They're tearing down my old house in Pasadena!

[John P. Cooper]

They're tearing down my old house in Pasadena!

I lived there from 1980 until 1995 and now it is fenced off. It is the place where I met my friend and landlady, Georgia.

Someone made a frigging fortune off her death.

No wonder it looked like crap a few weeks ago when I went by there...so run down.....now I know why. It was doomed.

Wow...that place is 100 plus years old. The original owners son came by one time...and he was an old man by then...and he told us the history of the building and which parts were added on.

There were stables in the back and a hayloft overhead. That became 6 parking garages with two apartments over them. I lived in one of those for a decade.

There used to be a horse trail that was behind all the buildings on that block and it lead down to the next street.

Sad to see it go. Now I can't even get on the property for a last look. But I will try.

Earthquakes couldn't kill it. I was there when the huge Northridge quake hit at 4:31 in the morning.

I had my first anxiety attack there. Brutal. Just too much stress.

So many memories of people and friends and women and music and happiness and sadness...and that pizza that had to fall face down on the carpet. And my reading all the Sherlock Holmes stories there when I did not have a television.

I told a woman I knew that I loved another woman while I lived there.

I had a convertible sofa.

I was not even 30 years old in 1980.

And when my pal came out to live here to escape from his wife. He lived in the same building for maybe a year or less. He is gone, too. He's gone, she's gone and soon the building will be gone. Will I be gone next?

That is a very valuable piece of land...very deep. Condos will go up there for sure.

Man...my first store on Colorado Blvd is gone and now my 'house' is going. I have never had a place I lived simply be torn down.

I lived in 3 different apartments in that one building.

Life was so different.

[Ron Thorne]

Sorry to hear about the fate of that vintage, historic property, John.

[John P. Cooper]

Thank you.

I just happened to go down that street by chance almost, simply to show my visiting friend from the UK where is was b/c he remembered it.

Fencing all around now with blue tarps tied to the high fencing.

I went there a few weeks ago in May when I realized it was the 5th anniversary of my friend's passing. She had owned that building until her death in 2001. I drove down the street and parked the car and walked down the driveway to have a look/see and maybe find someone who I remembered.

My landlady was never one to spend a fortune on upkeep beyond what she needed to do, but she would never have let he property fall into the disrepair it was in - exterior awnings torn down, paint faded and chipping away, etc.

The 4 car carport was still listing toward starboard as it had been for ages.

The two huge trees in the front were taken down a few years ago.

One time when the building was being repaired, a small corner piece of paint came away from the building. I still have it b/c it had dozens and dozens of layers of paint, one on top of another. It seemed to be basically a paint history of the building. I still have it somewhere.

I will miss that building.

My first apartment there was a one bedroom on the second floor in the main building, then a single room 'bachelor apartment' with kitchen and bath to save some loot. Then, when times got richer, I moved to the big apartment over the garage. That is where I was when I left in 1995.

I had three cars back then - 2 Cadillacs and a Hudson from 1950!

Oh, well....memories.

[John P. Cooper]

I wonder if they are allowed to tear down a building like that? There are not hat many buildings in Pasadena that are that old.

Architecturally, it has little to offer. It is very plain on the outside- just a box shaped building with doors and windows and a couple of staircases.

The back building is just as mundane - two one bedroom apartments over 6 garages with an centered, interior staircase leading up to the 'hayloft'. Moving a 35 inch TV up there was a challenge.

Wow.....one hundred years...and fifteen years of my life.

It's sad to loose something with so many memories.

I'm thinking of moving from my house that I've spent the better part of 50 years in.

[clinthopson]

Passtheweenie has several important buildings, the Green designed houses are masterpieces, the civic center is very impressive, the original Trader Joe's should be a national historic monument.

However, just because a building is old and offers nothing else but a few memories to a few people is not avery good reason for its preservation.

[claude]

Very true Clint.

Just outside of my office is this monstrosity:



This picture is actually several years old and the building has deteriorated significantly since then. The roof is starting to cave in. The owners of the building are one of the wealthiest families in the country and I think they are just waiting until it goes back to the earth before bulldozing it. I personally don't think there is anything left to save so go to it I say. There is of course a group who is bent on preserving the building, for what I don't know. I think they are too late, the building is gone. The only thing left to do is get rid of it and start over.


It apparantly looked like this back in the 50's when Princess Elizabeth was in town:

[rollhead]

I grew up close to a beautiful neighborhood with old, red-brick houses, wide lawns and ancient oaks.

It's being razed and replaced by a neighborhood of McMansions:

[clinthopson]

Our beautiful rolling hills of Orange County are now covered with those McMonstrosities.

[John P. Cooper]

Short post-

I just went by my old place and unless they are gong to completely renovate it...it's coming down.

All the doors were open in all the units and they are all empty.

I went into apartments I lived in 25 years ago...and had not been in since 1995. I gotta tell you...it was sad..really sad. I was so glad that my old friend and landlady was not there to see it. Honest to God, I almost cried.

To be in rooms you had not been in since 1995 or earlier and to see them empty and shabby...though the big place on the first floor where my friend lived has still beautiful hardwood floor and stunning built-in shelves and cabinets in the living room.....the rest of the units looked awful. It was like being a ghost to walk though there.

Rugged to see and be there. Windows left wide open, doors unlocked and a couple look like they were kicked in...maybe after tenants left and the new 'owners' needed access...and kicking in a door didnt matter any more.

