http://www.ebay.com/itm/South-Pasade...item46372b9f81
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe Vogel
I don't believe it is the same building. In the mid-1960s I once visited the Pasadena Auction Gallery, which was then located in the old Pasadena Masonic Lodge at 73-77 N. Fair Oaks, and I'm 99% sure that the ca.1910 postcard shows that building. The South Pasadena lodge wasn't built until the 1920s, so if the postcard really is ca.1910 it can't be the building in your other photos. I think that the postcard publisher simply got the city wrong in the caption.
The Pasadena building was dedicated in 1905 and served as the Masons' home until they moved to a new, much larger building on South Euclid in the latter half of the 1920s. I'm not sure when the Pasadena Auction Gallery took over the old building, but it was there for quite a while.
In 1968, the gallery let that meeting room to the operators of Cinematheque 16, which had been operating a theater on the Sunset Strip for a couple of years. They ran indie and experimental films, and I believe that the Sunset Boulevard location was the first place in Los Angeles to run several of Andy Warhol's movies. The Pasadena location operated into the 1970s, and during its last days succumbed to running X-rated fare.
The old lodge building and everything else on its block was demolished in the mid-1970s to make way for a big parking garage for Parsons Engineering, still there today. The Masonic Temple was a very handsome old building, and would have made a significant contribution to today's Old Pasadena, so it is especially unfortunate that it was knocked down only a few years before the surviving part of the neighborhood became such a roaring success.
I never expected to see the interior of that building again, so thanks for posting this photo. I wish I could find a good photo of the exterior, as I remember it being very nice but time has erased the details of it from my mind. I've also tried to track down the name of the architect, but so far no luck.
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Hey Joe, here's a shot of 73 N Fair Oaks ca. 1917
PDHC
This is the Masonic Temple on Colorado Blvd. (?) in the 1880's
PDHC
I ought to know where this building is but can't place it at the moment.....
And then there's this interior, which is different from the postcard.....
HDL