The Sad Fate of the Towne Furniture Store Bldg., 854 E. Washington Blvd. and the need for "Edge Repair"

Towne Furniture Store, 854 E. Washington Blvd. in 1947

The Towne Furniture Store just before its demolition in 1985

The Towne Furniture Store was a handsome building as seen in the drawing of the shop in the Pasadena Independent Newspaper dated January 1, 1947. The 1920's commercial building, very much like the remaining historic commercial buildings in the Lake Washington Village area, had a very pleasing ornamental facade, but over the years it succumbed to the decline of the commercial center and was ingloriously covered over with a slab of stucco.

In the end the building was demolished in 1985 to make way for the Food 4 Less Shopping Center parking lot. Nothing remains today except an empty hole of parking spaces just across from the Oversen Building and the Washington Theatre on the north side of Washington Blvd., both landmark buildings.

When we conceived the North Lake Specific Plan for this area in 1997, we proposed that "Edge Repair" would happen to replace the missing buildings on the south side of Washington Blvd. west of North Lake Avenue and also along the west side of North Lake Avenue south of Washington Blvd. along the outer perimeter of the Food 4 Less Shopping Center parking lot. This "Edge Repair" would be done by building "Main Street Architecture" buildings along these perimeters to give an urban edge back to the streetscape. Looking across from the Oversen Building and the Washington Theatre south now, it is a very depressing view of a wide expanse of a parking lot with no buildings to frame the view and not a pleasant or interesting walk for pedestrians.

Lake Washington Village has suffered much from the declines of the 1970's through the 1990's. How do we change the ambiance from check cashing outlets, payday loan shops, storefront churches, liquor stores, filling stations and auto repair into a village of a hardware store, a theater, art galleries, coffee houses, antique shops, nice restaurants, a bike shop and specialty shops, as was once more the case? Did you know that the Union 76 gas station is built on the site of a former popular soda fountain and ice cream shop and that the other two corners had drug stores and the fourth had a Van de Kamp's Bakery?

It will take each and one of us to voice our wishes to the City of Pasadena and our respective neighborhood associations and to the business people we wish to see flourish in our neighborhood Lake Washington Village. We will make it happen!

Venetian Dining Room and Gardens, 2556 North Lake Avenue, Altadena

Here we have an advertisement from the Pasadena Courier, June 1966, for the much missed Venetian Dining Room and Gardens. We are still hoping for a cultivated Italian restaurant on the upper reaches of Avenue to the Sky, and, when possible, with gardens, private bar and dancing. Look at those prices including a bottle of wine! Even at the minimum wage of $1.65 back then, this looks affordable.

THE MISSION CANDIES BUILDING - LAKE WASHINGTON VILLAGE

The Missions Candies Company had a chain of candy stores in Southern California in the 20's and 30's

This is how the Mission Candies Building looked in the 1970's before the big decline

By landmarking the historic building and restoration, we hoped to bring back to Lake Washington Village an ambiance similar to State Street in Santa Barbara which Lake Washington Village once had

A recent night view of the Mission Candies Building with Pinocchio's Pizza in the midground

Notice the tables with linen tablecloths and many flowers

Here with this posting I'm in synch with Petrea at Pasadena Daily Photo. I took the nighttime shots of the Mission Candies Building, with Pinocchio's Pizza, a couple of weeks ago as I've been interested in this building since Armen's family wanted to relocate their restaurant to it from the previous building location about half a block to the south.

This historical building was almost altered beyond recognition when the Pinocchio's Pizza family bought the property and proposed to modernize the facade. Luckily, we were able to designate the building as a local Pasadena landmark and convince Armen and his family that it would be far cheaper for them, and much better for the community, to restore the historic building. I've been speaking to Armen all along and recently told him how nice the building and the restaurant looks, especially with the tables with linen tablecloths on the sidewalk, even if no one sits there, it looks elegant. The original idea was to help bring back the lost ambiance of the Lake Washington Village area, and I think Armen and his family have done it! We congratulate them!

