Lake Pasadena to Return - Devil's Gate Dam Will Replenish the Aquifer in the Hahamongna Basin as Originally Intended

Lake Pasadena and the Flintridge Biltmore Hotel from Linda Vista Peak, by Orrin A. White, Courtesy of the Armitrading FoundationLake Pasadena to Return - Devil's Gate Dam Will Replenish the Aquifer in the Hahamongna Basin as Originally Intended!

I'm looking at the Hahamongna Watershed Park Master Plan on the City's Website:http://ww2.cityofpasadena.net/publicworks/PNR/ArroyoSeco/pdfFiles/Hahamongna%20Watershed%20Park%20Master%20Plan/Hahamongna%20FULL%20DOC.pdfand I see in 1978, "the Division of Safe Operation of Dams (DSOD) imposed an operational restriction on Devil's Gate Dam and officially declared the dam seismically unsafe. These actions were taken in part due to the 1971 Sylmar earthquake."and in Jan. 1996, "the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works (LACDPW) began the seismic strengthening and spillway modification to Devil's Gate Dam. This project was completed in the winter of 1998."So it seems we need to ask our public officials to look into retaining more Arroyo Seco stream runoff to keep water behind the dam, which it is designed and rehabilitated to do, in order to increase the replenishment of the Raymond aquifer. I have contacted Brad Bowman, Engineering Manager at Pasadena Water and Power to ask for his help in looking into this matter.

Apparently our wish has been granted and we can get Lake Pasadena back for a major portion of the year and it can function as originally intended!

This from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works:

Devil's Gate Dam and Reservoir Post Fire Sediment Removal Project

The 2009 Station Fire was the 10th largest fire in California since 1933 and burned over 160,000 acres before containment. The fire burned nearly 100% of the undeveloped watershed tributary to Devil's Gate Dam and Reservoir, leaving vast areas of the San Gabriel Mountains denuded and sediment deposition inevitable. The 2009-2010 Storm Season brought in approximately 936,000 cubic yards of postfire debris and more is expected in the upcoming years. Los Angeles County Department of Public Works is planning a major sediment removal project for Devil's Gate Reservoir to remove the accumulated sediment and make room for future sedimentation that will undoubtedly occur. Construction is expected to begin as early as September 2011 and final details of this project are still under consideration.

The following presentation was presented to the City of Pasadena Hahamongna Watershed Park Advisory Committee on November 30,2010.

HWPAC Presentation

Click here For the PDF version of the presentation.

The above oil painting featuring Lake Pasadena, the Flintridge Biltmore Hotel and the San Gabriel Mountain peaks was painted by Orrin A. White, a local Arroyo painter who lived just below the hotel at 1205 Linda Vista Road in a Spanish Hacienda designed by noted local architect Garret Van Pelt. In an upcoming post I will feature a painting of White's home with the San Gabriels as a backdrop.

For more on the Myron Hunt designed Flintridge Biltmore, which still exists, please go to this link: http://www.fsha.org/podium/default.aspx?t=118031 It's a beautiful site to visit and also has a bridge similar to the Picture Bridge at the Huntington Hotel in the Oak Knoll District of Pasadena. There are many hiking and equestrian trails surrounding the Flintridge Biltmore, connecting it with the natural landscape in many directions. This is not to be missed and is as nice as any Santa Barbara or Ojai resort! Such outstanding vistas!

So the restoration of Lake Pasadena will help us solve our water woes in the area and make us less dependent on imported water supplies. This is a very good thing! I'm looking forward to the historic restored vista shown to us by Orrin White's painting of Lake Pasadena!

After the tremendous rainfall of the last week, the possibilities of recharging our local aquifer below Hahamongna look promising! Happy New Year to All!

Christmas Tree Lane's Mansions - G.G. Green's Mansion, Gartz' "The Cloister", McNally's Mansion, Theosophical Society's Mansion

All that's left of Colonel G.G. Green's mansion, Colonel Green the "Patent Medicine King" and namesake of Pasadena's Hotel Green and Green Street, is just Green's carriage house, which is just south of the present Altadena Library, located at Maripose and Santa Rosa. In 1961, the Altadena Library Board of Trustees bought Colonel Green's southeast corner mansion located at Santa Rosa and Mariposa and the northerly estate grounds, minus the grounds of the carriage house, to build a new library. Architect Boyd Georgi was hired in 1964 to design the modernistic library which was completed in 1967.

