Pasadena ( ) is a city in
Los Angeles County,
California
, United
States
. Famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl
football game and
the Tournament of Roses
Parade, Pasadena is the home of many leading scientific and
cultural institutions, including the California
Institute of Technology
(Caltech), Pasadena City College (PCC), the
Jet Propulsion
Laboratory
(the leading robotics and spacecraft design and
manufacturing NASA
center),
Art Center
College of Design
, the Pasadena Playhouse
, California School of Culinary Arts Pasadena, the
Norton Simon
Museum of Art
and the Pacific Asia Museum
.As of the 2000 census, the city population
was 133,936.
As of 2007, the estimated population is
146,518, making it the 160th largest
city in the United
States. Pasadena is the 6th largest city in
Los Angeles County, and the main
cultural center of the
San Gabriel
Valley. It is the host city to numerous TV shows, with notable
ones including
Chuck Lorre's successful
sitcom
The Big Bang
Theory.
Geography
Pasadena is located at (34.156098, -118.131808). The elevation is
864 feet (263 m) above sea level.
The greater Pasadena area is bounded by
the Raymond Fault line, the San Rafael Hills, and the San Gabriel
Mountains
.
According to the
United
States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of
60.0 km
2 (23.2 mi
2).
59.8 km
2 (23.1 mi
2) of it is land
and 0.2 km
2 (0.1 mi
2) of it (0.30%)
is water.
Pasadena
is 10 miles (16 kilometers) northeast of downtown Los
Angeles
. It is bordered by 11 communities—Highland
Park
, Eagle Rock
, South Pasadena
, San Marino
, Temple City
, San Gabriel
, Arcadia
, Sierra Madre
, La Cañada Flintridge
, and Altadena
. The communities of Eagle Rock, Highland
Park and Garvanza are incorporated within the city of Los Angeles
and Altadena is an unincorporated part of Los Angeles County.
Neighborhoods
Climate
Pasadena has a
Mediterranean
climate (
Köppen
climate classification Csa).
Pasadena
averages nearly 6" more rain a year than nearby Los Angeles due to
the rain shadow effect created by the
San Gabriel
Mountains.
Snow is rare but not unknown in Pasadena. The heaviest snowfall in
Pasadena history came in January 11, 1949 when 6" fell in the city
with 12" in the foothills.
Demographics
As of the
census of 2000, there were 133,936
people, 51,844 households, and 29,862 families residing in the
city. The
population density was
2,238.7/km
2 (5,798.7/mi
2). There were 54,132
housing units at an average density of 904.8/km
2
(2,343.6/mi
2). The racial makeup of the city was 53.36%
White, 14.42% African American, 0.71% Native American, 10.00%
Asian, 0.10% Pacific Islander, 16.01% from other races, and 5.39%
from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 33.40%
of the population.
There were 51,844 households out of which 27.1% had children under
the age of 18 living with them, 41.2% were
married couples living together, 12.1% had a female
householder with no husband present, and 42.4% were non-families.
33.7% of all households were made up of individuals and 9.3% had
someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average
household size was 2.52 and the average family size was 3.30.
In the city the population was spread out with 23.1% under the age
of 18, 9.3% from 18 to 24, 34.9% from 25 to 44, 20.6% from 45 to
64, and 12.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was
34 years. For every 100 females there were 95.7 males. For every
100 females age 18 and over, there were 93.0 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $61,269, and the
median income for a family was $73,143. Males had a median income
of $41,120 and $36,435 for females. The
per capita income for the city was
$28,186. About 11.6% of families and 15.9% of the population were
below the
poverty line, including 21.3%
of those under age 18 and 10.5% of those age 65 or over.
Government
Local Government
According to the city’s most recent Comprehensive Annual Financial
Report, the city’s various funds had $583.0 million in Revenues,
$518.1 million in expenditures, $1,633.4 million in total assets,
$732.3 million in total liabilities, and $323.4 million in cash and
investments.