The following is a history of the Mission Candies Building:

Landmark Application Report

For the: “Wood’s Building/Mission Candies Building”, 1445/7/9 North Lake Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91104 (March 1, 2005)
Physical Description:

This is a one story large “Mission Revival Style” corner commercial building stuccoed with a tiled shed roof on the street facades. The building has three storefronts along North Lake Avenue, each with distinctive “Spanish Baroque Corbeled Arch” styled window openings along with original period transom windows. The original glazed tile bulkhead remains on most of the façade of the building. Some modifications appear to have been made to the entrances of the three store bays, although the structure retains most of its outstanding historic character.

The building has a very prominent siting, being located on a rising northwest corner of the busy North Lake Avenue corridor, and the structure dominates its location.

Significance:

ACCORDING TO THE CITY'S 1987 HISTORIC RESOURCES INVENTORY, “This structure is significant as one of the most intact and sophisticated of the remaining 1920’s commercial buildings along this portion of Lake Avenue, and is an attractive example of a small Spanish Colonial Revival “Mission Revival” commercial structure.”

This building appears to be the last and best remaining example in Pasadena of this iteration of a Southern California common commercial storefront building of the 1920’s, in its siting and simplicity, built in the Spanish Colonial Mediterranean Revival Style, also known in the 1920’s as the “Mission Revival Style”, a style which was very connected with the tourist booster mythology of Southern California and the old California Missions. Various authors, including Kevin Starr, California State Librarian Emeritus, have covered this Southern California architectural phenomenon which swept the area when in 1915 the “Save the Old California Missions” movement was started, along with the “Good Roads” movement, by the Southern California Auto Club as a tourist development action and the Panama-California Exposition, showcasing 17th and 18th century Spanish architectural designs, opened in San Diego’s Balboa Park.

This building also has a strong association with the landmark eligible Washington Theatre. The Washington Theatre was under construction for nearly five years (1919-1924), with the unavailability of tractors to assist in construction delaying the project, and the opening of the theater was further postponed until North Lake Avenue and Washington Boulevard were able to be asphalted in 1925. The builder of the “Wood’s Building/Mission Candies Building”, Henry Wood, a prominent local realtor, had the opportunity to develop his lot, located at the intersection of Rio Grande Street and North Lake Avenue on the northwest corner, to be a complimentary business and entertainment location to coincide with the biggest ever opening in the Lake Washington Village neighborhood, the grand opening of the magnificent Washington Theatre movie palace. The Washington Theatre was marketed in the local papers as a greater Pasadena destination, with the reasoning of why not see first run movies away from the crowds on Colorado Boulevard. The “Wood’s Building/Mission Candies Building” benefited from this Washington Theatre advertising campaign.

The building has been the home of a number of small neighborhood businesses, and also housed the local post office for a number of years, and also served the Washington Theatre pre- and after-show crowd from its opening in 1925 and the Mount Lowe tourist trade from 1925 to 1936. The “Rio Grande Confectionery” and later the successor “Albert Sheetz Mission Candies Fountain and Shop” served tourists traveling up to Mt. Lowe and returning. There were no other locations located on North Lake Avenue leading up to the Mount Lowe Railway which offered freshly made candies.

The siting of this building is unique for the area in that it is situated on a northwest corner with the façade wrapping around from the west to the north. This building has been a very visible local and touristic landmark for more than 80 years at this location.

This building is located near a former Pacific Electric car stop for trolleys heading to Altadena, Rubio Canyon, the Great Incline and the Mt. Lowe Alpine Tavern Hotel. The Mt. Lowe Alpine Tavern was located on the mountain directly above the terminus of North Lake Avenue and was a popular destination for weekend outings and as a local and national tourist destination. The incredible Mount Lowe mountain railway, which at the height of its popularity was Southern California's outstanding tourist magnet, attracted more visitors at the time then Yosemite or Catalina. It offered one of the world's most spectacular rail trips with disaster seeming ready to strike at every turn of the car wheels, yet so expertly engineered that in all the years it operated not one accident occurred. It was the realized dream of Professor T. S. C. Lowe., the first U.S. Union Army balloon aviator during the Civil War, inventor and one of the most prominent Pasadena residents, investors and boosters.

