Evolution of Pasadena's Old Town in Somewhat of a Nutshell
To think Old Town Pasadena would have been destroyed in the 1970s.
By then, Old Town had become seedy, full of dive bars, thrift stores, pawn shops, etc. Pasadena's downtown had moved east to Lake Avenue, and the city had plans to basically knock down all of Old Town Pasadena and turn it into an office park with non-sidewalk-oriented medium-rise office buildings and parking garages. When old landmarks started to fall to the wrecking ball, concerned Pasadenans said "oh HELLZ no!" and thus was born Pasadena's strict ordinances and movements to save old buildings.
Old Town is where the city of Pasadena began, basically. In Los Angeles, as it developed, it started moving west. In Pasadena, as it developed, it started moving east. Anyway, the intersection of Fair Oaks Avenue and Colorado Street (now Boulevard) was the main crossroads of the town. The city was incorporated in 1886, but it was founded in the 1870s, first by Midwesterners wanting to create an agricultural colony, but later it became a resort town for wealthy Easterners and Midwesterners, looking for some place to go for the winter. Many later became permanent residents.
Looking southeast at Fair Oaks and Colorado, sometime between 1908-1910
USC Archive
These people all look so properly dressed. Might they all have been Midwesterners? There's a street in the eastern part of Pasadena called Michillinda Avenue. Michillinda is a hybridization of Michigan, Illinois and Indiana.
Looking east on Colorado at Fair Oaks, circa 1907. Look at that car on the left.
USC Archive
Northwest corner of Fair Oaks and Colorado, circa 1890s.
USC Archive
Looking northeasterly along Colorado at Fair Oaks, sometime around the first decade of the 20th Century.
USC Archive
Look at all of those ornate Victorian façades. You can also see congestion at that intersection. By the time that the automobile became more widely in use, this section of Colorado had become a bottleneck. So in the late 1920s (1928-1929 I believe?), the City embarked on a widening project of Colorado, about a quarter mile of it through what is now Old Town. This involved cutting back 14 feet of buildings on either side. Therefore, all of the old Victorian façades were lost, the fronts of the buildings being remodeled into Deco and Spanish-styles (some buildings even losing their upper floors). If you look at the buildings from their alley sides, though, you can see that the buildings are much older than their fronts would suggest.
Looking east at Fair Oaks and Colorado, 1929. You can see that the corner building has been demolished, and the others are going to be shaved off.
Huntington Library Collection
Looking east on Colorado towards Fair Oaks, circa 1930. The widening is complete.
Huntington Library Collection
Southeast corner of Colorado and Fair Oaks, circa 1930.
Huntington Library Collection
Southeast corner of Colorado and Fair Oaks, August 2011.
Photo by me
More run-down period, southeast corner of Colorado and Fair Oaks, 1989.
LAPL
Run-down but happy times, Rose Parade, 1950
LAPL
Northwest corner of Fair Oaks and Colorado, 1984. Talk about really run-down.
gardnerblog
Northwest corner of Fair Oaks and Colorado, August 2011.
Photo by me
East on Colorado at Fair Oaks, circa 1937.
LAPL
East on Colorado at Fair Oaks, August 2011. In the background there you can see the boxy, Brutalist AT&T building.
Photo by me
Looking north on Fair Oaks at Colorado, circa late 1920s.
Huntington Library Collection
Looking north on Fair Oaks at Colorado, August 2011
Photo by me
In the background of the above photo, you can see one of the bland buildings of the Parsons engineering complex, which was built from the 1970s-1980s. A lot of old buildings were torn down for this office building campus.
Looking west on Union Street from just west of Fair Oaks, 1920s.
Huntington Library Collection
Looking west on Union Street from just west of Fair Oaks, August 2011.
The buildings on the right side from the earlier photo are all gone. This is part of the Parsons engineering complex I mentioned above. To think all of Old Town Pasadena might have been demolished for complexes like this. The Parsons complex consists of two lower-rise buildings and one medium-rise building, with plenty of surface parking and a parking structure.
Photo by me
Looking east on Colorado towards Broadway (now called Arroyo Parkway), circa 1925.
USC Archive
Looking east on Colorado towards Arroyo Parkway, August 2011.
Photo by me
That block just east of Arroyo Parkway has been destroyed, none of those buildings from the previous photo exist anymore. They were replaced by an awful black-windowed office building, which, judging by the architecture, was probably put in in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Across the street from it, those other buildings from the earlier photo are all gone now too, replaced in the early 1970s by what is now the high-rise, ugly (in my opinion) Brutalist AT&T building I mentioned some photos up. This block is a total dead zone in terms of pedestrian activity and things to look at while walking. One of the buildings destroyed to build the AT&T building was the old T.W. Mather Company department store building, a local Pasadena department store. You can see part of it here in this 1936 photo, the ornate building left of center:
USC Archive
Here it is being knocked down in 1971:
Huntington Library Collection
The Dodsworth Building, southwest corner of Fair Oaks and Colorado, circa 1926, according to the caption. Definitely before the pre-widening of Colorado Blvd., but what's confusing me is the tri-light traffic signal, as opposed to the banjo signal.
Huntington Library Collection
The Dodsworth Building, southwest corner of Fair Oaks and Colorado, post-Colorado Blvd. widening--like WAY post widening, like August 2011. As you can see it lost some of its length, and was remodeled into a Spanish-Deco-ish motif. In the early 1990s, this building had a very cool old restaurant called the Dodsworth, which I only ate at once. It was a very cool art-deco diner type of place. In the early 1990s, I didn't really hang out in Pasadena, I thought it was kind of ghetto/barrio at the time, being that Colorado Blvd. was a big cruising street on weekends, with the cars that went boom. As you can see, now there's a Cheesecake Factory there-- I hate Cheesecake Factory, and this particular one often has long lines of Asians waiting outside to get into it.
Photo by me
Looking south on Fair Oaks from just north of Colorado, circa 1910.
USC Archive
Looking south on Fair Oaks from just north of Colorado, August 2011.
Photo by me
While walking around Old Town Pasadena, I saw this 1929 Ford Model A Coupe. I thought it was somehow perfect for this part of town. It was in such great condition, too.
Photos by me