The structure of the management and coordination of city services
is:
| City Department |
Director |
| City Manager |
Michael J. Beck |
| Assistant City Manager |
Julie Gutierrez |
| Acting Assistant City Manager |
Stephanie De Wolfe |
| Acting Director of Finance |
Steve Mermell |
| Fire Chief |
Dennis J. Downs |
| Director of Human Resources |
Karen S. Ezell |
| Director of Human Services and Recreation |
Patricia Lane |
| Director of Information Services |
Jan Sanders |
| Chief Information Technology Officer |
John Pratt |
| Chief Prosecutor |
Constance Orozco-Morgan |
| Director of Planning and Development |
Richard J. Bruckner |
| Police
Chief |
Bernard K. Melekian |
| Director of Public Health |
Takashi Wada |
| Director of Public Works |
Martin Pastucha |
| Director of Transportation |
Fred Dock |
| General Manager of Water and Power |
Phyllis Currie |
| CEO of Pasadena Center Operating Company |
Michael Ross |
| General Manager, Rose Bowl Operating Company |
Darryl Dunn |
Politics
In the
state
legislature Pasadena is located in the 21st
Senate District, represented by
Democrat
Jack Scott, and in the 44th
Assembly District,
represented by Democratic
Anthony
J. Portantino. Federally,
Pasadena is located in
California's 29th
congressional district, which has a
Cook PVI of D +12 and is
represented by Democrat
Adam Schiff.
Though Pasadena has consistently leaned liberal in state politics,
in national politics it was a stronghold for moderate
Republicans until the 1990s,
and was represented in Congress by Republicans from 1945 to
2001.
History
See History of
Pasadena, California
Transportation
Public transit
Gold Line Memorial Park Station.
Pasadena is the northern terminus of the
Los
Angeles Metro Gold Line
light rail, which originates at the
Atlantic Station in East
Los Angeles.
There are currently 6 Gold Line stations in
Pasadena: Fillmore Station
, Del Mar Station
in Old Pasadena,
Memorial
Park Station
in Old Pasadena, Lake Station
in Downtown, Allen Station
and Sierra Madre Villa Station
. Plans are under consideration to extend the
Gold Line east through several additional foothill communities of
the
San Gabriel Valley.
Pasadena is also served by various bus services.
Pasadena ARTS exclusively serves the city
while Los Angeles metro area bus services
Foothill Transit,
LADOT,
Metro
Local and
Metro Rapid also serve
Pasadena.
Airports
Bob Hope
Airport
(also known as Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport)
in nearby Burbank
serves as the regional airport for Pasadena.
The airport is owned and operated by the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena
Airport Authority, which is controlled by the governments of the
three cities in its name.
Since most destinations from Bob Hope
Airport are within the western United States, Los Angeles
International Airport
in Los Angeles
and LA/Ontario International
Airport
in Ontario
are also important airports less than an hour from
Pasadena.
Freeways and highways
Four freeways run through Pasadena and Pasadena is a
control city for all of them.
The most important is
the Foothill
Freeway which enters the northwestern portion of the city from
La Cañada Flintridge. The Foothill Freeway initially runs due
south, passing the Rose Bowl
before its junction with the Ventura Freeway.
At this
interchange, the Foothill Freeway shifts its alignment and
direction, becoming an east-west freeway, exiting the city on its
eastern boundary before entering Arcadia. The Foothill Freeway connects Pasadena with
San
Fernando
(westbound) and San
Bernardino
(eastbound).
The
Ventura Freeway
starts at the junction of the
Foothill
Freeway at the edge of downtown Pasadena and travels westward.
This
freeway is the main connector to Bob Hope Airport and the San Fernando Valley
.
A spur of the controversial
Long Beach Freeway is also
located in Pasadena.
The Long Beach Freeway was intended to
connect Long
Beach
to Pasadena but a gap, known as the South Pasadena Gap,
between Alhambra
and Pasadena has not been completed due to legal
battles involving the city of South Pasadena. The spur
starts at the junction of the
Ventura Freeway and
Foothill
Freeway and travels south along the eastern edge of Old
Pasadena with two exits for
Colorado
Boulevard and Del Mar Boulevard before ending at an at-grade
intersection with
California Boulevard.