The Alpine Tavern was also a well visited destination watering hole during Prohibition (1919 to 1933), since the Tavern was cut off from the rest of the city when the last train left in the evening until the trains began running in the morning. This made the Alpine Tavern safe for the imbuing of spirits and other nefarious activities during the nighttime hours. Also, businessmen, attending meetings at the Alpine Tavern Hotel and then being stranded on the mountain after the last train had departed, were known to have telephoned their wives informing them they would have to spend the night at the Tavern, giving them a good excuse for an evening of unbridled and uninterrupted entertainment in this veritable mountain fortress! The aforementioned confectionery located in the “Wood’s Building/Mission Candies Building” would have been the only place in North Pasadena on the way up to the mountain to obtain freshly made candies in gift boxes, which would have been appropriate gifts for a romantic rendezvous.

The interurban railway of the Pacific Electric Company brought the ``Big Red Cars'' to North Lake Avenue in 1902, in which crowds of hikers would arrive early on Saturday morning bound for the local canyons to the north. Come Sunday evening the reverse migration would occur. At its peak in the year 1921, when 160,930 passengers were carried, Mt. Lowe cars operated from Pasadena to Altadena via North Fair Oaks, Mariposa, and North Lake including via North Lake from Colorado Boulevard. Another nearby local tourist destination was the home and gardens of noted local botanist and Southern California Missions booster Charles Francis Saunders, located at 580 North Lake Avenue, located just south of Orange Grove Boulevard, which was visited by many traveling on the Pacific Electric cars going up and down to the mountains.
The hiking era came to a close soon after the Angeles Crest Highway was opened in 1936 and the automobile began to dominate people's lives. Roads were driven into the San Gabriel Mountains and few people ventured more than a few hundred yards from their automobiles. The number of visitors today is probably a few percent of the number who came in 1921.

The North Lake Pacific Electric Line was extremely busy until shortly before its abandonment in 1941. The “Wood’s/Mission Candies Building” saw its fortunes decline after the closing of the Mount Lowe tourist attraction in 1936, the opening of Angeles Crest Highway into the mountains also in 1936, the ending of trolley traffic in 1941, the onset of World War II and the general availability of automobiles and cheap gasoline for the common man. The building of a new local post office on Washington Boulevard near to Washington Park dealt another blow to the “Wood’s/Mission Candies Building”.

Maintenance became ever more infrequent afterwards and the building at present is vacant and in need of refurbishment to bring it back to its original splendor. This building is truly indicative of its time and place and has been a beautiful embellishment to Lake Avenue for more than eighty years. With proper restoration, the “Wood’s/Mission Candies Building” will adorn its corner once again with an ambience and style which will draw clientele from its entertainment counterpoint and stylistic bookend, the Washington Theatre.

History:

This building was constructed in 1925 by Henry Wood, a prominent Pasadena realtor, using a local contractor by the name of Willard R. Bell, who is listed as living at 1640 E. Mountain at the time. Mr. Wood, whose real estate office was located at 1458 North Lake Avenue and home was located at 867 Rio Grande Street, was always looking for good investment opportunities, and when the Washington Theatre on Washington Boulevard opened, just around the corner from Mr. Wood’s lot on the northwest corner of Rio Grande Street and North Lake, Mr. Wood saw his good fortune in the lot being located in a rapidly developing business node on the long stretch of Lake Avenue located at Washington Boulevard.

