What is Suicide Stairs?

The Suicide Stairs represent the inability of a small community to change or even to protect its citizens. Farris makes a snide comment about these stairs when Gwendy tells him the story of how the landmark got its nickname. At that point, only two people had killed themselves by jumping from the stairs. The town leaders had decided that was not enough to renovate the stairs so they would be safer or tear them down completely. When Olive jumps from the stairs and kills herself, Gwendy takes care of the morbidly named landmark by destroying them using the red button on the button box.