Mystery History -- Solved!

Peter was close enough with his 3:30 p.m. Tuesday guess "The Girl Scout headquarters at the southeast corner of memorial park...making way" so he is this week's winner.

In the 1959 photo above, a demolition crew prepares to raze the headquarters of the San Gabriel Valley Council of Campfire Girls at the south end of Memorial Park.

In this photo, Holly Street is to the right of the headquarters; the buildings you see across the street are still there:

 Sadly, it was going, going, gone...

The Board of City Directors, now called the City Council, had ordered an immediate start on preparation of plans for a senior citizens center after two years of discussion.

The Pasadena Senior Center opened in 1960. It was the first independent senior center in Southern California (others were under the jurisdiction of municipalities) and one of the first independent senior centers in the nation. 

It was also the first senior center in California to receive national accreditation from the National Council on Aging.

 

After a significant renovation and expansion that tripled its square footage, the new and improved Pasadena Senior Center opened in 1998:

Now people 50 and older can take advantage of everything from social services to classes to field trips to competitive sports. 

 

See a more comprehensive history of the Pasadena Senior Center here. 

There is a long-standing agreement between the City of Pasadena and the Pasadena Senior Center that it can operate on city-owned land in exchange for providing services and programs for seniors at Jackie Robinson Center, Villa-Parke Community Center and Victory Park Center. 

Many thanks to Pasadena Public Library and Pasadena Senior Center.

In the interest of full disclosure, the Pasadena Senior Center is one of my clients. I write and distribute news releases, manage media relations and provide communications counsel.

Mystery History -- Solved!

Liz wins with her 11:10 a.m. Tuesday guess "Opening of Robinson's department store where the present day Target is." 

In the May 12, 1958, photo above, shoppers wait outside the J.W. Robinson Department Store at 777 E. Colorado Blvd. on opening day.

People were lined up around the block:

                           

Here is the 175,000-square-foot store under construction earlier that year:

                           

The ribbon-cutting: left to right are Carter McDonald, manager of the J.W. Robinson store; Pasadena Mayor Seth Miller, Edward R. Valentine, president of the Robinson Building Company and a member of the J.W. Robinson Board of Directors; Mrs. W.F. Valentine; Donald Buckingham, president of the J.W. Robinson Company; and O.K. Earle Jr., president of the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce. 

Aerial view:

Designed by William L. Pereira and Charles Luckman, this was the last free-standing Robinson's in the U.S. because shopping malls were just beginning to be built across the nation.

Robinson's closed on Jan. 31, 1993. Target Stores acquired the property and reopened it in May 1994. 

Many thanks to Pasadena Museum of History, Pasadena Public Library and the Department Store Museum for the photos.

Mystery History -- Solved!

Loren wins with his 8:40 a.m. Tuesday guess "Well, there was a Thrifty on Colorado down close to City Hall, right? So it could be an anti-littering ad campaign that was shot on Colorado."

The April 11, 1955, newspaper photo above from The Independent is captioned "The litterbug in action." Of course the photos were staged.

Here's another photo from the article:

The Independent conducted what's now called an eyeball survey -- a reporter stood at various locations on Colorado Boulevard and observed.

Here's the article:

The litterbug nuisance along Pasadena streets, which has brought complaints

from many citizens here, was traced in part to the city's sparing use

of trash receptacles, in a survey conducted by The Independent.

 

Citizen indifference was a big factor, however. Some downtown strollers

were observed taking a dozen steps to drop empty cigarette packets in gutters,

when they were within three steps of a trash receptacle.

 

Citizens who were both lazy and indifferent failed to make the gutter.

They dropped papers underfoot on the sidewalk.

 

Some conscientious strollers carried crumpled up waste paper

for a block, looking in vain for a trash can. Some looked furtive

and conscience-stricken as they finally flicked their problem into the gutter.

 

City health officials have warned many times that accumulated

food wrappers, peelings and sandwich bits, lately standard items

along Pasadena's streets, are tempting come-ons for rats,

which grow fat and multiply when food is conveniently left out for them.