Currently, Caltrans is researching the possibility of using
advanced tunneling technologies to build the Long Beach Freeway
under South Pasadena without disturbing the
residential neighborhoods on the surface. This
would create twin 4.5-mile-long tunnels, which would be the longest
in the United States.
The
Pasadena Freeway is the first
freeway in California, connecting Los Angeles with Pasadena alongside the
Arroyo Seco and is the
primary access to Downtown Los Angeles
. The freeway enters the southern part of the
city from South
Pasadena
. Only one exit is actually inside city
limits, the southbound exit connecting to State Street with access
to
Fair Oaks Avenue. At Glenarm
Street, the freeway ends at the six- and four-lane Arroyo Parkway
continues northward to Old Pasadena.
Three state highways enter the city of Pasadena. Arroyo Parkyway
, maintained by the city
of Pasadena, runs from the termination of the Pasadena Freeway at
Glenarm Street to
Colorado
Boulevard in Old Town Pasadena. While Arroyo Parkway continues
north two more blocks, SR 110 ends at Colorado Boulevard.
Rosemead Boulevard (SR 19) is a state highway on the
eastern edge of Pasadena and unincorporated Pasadena
from Huntington
Drive to Foothill
Boulevard.
An
obscure portion of the Angeles
Crest Highway (SR 2) in
the San Gabriel
Mountains cuts through Pasadena near the Angeles Crest Ranger
Station. This stretch of highway in the Angeles
National Forest
is north of La Cañada
Flintridge
and west of Mount Wilson
and is approximately in elevation.
Historic
U.S. Route 66 used to run through
Pasadena until it was deleted in 1964. The historic highway entered
Pasadena from the east on
Colorado
Boulevard and then jogged south on Arroyo Parkway before
becoming part of the
Pasadena
Freeway .
Surface streets
The intersection of
Fair Oaks Avenue and
Colorado Boulevard in
Old Pasadena is the zero-zero, east-west,
north-south postal division of Pasadena.
Culture
Performing arts
The
Pasadena Symphony, founded in
1928, offers several concerts a year at the Pasadena
Civic Center
and the Pasadena Pops
plays at nearby Descanso
Gardens
. The Civic Center also holds a few traveling
Broadway
shows each year. The Pasadena
Playhouse presents seven shows a season, each show running
six to eight weeks. The
Furious Theatre Company is one of
several small theatre companies in Pasadena. They are currently
housed in the
Carrie Hamilton
Theatre adjacent to the Pasadena Playhouse. Boston Court
Performing Arts Center, opened in 2003, is near Lake and Colorado.
Its resident theatre company, the award-winning The Theatre @
Boston Court presents four productions a year. Music at the Court
presents numerous music concerts each year, ranging from classical
to
jazz. The Friends of the Levitt organization
presents a free summer concert series in Memorial Park, with the
2008 summer season marking its sixth year.
Beckman
Auditorium and other venues on the Caltech campus present a wide range of performing arts,
lectures, films, classes and entertainment events, mainly during
the academic year.
The
California Philharmonic performs two series in Pasadena, Cal Phil
at the Ambassador
Auditorium
from November through April, and Cal Phil Music
Martinis & the Maestro in the Romanesque Room at the Green
Hotel from January to May. They also perform Cal Phil
Festival on the Green at nearby Los Angeles County Arboretum &
Botanic Garden in Arcadia from July to September, and from July to
August Cal Phil at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. In
conjunction with The Old Mill Foundation, they perform a summer
chamber concert series Cal Phil at the Mill in San Marino.
For more than ten years, twice annually Pasadena's cultural
institutions have opened their doors for free during
ArtNight Pasadena, offering the public a
rich sampling of quality art, artifacts and music within the city.