Also, on the northwest corner of Santa Rosa and Mariposa, stood the imposing mansion of Altadena/Pasadena social activist Kate Crane Gartz, "The Cloister", where she held a Sunday salon from the 1920's through the 1940's attended by socialist and left-wing political activists, authors, and actors such as Charlie Chaplin, Upton Sinclair, Mary Sinclair, Gaylord Wilshire, Mary Wilshire, George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells and other well known personalities of the day.

Gartz mansion is also gone, demolished after her death to be replaced by a Girl Scout campground.

On the southeast corner of Santa Rosa and Mariposa, we have the still extant Andrew McNally estate, showplace home of the map printing magnate from Chicago who built a maginificent edifice replete with a wing housing the interior smoking room of the "Turkish Pavilion" from the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. The mansion was surrounded by beautifully landscaped gardens now subdivided for newer homes.

On the northeast corner of Santa Rosa and Mariposa, we have the imposing estate and gardens of the "International Headquarter of the Theosophical Society" which was formerly located on Point Loma in San Diego, a Utopian campus created by famed founder Madame Blavatsky.

http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/ts/tshist.htm

The Christmas Tree Lane Lighting Ceremony will be this year on December 11. Here are the details, be sure not to miss it:

http://www.altadenablog.com/2010/11/christmas-tree-lane-lighting-ceremony-dec-11.html

I like to tell everybody that I live near Christmas Tree Lane and in the shadow of Mt. Lowe, which I can see from my living room and bedroom window. Aren't we very lucky to live here?

Henries Toys, 1328 North Lake Avenue, Lake Washington Village, 1947 to ?

Here is what appears to be Henries Toys in circa 1978, what is now the Billard Parlor. The added on arches are not attractive. Were these false facades added due to earthquake damage from the Sylmar quake of 1971? No wonder I overlooked this dreary looking place back in the late 1970's, as the wonderful Cornet 5 & 10 was directly across the street and inviting!

Here the March 1st, 1967 Pasadena Star News page showing the Lake Washington Village Dollar Days advertising with Henries Toys having a big sale. Looks inviting!

Here a list of Marklin train dealers from about 1967. Marklin of Germany is the oldest toy company still in business in the world, since 1859, and has always been a high quality maker of high end expensive toy and model trains. Suprising to find Henries as an outlet....

Here the section showing Henries as an outlet for Marklin trains, but a discrepancy with the address. This will require more research. Even Model Grocery on Colorado Blvd. in Pasadena was a dealer of Marklin trains, and it appears that Model Grocery was a purveyor of fine things besides high quality groceries.

Here a Marklin catalog from the mid 1960's

We've discussed Henries Toys on North Lake in the Lake Washington Village previously, but I thought I would provide what I believe to be a photo of the last iteration of Henries as a discount toy outlet. Not a pretty picture.

We know Henries Toys survived more than 20 years, as they were celebrating their 20th anniversary in 1967 according to their advertisements in the local papers of the day. Does anyone have any memory of buying cherished childhood toys and hobbies at Henries? I'm a vintage toy and train collector and had many Shuco wind up toys in the 1950's, later Marklin trains, really nice quality toys from old Germany. Don't remember buying any at Henries though.

Please let me know what you remember about Henries Toys. We are trying to get the "Original Whistle Stop" train shop http://www.thewhistlestop.com/ and their wonderful animated projecting neon sign http://www.thewhistlestop.com/images/22.jpg to relocate to Lake Washington Village, so please keep your fingers crossed! What kind of shops would you like see return or locate to the Lake Washington Village?

2010 Update - Home Savings/Wamu/Chase - The Millard Sheets Pasadena Mural Panic!

Now Chase is lighting up their Colorado and Lake location at night with blue neon!

Here is an update on the Millard Sheets murals which were removed from this location, even though they depicted a Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade scene from the turn of the 20th century! Perhaps we should be boycotting this bank, as they do not seem to respect the community they live in; First Federal was more sensitive in Claremont as you can read in this article: http://pasadenaindependent.com/latest_news/relocation-of-banks-millard-sheets-mural-under-discussion/

Rochelle Branch, City of Pasadena's Manager of Cultural Affairs sends us this email: The mural panels were donated to the Millard Sheets Foundation. Tony Sheets, his son and foundation president, has met with members of PCOC who have expressed a serious interest in exhibiting them there. I believe he has committed to trying to work with them. The family sculpture is still in the bank as from what I understand will stay there.

