Quote:
Originally Posted by HossC
According to the October 4, 1910 edition of the Los Angeles Herald, the YMCA building in Pasadena was at Raymond Avenue and Ramona Street.
I found this clipping through a great article on chandlermuseum.org. It has the story below, and several other clippings from old newspapers
relating to the fundraising.
California Digital Newspaper Collection
Here's another postcard of the building.
www.usgwarchives.net
It doesn't look like Raymond Avenue and Ramona Street actually intersect anymore (if they ever did). The location would be near Pasadena's Memorial
Park, so the YMCA building would have been a near neighbor of the old public library written about by sopas ej back in post #4465. The postcard
below shows the YMCA's building at 235 E Holly Street, which is about a block away from Raymond Avenue, and backs onto Ramona Street. It's dated
by the seller as 1950s. I've been trying to work out when it replaced the building above. A 1987 article in the LA Times discusses the proposed closure
of this facility, and describes it as a "76-year-old building", which would date it as one year younger than the building above. Maybe they meant that
a YMCA building had been there that long.
eBay
This building's still there, although it's lost the balconies on the right. |
Hey all, I've gone back to lurking for a while (not on purpose, but the knowledge everyone else has to share here is always so impressive that I often don't know what more I can possibly add), but I think I can shed a little more light on this one. The YMCA at the NE corner of Marengo & Holly was built in 1910 (architect Arthur Benton). It was then remodeled in the mid 1920's (architects Marston & van Pelt) into the building that currently stands today (apparently it was a heavy remodel that all but obliterated the original design). Originally the Marengo (west) side of the building was the front facade, but it was changed to the Holly (south) side during the remodel. Apparently Holly did not extend through at the time, but this was changed due to the construction of the city hall at the east end of Holly. The remodel was to make the architecture of the building more in line with the Spanish/Mediterranean architecture of the other civic center buildings which were going up at the time.
As for the YMCA building in the postcard, I'd have to guess that it was an entirely different structure, since Raymond & Ramona would have been about a block to the west as
HossC said. It looks to be in the Shingle style which was more popular in the mid to late 1890's and early 1900's. I wouldn't be one bit surprised if it was designed by Fredrick Roerhig, probably the most prolific architect in Pasadena, whose style was often characterized by dramatic curves, towers, and angles like the steep pointed roof the building had.
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