This has evolved into the yearly
PasadenART Weekend, a three day citywide
event which, as of 2007, encompasses ArtNight, ArtWalk,
ArtHeritage, ArtMarket, and ArtPerformance, a vibrant outdoor music
event showcasing emerging and nationally recognized talent. Free
concerts take place on multiple stages throughout Old
Pasadena.
In 2007, the native Pasadena band
Ozma
reunited and produced the album "Pasadena" in tribute to the city.
The album photos and artwork were shot at the Colorado Street
Bridge.
The 1960s song
The
Little Old Lady from Pasadena parodies a popular Southern
California image of Pasadena as home to a large population of aged
eccentrics. In the song, an elderly lady drives a powerful
"
Super Stock Dodge"
muscle car and is "the terror of Colorado
Boulevard."
Richard H.
Court of Appeals in Pasadena
Visual arts
A number of artists of national repute, such as
Guy Rose,
Alson S.
Clark,
Marion Wachtel and
Ernest A. Batchelder, made Pasadena their home in
the early twentieth century. The formation of the
California Art Club,
Pasadena Arts Institute and the
Pasadena Society of
Artists heralded the city's emergence as a regional center for
the visual arts.
The
Norton Simon
Museum
contains over 2000 years of art from the
Western world and Asia. The Pacific Asia
Museum, with its tranquil garden in the center, features
art from the many countries of Asia.
The
nearby Pasadena Museum of California
Art
hosts many temporary exhibits from Californian
artists. The Gamble
House
, a National
Historic Landmark, is a masterpiece of the Arts and Crafts Movement open for
tours. The Huntington Library
and its botanical garden are adjacent to Pasadena
in the city of San Marino.
Located on
Brookside
Park is the
Kidspace Children’s
Museum.
Literature
In 2002
David Ebershoff published
the novel
Pasadena. The novel won praise for its accurate
recreation of Pasadena before World War II.
Radio
Pasadena has been home to a number of notable radio stations. In
1967 radio iconoclasts Tom and Raechel Donahue took over an aging
studio in the basement of the Pasadena Presbyterian Church and
introduced Los Angeles to FM freeform radio. Broadcasting under the
KPPC-FM call sign at 106.7 FM it
quickly became the voice of the counterculture and provided the
soundtrack to LA’s hippie era. Early on-air personalities included
Michael McKean,
David Lander,
Harry
Shearer and
Dr. Demento. The staff
was fired en masse in 1971 and the station lost its distinctive
personality.
By 1976 KPPC had changed owners, station managers and its format
and would reemerge on the radio dial as
KROQ
106.7. Broadcasting from cramped studios on Los Robles Ave in
central Pasadena, it wasn’t long before KROQ would become one of
the most influential radio stations in the United States. Soon
after being purchased by
Infinity
Broadcasting in 1986, KROQ was moved part and parcel to new
studios in nearby Burbank, and eventually ending up in Los Angeles
proper.
Today the primary radio station in Pasadena goes by the call sign
KPCC located at 89.3 FM. Broadcasting from the
Pasadena City College campus, this public radio station carries
many of the best shows from
National Public Radio but maintains a
fierce independent streak, committing a large chunk of air time to
presenting local and state news. Accordingly, the station has
received numerous awards for journalistic excellence and continues
to be an important part of the city’s heritage.
Newspaper
Pasadena's largest newspaper is the
Pasadena Star-News. The alternative
Pasadena Weekly is
published by
Southland
Publishing.
Education
Former campus of Ambassador College on
Orange Grove Blvd.
The
California Institute of
Technology is in the southern-central area of Pasadena, with
Pasadena
City College
located just to the northeast. Fuller
Theological Seminary
, one of the largest multidenominational seminaries
in the world , sits just east of downtown Pasadena. The California School of
Culinary Arts is located on Green Street and Madison. The
school offers the
Le Cordon Bleu
accreditation and has five campuses around Pasadena.
