Great pics, ethereal! I really like the Berkeley Square gate. Too bad it couldn't have been preserved-- if not the neighborhood, at least the gate.
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Some Pasadena then-and-nows--- or now-and-thens.
The Forever 21 store in Old Pasadena, August 20, 2011. It became a Forever 21 some years ago, after being vacant for some time after a boutique Saks Fifth Avenue that was in this building, closed. The Saks had only been in business for about 4 years or so, during the 2000s. When I first moved to the area in the late 1990s, this building was a vacant, run-down auto body repair garage.
Photo by me
The same building, circa 1930s. I knew it was originally a garage, but I had no idea that it was an open building with gas pumps until I saw this photo.
Pasadena Collection
Corner of Memorial Park in Old Pasadena, August 20, 2011. You can see the ruins of a building, an old entrance arch, which is fenced off because it is structurally unsound.
Photo by me
Corner of Memorial Park, circa 1890. The building was Pasadena's main public library, built in a Romanesque style. Construction started in the 1880s and was completed and opened in 1890; it served as Pasadena's main library until 1927, when a more "modern" (actually Spanish-Mediterranean Revival) library was built in the then-new civic center, east of what is now called Old Town Pasadena. The building was condemned as unsafe after the Long Beach Earthquake of 1933, and was finally razed in 1954.
USC Archive
The entrance arch was reconstructed in 1955 and was dedicated "...to the memory of Pasadena pioneers who in early and difficult days, established here a public library as an expression of reverence for literature and art..."
Photo by me
Photo by me
Photo by me