Mr. Wood and his contractor Mr. Bell pulled a construction permit, on March 31, 1925, for a one story commercial property to be built of brick in the “Mission Revival Style”, matching the style of the Washington Theatre, to be located at the property to be addressed “1445 - 7 - 9 N. Lake”, at a cost of “$8,900”, with a purpose of “Stores”, with a total of “3 Rooms”, with a lot “91.89 feet by 70 feet”, with a size of building being “60 feet by 70 feet”., with the front of the building being erected on the “Front” of the lot, with the highest point of the roof being “18 feet”, and the height of the first floor joist above curb level or surface being “13.6 feet”, the character of the ground being “Clay”, the material of the foundation and cellar walls is to be made with is “Concrete” and the material the upper walls will be made with is “Brick”. There are no buildings within 30 feet of the proposed structure as of the building permit issuance date.

“The Rio Grande Confectionery” (A.C. Powell, owner, Always a Large Variety of Ice Creams, Candies, Cigars, Stationery, Toilet Articles and Fountain Service, 1445 N. Lake Avenue, Phone Sterling 4214) was domiciled in the southerly shop bay in 1927, “The Wycoff Verrinder Company” (Musical Instruments, 1447 N. Lake Avenue) was domiciled in the middle shop bay in 1927, and the “United States Post Office, Station C, North Pasadena, California” was domiciled in the northerly shop bay at 1449 North Lake Avenue, also in 1927. Carrying along the "Mission" theme, we find the "Mission Bell Beauty Shop" of L.C. Clow located just to the north at 1454 North Lake Avenue.

In 1937, we find “The Albert Sheetz Mission Candy Company” located at 1445, the I.M. Flamholtz Barber Shop located at 1447, and the Post Office Station C still located at 1449 North Lake. The “Albert Sheetz Mission Candy Company” was particularly well known in Southern California from the 1920’s on, with locations in all the major tourist destination cities such as its home city of Santa Barbara, and Hollywood, Santa Monica and, of course, Pasadena. Albert Sheetz Mission Candy Company locations offered “Fountain Service, Fine Foods, Pastries, Ice Cream, and Mission Candies”.

Historical Context:

Lake Avenue began in the 1860’s as a burro path connecting Benjamin Wilson’s Lake Vineyard Ranch, whereupon Wilson’s Lake was located on the site of present day Lacy Park in San Marino, with the mountains to the north. Known at various times as the Lake Vineyard Road and Prospect Road, Lake Avenue was served by a horse-drawn rail line and eventually by the Pacific Electric railcars before automobiles finally dominated the street.

Though many early visitors and tourists have traveled North Lake for business or pleasure, such as Henry Ford to test his latest automobile models on North Lake’s steep grade, the area’s residents have been among its primary users on weekdays. Residential development extended north up Lake at the beginning of the century, first to Villa Street and then throughout, and beyond the city limits. Commercial development followed the residents and the annexation on North Pasadena in 1904. By the 1920’s, the Lake/Washington intersection was an important retail center serving nearby residents.

Zoning has permitted a gradual transformation of North Lake Avenue. At the end of the nineteenth century, it was a road running through large tracts with citrus trees, fruit trees and vineyards. The large properties were subdivided to accommodate more homes, but residences dominated the entire length of the avenue until the 1920’s when commercial nodes at Villa, Orange Grove and Washington were created. In the early 1920’s, when zoning districts were established citywide, North Lake Avenue was designated residential with commercial development being limited to Maple Street, Villa Street, Orange Grove Boulevard and Washington Boulevard. The residential zoning allowed bungalow courts and four family flats in addition to single-family housing.

In 1930, commercial uses were permitted to extend from Orange Grove Boulevard to Maple Street, at the southern end of North Lake Avenue, and between Claremont Street and Elizabeth Street near the northern limits, to serve the growing number of people with automobiles. By the 1960’s, the residential area between Claremont and Orange Grove was zoned for neighborhood commercial uses, and during the 1980’s more intense commercial uses were permitted in the portion between Mountain and Orange Grove. Many of the residential structures in the neighborhood commercial portion have been retained, although some have been adapted for commercial uses. The zoning has remained substantially the same since the mid-1980’s although many auto related uses such as gas stations and auto repair garages have been replaced with other retail and service uses.