Pacific Oaks College is located next to
Pasadena's National Historic Landmark — The Gamble
House. The Art Center College of Design is in the San Rafael Hills overlooking the Rose
Bowl, and ranks as one of the top five art
schools in the United
States and one of the top 10 art
schools worldwide ; it is particularly known for its design programs. The Jet Propulsion
Laboratory (managed for NASA by Caltech) is in
Pasadena. Ambassador
College was opened in the western part of the city just east
and south of the route of the Rose Parade.
The Pasadena campus
of Ambassador was consolidated with its sister campus in Big Sandy,
Texas
in 1990. The campus is now home to
Maranatha High School.
The
Pasadena Unified
School District encompasses Pasadena, Altadena and Sierra
Madre. The private
Westridge
School for college-bound girls is located on South Orange Grove
Boulevard. The Chandler School is another private co-educational
K-9 school in the city.
La Salle High School is located
on the border of Pasadena and
Sierra
Madre on Michillinda Blvd.
St. Philip the Apostle School is a mid-size parochial elementary
school at the intersection of Hill Ave. and Green St., directly
adjacent to Pasadena City College.
The
Polytechnic School is a
private K-12 institution, adjacent to Caltech's campus.
The
American Academy
of Dramatic Arts founded in 1884 in New York, opened its
Pasadena campus in 1974. However, in 2001 the conservatory moved
from Pasadena to Hollywood. Training
actors
for the
stage in a two year program, the
conservatory was the first school in the United States to offer
professional education in the field of acting.
Point Loma
Nazarene University
was located in Pasadena for many years before
moving to San Diego
County
, and held the both the names of Pasadena University
and Pasadena College.
Colorado Blvd. is one of the busiest
shopping streets in Pasadena.
Shopping and dining
Old Pasadena
Old Pasadena is the revitalized old
downtown that spans 21 blocks and provides both locals and tourists
a genuinely urban mix for living, shopping, dining, and
entertainment. It boasts upscale retail shops like Diesel, J Crew,
Guess, Kenneth Cole, Juicy Couture, and Tiffany's. A wide variety
of restaurants, nightclubs, posh outdoor cafés, pubs, and comedy
clubs keep this vibrant part of the city alive seven days a week.
Locals refer to it as "Old Town".
Paseo Colorado
Paseo Colorado is an upscale shopping
mall designed to be a modern urban village. It's an open-air mall
that covers three city blocks and includes upscale shops like Tommy
Bahama, Coach, BCBG Max Azria, Maxstudio, Sephora, and Lucky Brand.
Restaurants include an Islands, PF Changs, Yard House, Tokyo Wako,
and Porte Alegre. Paseo Colorado is anchored on the west end by
upscale grocery store Gelson's, on the east end by Macy's and
Pacific Paseo 14 Theaters center's the middle portion of the mall,
along with 400 loft-style condominiums called Terrace Apartment
Homes.
Rose Bowl Flea Market
The
Rose
Bowl
Flea Market is a large swap meet that involves thousands of dealers and
tens of thousands of visitors in and around the grounds of the Rose
Bowl. The merchandise on display ranges from old world
antiques to California pottery to vintage clothing. The flea market
has been held every second Sunday of the month, rain or shine,
since 1967.
South Lake
A shopping district is located in the
South Lake Avenue
neighborhood. On Lake Avenue is a Macy's department store and
Furniture Gallery. A California historical landmark, the building
(formerly Bullock's department store) was constructed in the mid
1940's and recently underwent a major renovation to preserve its
unique and historic character.
