We are long familiar with the wonderful archive maintained by the Pasadena Museum of History and have even used historic photographs from their research library on the elevator doors in the three Park & Walk garages, as well as on a photo-mural in the Schoolhouse garage entrance.   These photographs tell the rich story of Pasadena’s early years and so we are very pleased to announce the launch of the Pasadena Digital History Collaboration!  Now you can browse through hundreds of digital images of Pasadena people and places – for free online. Check it out at www.pasadenadigitalhistory.com or on Facebook under Pasadena Digital History.

Original Pasadena Schoolhouse - Park & Walk Garage mural

A partnership of Pasadena Public Library, Pasadena Museum of History and Pasadena City College’s Shatford Library, the user-friendly site makes it easy to browse through and download files from the collections of all three institutions. Their mission is to build the largest, comprehensive database of Pasadena images, stories and publications available for students, researchers and history buffs. The collections are currently divided into four categories: Tournament of Roses; Rose Bowl; Busch Gardens; and Old Town Pasadena.  There are currently 87 items in the Old Town Pasadena category, and you can browse them now here.

Help Identify Mystery Photos

Pasadena Digital History needs your help! If you recognize any people, places, or things in one of these photos, please share with them what you know on Flickr.

For more information, e-mail info@pasadenadigitalhistory.com or call (626) 744-4279.

Our wonderful Old Pasadena Holiday Celebration kicks off this Friday, November 27 with Santa’s Arrival and Tree Lighting in One Colorado Courtyard.  Saturday and Sunday, more than 50 merchants and restaurants are participating in our Holiday Open House by offering special in-store promotions, treats and events. Every $50 you spend in Old Pasadena on Saturday and Sunday qualifies you to enter our drawing for a $1,000 Old Pasadena shopping spree.  More details here.

To prepare for the festivities, we have been working hard to “set the stage” in Old Pasadena.  Last week Anna Addis, our VP of Operations, stayed up all night long to oversee the annual installation of the Reindeer Decorations, which are placed on four rooftops in Old Pasadena via cranes and careful maneuvering.  This is done in the wee hours of the morning so as not to disturb the regular traffic flow.

Then Barton Designs installs the spotlights to highlight our reindeer friends in their perches above the hustle and bustle of Colorado Boulevard.  They also install projected lighting (“gobos”) of snowflakes and other holiday themes to cascade along the sides of Old Pasadena buildings and alley walkways.  This year we’ve added more locations around the intersection of Fair Oaks Avenue and Colorado Blvd.  Locations include Pottery Barn, Louise’s Trattoria, Crate and Barrel, Distant Lands, Schoolhouse Parking Garage, and several alley walkways.  So, look for them when you visit us.

Dekra-lite, another team of specialists, installs the  lit snowflake falls on the streetlights to round out the holiday decor.  Last year they installed the lighting on the glorious Ficus trees of Green Street.  It was such a success with residents, merchants, and visitors alike, that we decided to leave the lighting up year round.  Don’t miss this great evening photo op.

To top things off, this year we added almost 150 poinsettias to our landscaping around the parking garages and alley walkways.  We’ve even switched out the music on the alleys to light holiday fare… so don’t miss the celebration this upcoming weekend.  We are ready for the holidays to begin.

Jim Plotkin - Old Pasadena stakeholder

Jim Plotkin has made a significant investment in Old Pasadena and is as committed as anyone to keeping the District vital and competitive, particularly in this tough economy.  Jim started out in retail in 1964 as the owner of the Pasadena Vacuum and Sewing Company located in the Stanton Building at 80 East Colorado Blvd.  He purchased the building and then refurbished the property in 1972.  The Stanton Building is now the home of the Sprint store.

T-Mobile architectural detail

This would be the first of many properties Jim would acquire and restore in Old Pasadena through the years.  In addition to the Stanton Building, Jim now has investments in several other Old Pasadena landmarks.  He owns the Web & Seward Building located at 124 East Colorado Blvd.  The Web & Seward Building once housed the original drug store in Old Pasadena, and is currently the home of Pasha Grill.  Jim also owns the Holly Building, located at 2 East Holly Street, which was formerly the old Holly Hotel.  Re-furbished in 1991, it now includes such businesses as Lula Mae and Mignon Chocolate.