THE VIEW OF ECHO MOUNTAIN & MOUNT LOWE FROM MY LIVING ROOM

Echo Mountain below Mount Lowe, December 10, 2009

Snow on Mount Lowe, December 10, 2009

The recent snow dusting on our venerable mountain tops brings to mind the lost history of our once international tourist destination: The Mount Lowe Railway to the Clouds via Echo Mountain and the Great Incline!


Tourists from 1893 to 1936 were continually heading to Altadena, Rubio Canyon, the Great Incline and the Mt. Lowe Alpine Tavern Hotel. The Mt. Lowe Alpine Tavern was located nestled in a canyon above Echo Mountain in a crow's flight above the terminus of North Lake Avenue and was a popular destination for weekend outings and as a local and national tourist destination. The incredible Mount Lowe mountain railway, which at the height of its popularity was Southern California's outstanding tourist magnet, attracted more visitors at the time then Yosemite or Catalina. It offered one of the world's most spectacular rail trips with disaster seeming ready to strike at every turn of the car wheels, yet so expertly engineered that in all the years it operated not one accident occurred. It was the realized dream of Professor T. S. C. Lowe., the first U.S. Union Army balloon aviator during the Civil War, inventor and one of the most prominent Pasadena residents, investors and boosters.

The Alpine Tavern was also a well visited destination watering hole during Prohibition (1919 to 1933), since the Tavern was cut off from the rest of the city when the last train left in the evening until the trains began running in the morning. This made the Alpine Tavern safe for the imbuing of spirits and other nefarious activities during the nighttime hours. Also, businessmen, attending meetings at the Alpine Tavern Hotel and then being stranded on the mountain after the last train had departed, were known to have telephoned their wives informing them they would have to spend the night at the Tavern, giving them a good excuse for an evening of unbridled and uninterrupted entertainment in this veritable mountain fortress!


The interurban railway of the Pacific Electric Company brought the ``Big Red Cars'' to North Lake Avenue in 1902, in which crowds of hikers would arrive early on Saturday morning bound for the local canyons to the north. Come Sunday evening the reverse migration would occur. At its peak in the year 1921, when 160,930 passengers were carried, Mt. Lowe cars operated from Pasadena to Altadena via North Fair Oaks, Mariposa, and North Lake including via North Lake from Colorado Boulevard. Another nearby local tourist destination was the home and gardens of noted local botanist and Southern California Missions booster Charles Francis Saunders, located at 580 North Lake Avenue, located just south of Orange Grove Boulevard, which was visited by many traveling on the Pacific Electric cars going up and down to the mountains.


The hiking era came to a close soon after the Angeles Crest Highway was opened in 1936 and the automobile began to dominate people's lives. Roads were driven into the San Gabriel Mountains and few people ventured more than a few hundred yards from their automobiles. The number of visitors today is probably a few percent of the number who came in 1921.


The North Lake Pacific Electric Line was extremely busy until shortly before its abandonment in 1941. Altadena and North Pasadena saw its fortunes decline after the closing of the Mount Lowe tourist attraction in 1936, the opening of Angeles Crest Highway into the mountains also in 1936, the ending of trolley traffic in 1941, the onset of World War II and the general availability of automobiles and cheap gasoline for the common man.


In the above photographs you can see Mount Lowe peak, formerly Oak Mountain, and renamed by the leaders of Pasadena in 1893 in honor of Professor Lowe and his accomplishment of building a seemingly impossible mountain railway. In the Echo Mountain photograph it is possible to see the concrete retaining wall and stairway (the light spot in the middle) from the top of the Great Incline where millions of tourists over the years had their souvenir photo taken as they arrived at Echo Mountain, just as cruise ship passengers still have their souvenir photograph taken today upon disembarkation in distant ports.

LAKE AVENUE'S LOST WOODBURY CREEK AND LONE PINE RANCH TODAY.

As promised, I recently took some photographs of Woodbury Creek and the former Lone Pine Ranch, all near the intersection of North El Molino Avenue and Atchinson Street, just west of North Lake Avenue.