Economy
According to the City's 2008 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report,
the top employers in the city are:
| # |
Employer |
# of Employees |
% of Total City Employment |
| 1 |
Jet Propulsion Laboratory |
5,000 |
4.9% |
| 2 |
Pasadena City College |
3,311 |
3.3% |
| 3 |
Huntington Memorial Hospital |
3,300 |
3.3% |
| 4 |
Kaiser Permanente |
3,000 |
3.0% |
| 5 |
California Institute of Technology |
2,650 |
2.6% |
| 6 |
AT&T |
2,525 |
2.5% |
| 7 |
City of Pasadena |
2,298 |
2.3% |
| 8 |
Pasadena Unified School District |
2,200 |
2.2% |
| 9 |
Bank of America |
1,300 |
1.3% |
| 10 |
Parsons Corporation |
784 |
0.8% |
| 11 |
The Langham Huntington Hotel |
570 |
0.6% |
| 12 |
Avon Products |
425 |
0.4% |
|
Sports
Rose Bowl
Main entrance to the Rose Bowl
Stadium
The
Rose
Bowl, a National Historic Landmark, is
host of the oldest and most famous college football postseason bowl game, the Tournament of Roses Rose Bowl
Game, every New Year's Day. It is the home field for the
UCLA Bruins football team and has hosted five
Super Bowls.
Important soccer
matches include the 1984 Summer
Olympics, the final of the FIFA
World Cup 1994 hosted in USA, and the
final in FIFA Women's World
Cup 1999.
The Rose
Bowl stadium was the home ground for the Los Angeles Galaxy of Major League Soccer from the team's
inception in 1996 until it moved into the soccer-specific Home Depot
Center
in 2003; the venue additionally hosted the 1998
MLS Cup.
Rose Bowl Aquatics Center
Los Angeles is seeking another
National Football League team to replace the
Rams and the
Raiders, both of whom played in Los Angeles
from 1946-1994 and 1982-1994 respectively. In November, 2006, a
voter initiative to encourage a deal between the Rose Bowl and the
NFL failed at the polls, effectively ruling out a return of the NFL
to Pasadena.
The
Rose Bowl
Aquatics Center
is an aquatics facility located adjacent to the
Rose Bowl Stadium. The pools hosted the final practices of
the 2000 US Olympic swimming and diving team. In 2008, the facility
held the US National Diving Championships.
Rose Bowl Tennis is Pasadena's popular tennis facility located just
to the south of the Rose Bowl football stadium.
Marathon
The City of Pasadena planned to host the inaugural Pasadena
Marathon on November 16, 2008.
However, the event was canceled because of
smoke and ash from the Sayre
Fire
. As of December 8, 2008, the Pasadena
Marathon was rescheduled for March 22, 2009.
Miscellaneous
Tournament of Roses Parade
Pasadena is home to the
Tournament of Roses Parade, held
each year on January 1 (unless that day is a Sunday, in which case
the event is held on January 2). The first
parade was held in 1890 and was originally sponsored
by the
Valley Hunt Club, a Pasadena
social club. The impetus for holding the
parade was, as stated by one of the members, Professor Charles F.
Holder,
"In New York, people are buried in snow. Here
our flowers are blooming and our oranges are about to bear.
Let's hold a festival to tell the world about our
paradise."
By 1895, the festivities had become larger than the Valley Hunt
Club could manage, and the Tournament of Roses Association was then
formed to take charge of the festival. In 1902, it was decided that
a football game would be added to the day's events. The game, now
known as the Rose Bowl, would become the first post-season college
football game ever.
The first game was between Stanford
University
and the University of Michigan
. After suffering a tremendous financial
loss, the Tournament of Roses Association decided to hold Roman
chariot races in lieu of football games. However, in 1916, football
returned. When it became clear that the stands in Tournament Park
were too small to facilitate the crowd, the Tournament's President,
William Leishman, proposed that a
stadium be built to house the game. The Rose Bowl, designed by
noted southern California architect Myron Hunt, was completed in
1923. The Rose Bowl has since been selling out to crowds since
1947. In 1998, the Rose Bowl celebrated its 52nd anniversary and
became the longest running tradition of its kind.
The
Rose Parade, as it is familiarly known, still
features elaborate floats. According to the organizers, "Every inch
of every float must be covered with flowers or other natural
materials, such as leaves, seeds or bark. Volunteer workers swarm
over the floats in the days after Christmas, their hands and
clothes covered with glue and petals. The most delicate flowers are
placed in individual vials of water, which are set into the float
one by one." Over the two plus hours that the parade occurs, floats
and participants travel over five miles (8 km) of terrain and
pass by over one million viewers who generally camp out over New
Year's Eve to have prime viewing spots along the parade
route.
