Yes, Dr. Hodel was indeed creepy. He lived for a time in South Pasadena, in a huge house on Monterey Road. Makes me wanna read that book again, written by his son.
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More Pasadena stuff.
Pasadena Athletic Club, 1926.
USC Archive
It was demolished in the late 1970s in the name of "redevelopment." Some credit this particular building's demolition for the movement in Pasadena to save its old buildings.
Huntington Library Collection
In its place, this was built. It opened in 1980. This photo is from 1986.
rapidtransit-press.com
The Broadway anchored the eastern end of the enclosed Plaza Pasadena shopping mall. The mall was a success for a bit, but by the mid-1990s, it became a dead mall. Around 1999, the mall was mostly demolished, redeveloped as an open air shopping mall, with residences on the upper floors, and renamed Paseo Colorado, which opened in 2001. But for some reason, the eastern anchor department store, now a Macy's, was left untouched on the outside (the interior was somewhat updated to look like every other Macy's branch); it basically looks the same as the day it opened.
Andrew Novak, 2007
When the then-new Broadway opened at the Plaza Pasadena, it was after the original Pasadena branch of the Broadway department store was closed and subsequently demolished. You can see it here in the left of this photo, from 1945:
USC Archive
This was Pasadena's newer business district, east of what is now Old Town, during this era. In the center is Pasadena's Spanish Baroque-style city hall, lovingly restored some years ago. It dates from the 1920s, when Pasadena's new civic center was created (Pasadena's previous city hall having been located in Old Town), along the vein of the City Beautiful movement, with the City Hall at the center of a 4-block north/south axis, the Pasadena Central Library anchoring the northern end and the Pasadena Civic Auditorium anchoring the southern end.