Drive, and to leave the San Pascual Stables lot for stable users. Work like that can happen in a single morning. The fountain restoration has no comparable timeline yet.
The Construction Dates, in Order
The Colorado Street Bridge, at the southern end of this stretch of the Arroyo, follows the same pattern. City project reports have moved the target for finishing the design of its permanent railing to June 30, 2028. No final design has been approved, and no construction contract has been awarded. Put the three projects side by side and the published schedule reads like this:
- Now: Overlook concepts in draft; stormwater design at 90 percent; bridge railing options still under evaluation
- June 30, 2028: Target date for completing the Colorado Street Bridge railing design
- 2028: The Olympics, listed first on the Brookside schedule
- Spring 2029: Construction begins beneath Lot I
- 2030: Continued community outreach on the stormwater project
- Fall 2030: Stormwater construction complete
Until spring 2029, then, this year's calendar will play out on the Arroyo as it is now. That means Lot I as a parking lot, the overlook fountain dry, and the bridge with its current railings. The next date on the Brookside calendar is the Heart and Stroke Walk, Saturday morning at 8:45.
George Penner Team follows the Arroyo's landmarks with the same attention it gives the historic homes nearby, from the Batchelder tile at the bird sanctuary to the stone walls that frame the Lower Arroyo. If you own a home along the Arroyo whose history deserves careful documentation, we'd be glad to talk it through.