The Rose Parade is satirized by the popular
Doo Dah Parade, an annual January event in
Pasadena.
South Orange Grove Boulevard
Tournament House
One of several exclusive residential districts in Pasadena, South
Orange Grove Boulevard has been a home for the rich and famous
since the early 20th century. Because of the number of landmark
mansions, the street earned the name "Millionaire's Row," an
appropriate sobriquet considering that the estates that once lined
this spacious boulevard and the surrounding neighborhood read like
a Who’s Who of American consumer products. Some of the more notable
families include:
- Adolphus
Busch, co-founder of Anheuser-Busch
, brewer of Budweiser beer. It was
here that this wealthy easterner took full advantage of the area’s
mild climate and established the first of a series of Busch Gardens. When Busch died at his Pasadena
estate his wife generously offered the property to the City of
Pasadena as a park, an offer the city inexplicably refused.
Wrigley Mansion in 1959; now
Tournament House
- Thaddeus S. C. Lowe. His home originally sat on South
Orange Grove. The mammoth main house rose to a sixth story solarium
which became an observatory. This was more than a visible display
of wealth as Lowe was generous patron of the astronomical sciences.
He went
on to establish the Mount Lowe Railway
in the mountains above Pasadena into which he sank
all his fortunes.
The Rose Garden at the former Wrigley
mansion ground
- Henry Markham who lived adjacent
to Busch and became the 18th Governor of the state of California
(1891-1895).
Not all of the vast homes along Orange Grove belonged to the
eastern titans of industry. As was typical of the early 20th
century, many of the wealthy were doctors, politicians and retired
military officers, with the odd Right Reverend sprinkled in. Some
of the other notable personalities who lived in this area include
notorious occultist
Aleister
Crowley and brilliant, but troubled, rocket scientist
John Whiteside Parsons. Parson shared
his residence with, among other notables, L. Ron Hubbard, the
founder of Scientology. In fact Parsons died in an explosion while
testing a new rocket fuel in his home laboratory just off of Orange
Grove Boulevard in 1952.
Just behind Orange Grove Blvd., lies Grand Avenue, another historic
estate lined street. At various times in the past, Grand Avenue was
home to Jared Torrance, the founder of the City of Torrance; J.B.
Van Nuys, the founder of the City of Van Nuys; the Maxwell family,
coffee manufacturers; Cox family, communications, news papers;
Spalding family, sporting goods; Howard Huntington, heir to Henry
Huntington and many others. Many of these homes presently remain in
beautiful condition. The Federal Court of Appeals, for the Ninth
District, is also located in the now fully restored former Vista
Del Arroyo hotel, the then winter vacation destination of such
notables such as Howard Hughe's family. At that time, the hotel was
owned by the Royce Family who also owened the Royal Hawaiian Hotel,
and the Huntingon Hotel in Pasadena.
Today most of the old Orange Grove estates are gone, replaced by
1960’s era apartments and condominiums. Though far less regal than
the vast homes they replaced, these apartment units maintain
verdant and meticulously trimmed grounds that still exude a sense
of wealth and command high property values.
Other noteworthy sites along the boulevard include:
- The
Norton Simon
Museum, at the intersection of Orange Grove and
Colorado Boulevards. This corner marks the official start of
the Rose Parade route and so the museum can be seen, quite clearly,
every year during the parade broadcast.
- The Pasadena Museum of
History, just north of the Norton Simon Museum with a parking
entrance at 470 West Walnut Street, operates the only Museum and
Research Library devoted solely to preserving and educating the
public about the history of Pasadena and the west San Gabriel
Valley.