T-Mobile façade - freshly painted

Finally, there is the T-Mobile Building.  With its Art Deco design, this building dates back pre-1900 and was originally a pawn shop.  In order to preserve the historic integrity of the building, Jim commissioned Paul Rogers, with Drawger, who researched the historic art deco color schemes to be used in the preservation of the buildings façade. Working with the City of Pasadena Design & Historic Preservation office, Jim and Paul made the final color selection.  “I am so pleased with the way the restored façade came out.  It has re-branded the original art deco vibe from the early 1900s.”

As a founding member of the Pasadena Business Improvement District (PBID), Jim was instrumental in the re-development project which raised funds for the Schoolhouse and De Lacey Parking Facilities.  As a board member and active investor in Old Pasadena, Jim’s passion for a better Old Pasadena is much needed and greatly appreciated by us all.

Posted by:  Anna Addis, VP of Operations

Photos by: Janet Swartz

Indiana Colony 1874 - Stereoscopic picture

1.     Present day Pasadena was settled by a group of Indianans seeking fairer weather following the exceptionally cold winter of 1872-73. The Indiana Colony was incorporated on January 31, 1874, and was later renamed Pasadena because the name “Indiana Colony” was rejected by the Postmaster General.

2.     The official paint color for all street furniture in Old Pasadena is “Tavern Square Green“, as stipulated in the Streetscapes and Alley Walkways Plan.

Original Schoolhouse

3.     The Schoolhouse parking garage is named for the Fair Oaks schoolhouse, which was relocated shortly after the turn of the century when it became exposed to the bustling activity of the developing center of town and potential danger to the children.

4.     The Old Pasadena Property-based Business Improvement District (PBID) was renewed by petition vote in 2005 for another five year term, by an overwhelming 94% approval by the property owners.  The Continuation Campaign is getting underway for the 2010 renewal.

5.     In 1929 Colorado Street (now Colorado Boulevard) was widened by 14 feet on both sides. Many of the elaborate Victorian faces of the buildings were lost to reconstruction and replaced with Spanish and Art Deco designs.

Old Pasadena Clean Team

6.     The annual Tournament of Roses Parade attracts hundreds of thousands of spectators to Colorado Boulevard and they begin lining the parade route at noon on December 31 in preparation for the New Year’s Day kick-off at 8:00am.  Old Pasadena’s Clean Team has the streets and sidewalks clean by noon so that merchants can open for business and visitors can enjoy shopping and dining.

7.     The Ambassador Guides patrol the District walking a total of miles in one year that more than circle the earth.

8.     Many people know the downtown area as “old town”, but the team of people working on the revitalization plan in the 1980s christened the area “Old Pasadena” to distinguish it from so many other “old towns” and mark the new beginning.

9.  17,434,560 square feet of sidewalk in Old Pasadena are pressure washed annually.

Rose Parade ca. 1905

10.  The first Tournament of Roses featuring rose-bedecked carriages was staged in 1890 by members of Pasadena’s Valley Hunt Club, former residents of the East and Midwest eager to showcase their new home’s mild winter weather.

11.  The intersection of Fair Oaks Avenue and Colorado Boulevard in Old Pasadena is the zero-zero, east-west, north-south postal division of Pasadena.

12.  The recently redesigned website oldpasadena.org receives as many as 1,300 unique visitors a day and the average time spent on the site is 10 minutes.

Armory Center for the Arts

13.  The building that now houses the Armory Center for the Arts on Raymond above Holly was originally built for the California National Guard.  The old brick building on Holly across from the Pasadena Senior Center was the National Guard motor depot.

14.  1,992,090 cars enter and exit the three City-owned Park & Walk garages annually: Schoolhouse, Marriott, and De Lacey.

15.  The Braley Building on South Raymond Avenue was originally constructed in 1906 as a bicycle factory and its “wheel-and-spokes” motif remains to this day throughout the architectural details, both inside and out. The building has just begun renovation by its new owners, the Church of Scientology.

Green Street - Ficus trees

16.  At the same time that Colorado Boulevard was being expanded in 1929, Kansas Street was also widened and renamed Green Street, now known for its gorgeous canopy of Ficus trees, which are now lit year round.

17.  Colorado Boulevard, which runs straight through Old Pasadena, was a segment of the original Route 66.

18.  123 trash cans are emptied twice daily by our Clean Team.

Williams Store

19.  Restaurant Barney’s LTD was named for “Barney” Williams, who did double duty as the postmaster, and ran the first general store.  His home place was on the site now occupied by Central Park.