 

Rats aren't the only animals that forage for their food. Dog packs,

stray cats, insects, vermin, all head for the cast-off piles in the gutters.

 

In one block east of Allen Avenue, there are more mail boxes than trash boxes.

 

Another constant source of street litter is the outdoor eating places

and drive-in restaurants in some locations where careless eaters toss refuse to the winds.

I imagine the desks of city officials were littered with complaints about litterbugs at the time!

In modern times there is a trash receptacle at just about every block -- one at every bus stop.

There are also more than 40 of these Big Belly solar-powered trash compactors around town:

Leadership Pasadena brought a proposal for the compactors to the Public Works Department in 2007 as a possible environmental project, which led to a pilot program with four placed at key locations, followed by the Pasadena City Council approving the purchase of 36 more in 2009.

They take up as much space as ordinary trash receptacles but have five times the capacity and compact the trash using the power of the sun.

So note to those 1955 litterbugs: You have no excuse 58 years later!

Mystery History -- Solved!

Roberta wins with her 10:58 a.m. Tuesday guess "Pasadena Playhouse with College of Theater Arts students?"

In the circa 1957 photo above, actors take a break from their classes at the Pasadena Playhouse.

It all began when Gilmore Brown had a vision for a community theater in 1917.

The Community Players offered performances in facilities throughout Pasadena.

In 1924 the cornerstone was laid for the new Pasadena Playhouse. This panoramic photo shows the ceremony. Notice the huge megaphone on the right. Vo-dee-oh-doh!



Four years later, Brown established the Pasadena Playhouse College of Theater Arts, famously known as The Star Factory. Students earned bachelor's and master's degrees in acting, directing, production and more.

World premieres of plays by Eugene O’Neill, William Saroyan, Noel Coward, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Tennessee Williams helped cement the Pasadena Playhouse's identity as one of the finest live theaters in the nation.

Here are two early photos of the interior (note the painters in the first one):

From the 1930s to the 1960s, dozens of actors were discovered by Hollywood while they were students at the Pasadena Playhouse, including Eve Arden, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, Raymond Burr, Robert Young, Sally Struthers, Dustin Hoffman, Gene Hackman and many more.

In 1937, due to the fame it brought to California as a center for dramatic arts, the Pasadena Playhouse was named The State Theatre of California by unanimous vote of the legislature.

The building itself has been designated as a historic landmark.

The College of Theatre Arts closed in 1969 but the Pasadena Playhouse lives on as a world-class theater that features plays and musicals, many of them bound for Broadway over the years, and still starring renowned actors.

Most recently, a revival of Cole Porter's "Can-Can" that premiered at the Pasadena Playhouse will debut on Broadway next year.

Here it is on the Playhouse stage:

Many thanks to the Pasadena Playhouse and Pasadena Museum of History.

Mystory History -- Solved!

Wanda wins with her 12:26 p.m. Tuesday guess " Central Library in Library Park?"

In the photo above, demolition is underway of the Pasadena Public Library.

The next photo with the bicycles in front of the library is well known to many of us, but I found this one printed on a piece of cloth in the Pasadena Museum of History archival file.

The library was located at Library Park, now called Memorial Park. The building is in the left background in this photo:

An interior shot:

I did a related Mystery History post on my Pasadena PIO blog in 2009, so you can see more there, including what's left of the building.

Mystery History -- Solved!

Wonder Wanda wins with her 5:53 p.m. Tuesday guess "The lattice-work structure makes me think this is actually Gwinn's Drive-In Restaurant on Colorado Blvd in Pasadena. It has been through many iterations since then."

In the photo above, a carhop serves customers in an automobile at Gwinn's, a restaurant and drive-in far from downtown Pasadena at 2915 E. Colorado Blvd. It was on the north side of the street between Sunnyslope and El Nido.