And being in the last apartment I lived in for close to a decade was....indescribable, really. Such a nice homey place once...now a ghost house.

[GoodSpeak]

There is also a beautiful Frank Lloyd-Wright home USC restored and now uses for an education/museum venue in Passtheweenie [I gotta remember that, Clint...too funny ]

[John P. Cooper]

I went over there and shot 20 pics today.

Too bad this forum is telling me that the pic/document I want to upload contains no data.

[Salvador Dali Lama]

when the house i grew up in, spent my first 19 years in was torn down, i was glad to see that bastard go. the whole neighborhood went, one fell swoop, developers, gentrification you know. (i can hear morrisey... "i would rather not gooo... baaacck to the old house") and soon, the house i was shot in front of, where my best friends once lived, will also be torn down, and we'll all be glad to see that go. more gentrification. ok by me, ok by all of us, i don't really care for the fact that some company is making millions but acting like it kills them to give us a tiny bit more than fair market value, but still. its good to get the hell out of the hood sometimes.

soon we're all going to live in a nicer place (like a month or two, houses under contract, good stuff). tonight we made a joke, we might sprinkle shell casings and little baggies around on the sidewalk to reminisce from time to time.

[clinthopson]

When I went to Compton College, we played Passtheweenie College every year and kicked the crap out of them.

Of course, today, there is absolutely nothing in Compton worth saving and the College is under State receivership.

[GoodSpeak]

Originally Posted by clinthopson

When I went to Compton College, we played Passtheweenie College every year and kicked the crap out of them.

I went to MSAC [Mt. San Antonio College for those who don't know] and we used to kick the crap out of them, too.


Must be because of all those Rose Parade queen wannabe's enrolled there....no room for athletes.

[moneyp]

Originally Posted by GoodSpeak

I went to MSAC [Mt. San Antonio College for those who don't know] and we used to kick the crap out of them, too.

MSAC? That's known as "Mount Sack," baby.

JPC, whereabouts in Pasadena?

I'm with SDL on this. I always feel weird moving out of a place I lived, but after I'm gone, fuck it. I would happily throw the first match on the dump I lived in during college after dousing it with gasoline. That wouldn't be necessary because it had an open gas line in the abandoned floor below us. Anyone could have walked in, turned the handle and blown us all to kingdom come. The landlord was the sort of person I figured might actually do it for the insurance money. Ugh. Really bad memories. I think I've only lived in about three places my entire life that I really liked.

[John P. Cooper]

Originally Posted by moneyp

JPC, whereabouts in Pasadena?

It's on Los Robles between California and Del Mar. One of the last actual houses on that block....and certainly the oldest.

Since I have lived in this area, I have seen all those houses come down one by one and two by two only to be replaced by condos. It is a main thourough-fare and there is little room for sentiment. Not a family street. All the families live on blocks nearby in houses that didn't get torn down.

[Enforcer]

Brush Park, bitches. The area has actually started to see a revival of sorts, but these are the remains of what were unbelievably grand and beautiful homes.

[GoodSpeak]

Originally Posted by moneyp

MSAC? That's known as "Mount Sack," baby.

Yes.

Yes it is

[John P. Cooper]

Larry....oh, man....what happened there??? Those are beautiful! My god...what a waste ...total waste.

[John P. Cooper]

My Pasadena house - built in 1893 according to City Hall. 113 years old. Survived it all....til the wrecking ball that they say is coming. To be built - 11 townhouses.

[Gary Sisco]

Larry -- Yeah, but think. You could buy them all and rent them to the crack gangs.

Cooper -- You should have left the little old lady from Pasadena living there. They'd not want to wreck her house. Everybody knows her. Think of the publicity.

My folks sold the family house they'd had closer to 40 years than 30 just before my father died two and a half years ago. It wasn't on the market long enough to advertise or even put a realtor's sign on the lawn. Pow. All of a sudden we were packing them up and moving them out (rollin', rollin', rollin'...). Literally, they put it up for sale one day and had it sold two days later. My mother'd constructed an amazing perrennial garden over the decades. Garden people from miles around used to drive here just to see hers when in bloom. People who bought the place turned her gardens into a place to park parts cars on one side and put some of that horrid, worst imaginable colors, plastic play stuff for kids on the other. I can't stand to even look in that direction when I drive by. An amazing amount of labor and love went into those gardens. People probably never even noticed what they'd done.

[claude]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

My mother'd constructed an amazing perrennial garden over the decades. Garden people from miles around used to drive here just to see hers when in bloom. People who bought the place turned her gardens into a place to park parts cars on one side and put some of that horrid, worst imaginable colors, plastic play stuff for kids on the other. I can't stand to even look in that direction when I drive by. An amazing amount of labor and love went into those gardens. People probably never even noticed what they'd done.

Sounds like what happened to the property next door to our house. Beautiful gardens all through the yard, house was wonderfully kept. Now 8 yrs later, there are only a few remnants of the garden and the house seems to be falling apart.

[GoodSpeak]

Originally Posted by John P. Cooper

My Pasadena house - built in 1893 according to City Hall. 113 years old. Survived it all....til the wrecking ball that they say is coming. To be built - 11 townhouses.

Coop,

All kidding aside, I feel for you, man.

Like losing an old friend.




Focus on the good memories.