The first photo shows the entrance pillar to Lone Pine Ranch on the northwest corner of El Molino and Atchinson, and this is apparently the location that one person remembers having a corral back in the 1950's still, which had smelly runoff into the creek. The original house appears to still be on the lot nearest to the intersection with the rest of the lot having apparently been subdivided for other homes starting in the 1950's and later. Atchinson wasn't put through to El Molino until sometime around 1907 and and the original ranch home in Craftsman style was built around 1903, so originally the ranch had a large area with Woodbury Creek running northwest to southeast through its parcel, where the corral would have been, most likely behind the house to the west on Atchinson, making a slope into the creek.

The next photos show the storm drain which passes under Atchinson just west of Madison, and then the natural creek is visible, although channelized, as it passes further south. A Craftsman era home is built on the lot directly to the west and the lot slopes down to the creek, allowing this seemingly one story bungalow actually to have a substory with windows below the street level. Sorry the pictures don't show the situation too well, but there is a lot of shrubbery and if you look closely you'll see the substory in a couple of the photos. All of the creek photos are looking south off of Atchinson towards the house located on the southside of Atchinson just west of Madison.

If you're in the area, take a look at this in person. It is truly amazing and can't be covered over by the city since the house has a substory below the street level!

If you have any stories about our lost Woodbury Creek, please comment.

LOURDES OF THE WEST, 1879 NORTH LAKE AVENUE

Photo is dated December 25, 1939. "Lourdes of the West" was built in 1939 as "an exact replica of the beautiful and historic Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in France, on the grounds of St. Elizabeth's Church in Altadena where it is attracting thousands of war anchored tourists, who are choosing the colorful Southern California vacationland in lieu of Europe this year. Photo shows the grotto at Altadena which encases statues of "Our Lady of Lourdes, the Virgin" and St. Bernadette, the little shepherdess to whom the Virgin appeared on 18 occasions, once commanding her to scratch the ground with her foot, where a healing spring burst forth, from which waters the spring at the foot of the "Lourdes of the West" has been created." It was built partly out of lava and greeted 300,000 visitors in nine months.

This is a magical place and recently renovated including the two garden entrance way gates which have "Lourdes of the West" in illuminated cut out letters in the decorative metal archway overhead. The St. Elizabeth of Hungary parish hosts an old time family festival in October on a Saturday evening where wonderful food and classic fair rides and games are hosted. Not to be missed; look for the banner advertising this coming festival at the southwest corner of New York Drive and North Lake.

At night, the flickering votive candles in the grotto give an eerie but peaceful feeling to the contemplative. One of several hidden gardens on Lake Avenue and a spot for reflection.

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 1757 NORTH LAKE AVENUE LANDMARK

Here we have another Pasadena official landmark on North Lake Avenue, the French gothic style inspired Westminster Presbyterian Church designed by famed Pasadena architect Sylvanus Marston in 1925 as he was part of the Marston, Van Pelt and Maybury architectural firm which existed from 1922 to 1927, after Marston spent time in France during World War I, where he received inspiration from the French cathedrals. This is surely the most French European of cathedrals in Pasadena and it has a grand rose window on its south side, a sublime interior and a magnificent tower which can be seen for miles around. One could feel almost like being in Paris' Notre Dame during the Christmas Eve candlelight service in this wonderful treasure of a space.

This building has been used for filming a number of times including 1953 big screen version of the War of the Worlds where the church is seen silhouetted with Martian multi-colored blasts behind it. It was recently used for the 2008 Tom Cruise movie Valkyrie where it stood in for a German Catholic cathedral with its roof bombed and missing courtesy of CGI.

Truly a structure of magnificence on Lake Avenue. The photo is from 1939. With the undergrounding of the utilities on Lake Avenue we have very much enhanced the beauty of the street from that aspect. This gives us hope for the future that we might still be able to make major aestethic improvements to our boulevard. The ornamental streetlights are the same on this stretch from Woodbury to Howard that have been here since the 1920's. Someone thought it wise to remove the remaining ornamental light posts from Howard to the city center and replace them with much inferior light standards during the 1970's. We were lucky to replace the ornamental light standards once more from Howard to the 210 bridge in recent times, albeit they are just single headed rather than double headed.