- Ambassador College campus and
Ambassador Auditorium, located between Green Street and Del Mar
Boulevard. The grounds of this former Worldwide Church of God liberal arts
college are distinctive for their lush gardens, fountains and
spacious lawns. The oldest buildings are listed as historical
landmarks and display the wide variety of mansions once common in
the area. They are the perfect backdrop to highlight the starkly
bright, honeycomb facades of the “sixties modern” buildings that make
up the campus. The Ambassador College campus is now home to
Maranatha High School.
- The staging area for the Tournament of Roses Parade. In
the wee hours before dawn, floats of every size and shape can be
seen stretching the length of the boulevard as their volunteer
crews rush to put the finishing touches on them.
Parrots
a typical Pasadena wild parrot.
Pasadena has a population of
naturalized
parrots. The city's website identifies one, a Red-crowned
amazon parrot, but according to the Parrot Project of Los Angeles,
the parrots fall into as many as five different groups. There is a
cycle of regular public outcry about the noise and the sheer oddity
of the birds' presence, but most Pasadenans seem to have come to
accept the birds as part of the city's life. They can be seen
year-round, but are especially noticeable in the winter. The birds
are definitely gregarious, and the amount of disturbance their
chatter creates is related to the time of day they may choose to
chatter.
Theories and myths abound on how these parrots came to claim
Pasadena and surrounding towns as their home. A widely accepted
story by longtime residents of the area is that they were part of
the stock from the large pet emporium at Simpson's Garden Town on
East Colorado Blvd. (now the location of OSH Hardware) in the
Lamanda Park area. The nursery burned down in 1959, and the parrots
were thereby released to forage in the lush Pasadena area. It is
also possible that some parrots moved northward from their normal
range in central and northern Mexico as human habitation in the
Pasadena area created artificial habitat in which the parrots could
survive. Among their favorite foods are the berry kernels of the
cedar trees that grow in great abundance around Pasadena.
Parking
Pasadena does not allow overnight parking, through the expedient of
banning parking on city streets between 2:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m.,
although overnight permits are available.
The city also
restricts parking in designated Transit Oriented Districts (TODs),
such as the Pasadena
Playhouse district. Residents living in TODs who have
only one parking space (as mandated by Pasadena's Zoning Code
17.50.340) may not park a second car on the street. Permits for a
city lot are available for $60 a month.
City Hall construction
Seismic retrofitting was
completed on the City Hall building in summer 2007. It was closed
in July 2004 because of safety concerns and construction began in
March 2005.
Civic Auditorium
Located on spacious tree-lined Green Street, this building was
designed to be the southern anchor of Pasadena’s grand civic plaza.
The elegant Central Library lies three blocks due north with City
Hall tower in between. The intended visual effect is somewhat lost
today as the open air mall Paseo Colorado was built along the north
side of Green St. obscuring one’s view of the auditorium’s sister
buildings.
This building is where the TV show "American Idol" shoots their
"Hollywood Week" performances.
The main auditorium is large and plush, and was home to the Annual
Emmy Awards ceremony for nearly 25
years, from 1977 to 2001.
Sister cities
Friendship city
Pasadena has a friendship agreement with
Kasukabe, Japan. Pasadena's Junior Chamber of
Commerce does an exchange each summer alternating every year with
Kasukabe citizens coming to Pasadena one summer and Pasadena
residents going to Kasukabe the next summer.
Busch Gardens
The first
Busch Gardens was in
Pasadena. It opened in 1905 and closed to the public in 1937.
During its time, it was one of the major tourist attractions in the
Los Angeles area and offered many unique gardens and fairyland
landscapes and structures. It was used as a location for several
Hollywood motion pictures. After 1937 and the Second World War,
much of the land was developed for homes. Close inspection of the
area can still reveal many of the original river rock walls and
structures.
Miss Teen USA 2007
The
Miss Teen USA 2007 pageant
was held in Pasadena, California on August 24, 2007. It was the
first time the city hosted the pageant.
The preliminaries and
final competition were held in the Pasadena
Civic Auditorium
.
Notable residents
See List of
Pasadena, California people
See also
References
External links
, Finland
, Germany
, Armenia
, Beijing, China
, Morocco
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