Here is information on the Millard Sheets Center for the Arts (Millard Sheets Foundation in the above email): http://www.lacountyfair.com/fp/foundations/millardsheets/index.asp

End of update: We have lost some very significant Pasadena-specific public art due to unbridled capitalism, again. Perhaps we should exercise our economic muscle and move our accounts to a local credit union, as we have been advised by many financial experts.

We were alerted that Chase Bank at Lake and Colorado, located in what was Washington Mutual, who inherited art works commissioned by the Ahmanson Corporation, the owners of Home Savings which was originally located at this site, were about to do something nefarious to the Millard Sheets mural panels depicting the Pasadena Tournament of Roses around 1890, located on the walls behind the teller area.











Rochelle Branch, of the Pasadena Cultural Affairs Office was alerted to this by an observant Pasadena Library employee, Catherine Haskett-Hany (here from another blogpost: Pasadena Branch @ Lake and Colorado is now being converted to CHASE and they were about to paint over the mural. Stopped by alert Library employee. Cultural Affairs will follow-up to find a new home. Sculpture also).











You can read about the Home Savings artwork and contribute to its saving by going to this blog, The Home Savings bank art project:


http://adamarenson.wordpress.com/homesavingsbankart/


For those of you who do not know Millard Sheets, he was one of the preeminent local artists of the 20th century and his work is all over the country, including a number of murals in public places.











At the moment, Chase has put the mural behind a wall, so it's not very visible except at the ends. This artwork is monumental and is about 15 feet tall and about 100 feet wide. Unfortunately, I have no picture. I wish I would have taken one when it was fully visible! So let that be a lesson to all of us, don't assume what you see today will be there tomorrow!











Apparently, the sculpture, depicting a man, woman and child, was originally on the corner of Lake and Colorado, in the midst of a fountain. The Home Savings building was demolished in the 1990's and replaced by what you see there now.











If you appreciate something let others know, and if it is in any way historic, let the City's Design and Historic Preservation Department know so we can keep an eye on it and also inform the owners of its value to our community.

Tonight, Monday, Sept. 20, 2010 - Art Deco Landmark Designation Hearing

Hearing tonight at the Historic Preservation Commission in regards to the landmark designation application for the Art Deco style garage building on the NW corner of Rutan and Washington Blvd., 731 E. Washington Blvd., in the North Lake Specfic Plan Area, site visit at 4:45 pm., Historic Preservation Commission meeting at Planning, 175 N. Garfield, Hale Bldg., 6:00 p.m.

This building was originally a drive-in corner market, designed by local architect Glen Elwood Smith, who worked with Myron Hunt, and designed a number of significant local structures such as the Masonic Lodge located at 17 South Sierra Madre Blvd.

731 E. Washington is landmark eligible being a largely intact locally significant auto-related building in the rather rare Art Deco Zigzag style, an architectural style which has not survived very widely in Pasadena. This potential landmark property is prominently sited on a corner raised lot located on the busy Washington Blvd. thoroughfare in the historic Lake Washington Village District.

If you would like to support this landmark designation, please call Planner Vicrim Chima at 626 744-6791 or email him at vchima@cityofpasadena.net, as soon as possible, as the meeting is tonight in a few hours and we apologize for the late notice.

Changes Coming Again to Lake and Colorado, the Oak Knoll Shopping District of Old

Exterior view of Lake Avenue Methodist Church on the southeast corner of Colorado Boulevard and Lake Avenue in 1907, looking north on Lake Avenue just south of Colorado Boulevard

Exterior view of Lake Avenue Methodist Church on the southeast corner of Colorado Boulevard and Lake Avenue in 1907, looking south on Lake Avenue from the intersection with Colorado Boulevard. This Mission Revival style church building was demolished about 1927 to make way for the following bank and office building

The Oak Knoll Office and Bank Building as proposed in 1927 in the architectural drawing, to be located on the southeast corner of Colorado Boulevard and Lake Avenue in the Oak Knoll Shopping District

The Oak Knoll Office and Bank Building as built in 1928, only one wing executed, located on the southeast corner of Colorado Boulevard and Lake Avenue in the Oak Knoll Shopping District, later called the South Lake Shopping District, this was the Oak Knoll Branch of the Pacific Southwest Bank, later Security Pacific Bank. Demolished 1974; from Sid Gally: "The caption on a photo in the Star News of March 11, 1974 says,”The six-story structure was uneconomical to maintain and remodel, according to bank officials.”