More to come on the towers of Lake Avenue

LAKE AVENUE SNOW, JANUARY 11, 1949

This photo shows the heaviest snow which has fallen in Pasadena in the 20th century, on January 11, 1949, when 6" fell on Lake Avenue and 12" higher up in the foothills. This picture was taken from the Santa Fe railroad track crossing between Maple and Curson, what is now in the middle of the 210 Freeway, looking north to Maple, with the original Lake Avenue Congregational Church sanctuary on the Northwest corner of Maple and Lake, with its steeple hidden in the low lying mist.

The Fox Market, a well known market on the Southwest corner of Maple and Lake is just across from the Lake Avenue Congregational Church. None of these buildings exist anymore due to the construction of the 210 Freeway.

Notice the historic street light fixtures which had a high mast in the middle to support the cross wires for the Pacific Electric Short Line overhead catenary above the track which was in the middle of Lake all the way up to Altadena, but were removed by this time.

The 210 Freeway divided Pasadena even more than the railroad tracks had before it. Now instead of being on the other side of the tracks, the rest of Pasadena is on the other side of the freeway, without the connection of the Pacific Electric trolleys or the lure of the mountains which at one time proved more irresistible to tourists than now. At least our mountains are not as congested with people as they once were and it's possible to wander the trails without seeing many hikers from out of the area and most everyone is local, especially during the week.

Will we ever see such a snow again? Will we ever have such main street architecture on Lake Avenue again? When we were planning the North Lake Avenue Gold Line Station, we had proposed the bridge where it's located to be more like the Rialto Bridge in Venice, with room for shops and businesses. The North Lake 210 Freeway Bridge was widened, but no provision for shops and businesses was built into the structure. Perhaps this will happen in the future. Could you imagine a flower shop, a newstand, a tobacco shop on this bridge? More unlikely things have happened. If we can imagine a great bridge like the Rialto in Venice, we can have one here, also.

UNION BANK PLAZA, CORDOVA TO DEL MAR, SOUTH LAKE AVENUE, 1965

This is the architectural model of the Union Bank Plaza under construction in 1965 on the westside of South Lake Avenue between Cordova and Del Mar, which was to eventually include an eight-story office tower, hotel medical complex, a pedestrian bridge over Cordova connecting to the next block to the north. Most of this was built as designed; it was known later as the Jacobs Engineering Complex for a very long time, being named after its major tenant, and Union Bank moved away in the 1990's. William L. Pereira and Associates were the architects of Union Bank Plaza and this photo is dated 6.13.65.

The building of this complex took out many single family homes in this block that had survived on South Lake into the 1960's, with a few still surviving even longer, such as the Craftsman home housing the Japanese owned " Lake Florist " just south of what was the Wells Fargo Bank Tower at Green and Lake and just north of what is now Smitty's Restaurant. " Port O' Call " high end gift shop, a Pasadena intstitution, was located in a large Craftsman home farther down on Lake directly across from Continental Burger. Both these homes have been demolished in the meantime to make room for new developments. One home which still remains is where the speakeasy style bar " Magnolia " is located, just south of the Mobil Station at San Pascual and Lake, sharing the space with Heller & Company coin dealer, a business which I have never seen open in the last twenty years. The front of the bungalow is covered over with retail box construction, but you can see the house from the area of the gas station or from inside " Magnolia " where a tree grows in front of the bar.

The one story 1960's modernistic bank building on the northwest corner of Cordova and Lake was demolished in the 1990's and the entire south end of the block is now covered with new development. Many notable 1960's buildings in the South Lake Shopping and Financial District have been threatened with demolition or significant alteration, erasing interesting architecture on this stretch of Lake Avenue.