I purposely cropped out the Gwinn's sign. Here's the full-frame photo:

Colorado Boulevard was an important link on Route 66 and Gwinn's, open from 1949 to 1972, had the iconic mid-century roadside architecture to fit right in with classic styles all along the "Mother Road" from Chicago to Santa Monica.

The restaurant, with inside dining and outside car service, was designed by Harold J. Bissner and R. Harold Zook.

Here you can see indoor diners and servers:

Inside and out, Gwinn's was a popular gathering place for everything from business meetings to date night. The idea for the Pasadena Beautiful Foundation began over dinner there in 1960.

This paper placemat showing the 1958 Rose Bowl Game results (Ohio State vs. Oregon) recently sold on ebay for $24.

Sadly, the building was demolished a few years ago.



Many thanks to Pasadena Public Library, Pasadena Museum of History and the Diner Hunter blog.

Mystery History -- Solved!

Wonder Wanda wins with her 12:21 p.m. Wednesday guess "Construction of the Pioneer Bridge in the early 1950s (two PCC coeds -- possibly Rose Parade princesses -- looking on?)"

In the March 1952 photo above, college students Shirley Mackey and June Woodard observe the wooden framework for Pioneers Bridge, the freeway bridge that runs parallel to the Colorado Street Bridge.

Here's construction superintendent Paul Paulson in a cheesy shot pointing at the framework:

 

I love this photo shot from under one of the Colorado Street Bridge arches:

 

 

 

A closer look at the construction site; I imagine the construction noise affected the people living in homes all around.

 

 

Those wooden arches were covered in concrete prior to construction of the deck:

 

 

And here's the deck in progress, with the Colorado Street Bridge on the right and Vista del Arroyo in the background:

 

 

When the Foothill (210) Freeway was planned in the early 1950s, the California Department of Transportation made known its intention to demolish the Colorado Street Bridge. But after much public outcry and appeals from the City of Pasadena and other organizations, Caltrans allowed the bridge to stand and built their own bridge parallel to it.

Pasadena Pioneers Bridge is named for the party of settlers led by Dr. T.B. Elliot, a physician who held meetings in his Indianapolis home for people interested in moving to California and settling where the sun would shine year-round. After extensive fact-finding, the party of settlers came by train to San Francisco, then by ship to San Pedro, then wagons to what became the Indiana Colony.

Ground was broken for Pioneers Bridge in 1951. By then, daily traffic on the Colorado Street Bridge was causing stress to that structure to the point where traffic was not allowed during peak hours.

I did a Mystery History post about Pioneers Bridge three years ago on my Pasadena PIO blog, mostly with different photos and a lot more background information. See that post here.

Mystery History -- Solved!

Rebecca (my daughter Becky) came closest with her 10:09 a.m. Wednesday guess "ROTC graduation at a Pasadena high school?"

But it's not high school, it's Caltech!

In the 1958 photo above, Richard M. Frincke, commander of the Air Force Association's Pasadena area squadron, presents an awards medal to Caltech Air Force Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) Cadet Captain Barry E. Feinberg.

The ceremony was a big annual deal.

Mrs. D.A. Holbrook, Pasadena regent of the Daughters of American Revolution, presented the DAR medal to Cadet Capt. David C. Gildersleeve.

Even Caltech President Lee Dubridge got into the act:

Dr. Dubridge was no lightweight: He supervised the development of JPL and made the cover of Time Magazine. (To this day JPL is managed by Caltech.)

Caltech's Air Force ROTC program began in 1951, just six years after the end of World War II. Cadets had two years of basic courses in aeronautical science and military drill, with more specialization during the remaining two years. Summers were partially spent training at a U.S. Air Force base. Upon completion of the four-year course, they were commissioned second lieutenants in the U.S. Air Force Reserve and were subject to the call to active duty at any time.

Students enrolling in the ROTC program had to meet Caltech's rigorous requirements for admission.

There is still an Air Force ROTC program at Caltech, but it's now in partnership with USC. Cadets go through training at USC and receive Caltech credit.

Many thanks to Pasadena Museum of History and Caltech.

This is for my grandson David.