Here is Sid Gally's piece about this corner:

Past on Parade: Corner in Pasadena has been a busy placeBy Sid Gally, CorrespondentPosted: 10/18/2009 10:11:34 PM PDT The occupancy of the southeast corner of Lake Avenue and Colorado Boulevard has changed as this area of Pasadena has evolved from agriculture to business. The site once held the fruit-drying operation of R. W. Teeple. "Seven hundred tons of peaches and apricots and many tons of prunes, all produced in the Pasadena region, were dried at this plant in the season of 1893," said the Star-News. The fruit was pitted and cut open by hand and placed in wooden trays. The fruited trays were treated with sulphur dioxide fumes in enclosures and then the trays were spread on the ground for the fruit to dry in the sun. Schoolchildren often earned money in the summers by cutting fruit. The Mission-style Lake Avenue Methodist Church opened on the site in 1907. It remained at Lake and Colorado until the 1920s. The building was demolished and the congregation moved east to become the Holliston Avenue Methodist Church. The "new" church was really old, moved stone by stone from Colorado and Marengo. Then in 1928, the Oak Knoll Office and Bank building containing the Oak Knoll branch of the Los Angeles First National Trust & Savings Bank opened for business. The building was designed by architects Marston & Maybury. The Star-News wrote, "The Oak Knoll Bank building, the architecture of which combines the types of Italian Renaissance developed in Florence and on the adjoining plains of Tuscany in the fifteenth century, is a striking and outstanding building of six stories." The bank occupied the entire ground floor and basement. It had a spacious public lobby, a writing room for the ladies, and a desk platform for the officers. "All of the banking screens and counters are of Italian walnut finish, rather than the usual marble found in many banking houses," said the paper. R. W. Caspers, the bank manager, touted the security of the bank, its vaults and its night deposit system. Sound detectors would set off the alarms upon picking up noises of unlawful entry. The bank promoted its investment arm. "It maintains at all times, Mr. Caspers pointed out, a well diversified list of high grade bonds," the newspaper reported. The Bank of America, in a two-story building with outdoor ATMs, occupies the site today. - Sid Gally is a Pasadena Museum of History volunteer.

And here is what is now planned for the corner:

http://www.parkplacelp.com/images/p-2.jpg

and for the whole story of the proposed development:

http://www.parkplacelp.com/About%20Us.htm

We can only hope the final design is worthy of this important corner. The restoration of the Hotel Constance on the southwest corner of Mentor and Colorado in the same block is a wonderful thing. The Hotel Constance was a bookend to the Oak Knoll Office and Bank Building and now we have a chance to put the west bookend back on this block at this prominent Pasadena intersection of Lake and Colorado. Watch for this development coming in the next months to the Design Commission and there will be a chance for public comment. You will have a chance to have your say about what happens on this corner.

Old Glass Sign Enigma at Canterbury Records on Colorado just west of Lake

The Canterbury Record Shop historic projecting sign which we are all familiar with. The enigma of the Colorado Blvd. Canterbury Record Shop: the antique glass mirror facade sign, as seen below. What does it mean and what is it advertising? The design appears to be a "P" inside a stylized lyre. It must be very old. Does Pasadena have the only historic glass mirrored advertising sign left in the West?

The only place I've seen glass mirrored advertising signs is in Europe years ago, in Bavaria and in Karlsbad, Czechoslovakia, but they are mostly gone or badly deteriorated, such as the one pictured below.

The Canterbury Record Shop has been at this general location for a very long time, decades in fact. They took over and expanded in the former See's Candy location which went to the corner of Hudson, when See's Candy moved, I think back in the 1970's. But I don't understand the stylized "P" in what looks like a lyre of this gold mirrored sign. This is a little historic jewel and probably not noticed by most passersby. Hopefully, we can protect it and allow it to survive into the coming years, through all facade improvements of this buildings, for future generations to puzzle about and admire its beauty. Let me know if you've seen it and what you think it is.