20.     Old Pasadena receives 30,000 weekend visitors on average.

City Hall ca. 1902 - The Container Store today

21.  In 1902 City Hall occupied the building on the corner of Union Street and Fair Oaks Avenue.  City Hall was relocated several times.  In 2003 the building was retrofitted and remodeled to resemble the original building. It  is now home to The Container Store.

22.  Pasadena means “crown of the valley” in the Minnesota Chippewa language.  Dr. Thomas Elliott, one of the city’s founders, contacted an Indian missionary friend in Michigan who had worked with the Minnesota Chippewa Indians and submitted the name for translation.

Santa Fe Station is now the site of La Grande Orange Cafe.

23.  The Metro Gold Line Del Mar Station was originally the Santa Fe Depot of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway.  La Grande Orange Café now occupies the original station building.

24.  Built in 1887, the three-story red brick Victorian at 107 S. Fair Oaks Avenue was a showroom for a stage coach or carriage company. In the early 1900s it was converted to the Hotel Mikado and served the Japanese American community. In the 1940s it became Pasadena’s first black-owned hotel, the Hotel Carver which housed a prominent jazz club in the basement, and finally closed in 1985.  Now several boutique shops occupy the street level retail spaces including Jumping Jellyfish, Bianca Luce, Rising Sun Denim, Elements Kitchen, and Images Nail and Spa. Check out Pasadena Daily Photo’s blog post “Hotel Carver: Then and Now” with a great photo of the building.

Raymond Theater

25.  “Pulp Fiction” (1994) shot scenes in Kendall Alley (off of Union Street and Raymond Avenue) and the exterior of the Raymond Theater at the corner of Raymond Avenue and Holly Street.  The historic theater was also used in the filming of “Spinal Tap” (1984).  Kendall Alley was also a location for the filming of “Paper Moon” (1973) and more recently, “Live Free and Die Hard” (2007), which also featured Brenart Café.

Historic photos:  Courtesy of the Pasadena Museum of History Archives.

Grand Hotel on Colorado and Fair Oaks, ca. 1883

All of us here at OPMD particularly love the projects that celebrate the history of Old Pas. We each have fond memories of our early encounters with this place, and are passionate about sharing the past with Pasadena’s residents and visitors.

When I came to work for Old Pasadena Management a little over three years ago, one of my first big projects (and still one of my favorites) was based on the history of Pasadena’s early downtown. I entrenched myself in the archives of the Pasadena Museum of History to select vintage photographs that would cover the elevator doors of the three Park & Walk parking garages. The museum’s collection is extensive and rich, and the hardest part of the project was choosing only the dozen or so that we needed. The public portion of the Marriott Hotel garage on North Raymond features old store fronts, while the De Lacey garage features Rose Parade memories, and the Schoolhouse garage houses images of Pasadena landmarks and streetscapes.

The response was overwhelming… people LOVED them. Jeannette O’Malley, the Executive Director of the Museum, told me she had friends leaving her messages of congratulations because of them! People have literally gone from floor to floor just to see them all, and we still continue to hear about them; just last week we got a charming email from a woman telling us how much she and her husband enjoy them.

First streetcars arrive in Pasadena, ca. 1895

Of all the photos we’ve worked with, my personal favorite is the 1895 image of the town celebrating the first streetcars coming to Pasadena in front of the old Ward Block building. The Ward building was one of the earliest commercial buildings in Old Pasadena and housed the bank, the hotel, the restaurant, the ice cream parlor… It existed, almost on its lonesome, in the midst of acres of orange groves at the SW corner of Fair Oaks and Colorado, currently the home of The Cheesecake Factory! I love the image for its sense of community, the proud unfurled flag, and those magical streetcars.

(We’ll talk about them another time… stay tuned!) The punch-line is that those original cars had to be pulled into town by horses because the tracks weren’t completely laid yet! It still didn’t stop the party. John Wilson would like that. But that’s a story I’ll let Jim Plotkin tell.

In the meantime, who knows why the parking garage at Fair Oaks and Green is called the Schoolhouse Garage? Check out the massive photograph mural at the Fair Oaks entrance for a pretty good clue!

We’re always searching for great antique photographs of Old Pasadena. If you have any in your collection, we’d love your permission to possibly use them in a future project.

Photographs courtesy of Pasadena Museum of History.

Posted by:  Steve Mulheim, President & CEO