Pasadena

Hometown Pasadena is a new breed of city guide, an in-depth, personality-rich, four-color book written by locals for locals. The five co-authors Colleen Dunn Bates, Jill Ganon, Sandy Gillis, Mel Malmberg and Mary Jane Horton are all longtime San Gabriel Valley residents, and the foreword authors are Larry Mantle (from NPR's KPCC) and Larry Wilson (editor of the Pasadena Star-News). The book is rich in history, arts, culture, restaurants, gardens, architecture, children's activities, sports and much more, and it is filled with interviews with people who make a difference in the community. It is written and designed with wit, style and intelligence. Hometown Pasadena became an immediate success, going into its fourth printing in less than one year. 256 pages, four-color throughout, flexibound binding with flaps, extensive photography and color maps

Histories of Pasadena are rich in details about important citizens, time-honored traditions, and storied enclaves such as Millionaires Row and Lamanda Park. But the legacies of Mexican Americans and other Latino men and women who often worked for Pasadena's rich and famous have been sparsely preserved through the generations--even though these citizens often made remarkable community contributions and lived in close proximity to their employers. A fuller story of the Pasadena area can be provided from these vintage images and the accompanying information culled from anecdotes, master's theses, newspaper articles, formal and informal oral histories, and the Ethnic History Research Project compiled for the City of Pasadena in 1995. Among the stories told is that of Antonio F. Coronel, a one-time Mexican Army officer who served as California state treasurer from 1866 to 1870 and whose image graced the 1904 Tournament of Roses program.

Few cities boast a business history as rich and varied as Pasadenas. In the early agricultural days, a brandy distillery and citrus and olive groves helped propel the economy, while the 20th century saw Pasadena emerge as a thriving resort and health town. Together the communitys diverse businesses have played a substantial role in determining the fortunes of the Crown City. In this volume, evocative images recall an extensive range of establishments, from large resort hotels to corner soda fountains, law offices to dry cleaners, restaurants to science labs, local industries to national powerhouses. Seldom-seen photographs from both the Pasadena Museum of Historys archives and private collections trace a business legacy unique to Pasadena, one that still thrives on generations-old family businesses and has also embraced corporate headquarters and regional franchises.

A richly photographed book showcasing the most beautiful, creative, and/or interesting homes and gardens in a city famous for them.

Built in lavish Victorian style in 1886 atop Bacon Hill, the Raymond Hotel was the most regal feature on the skyline in the San Gabriel River Valleya sundown silhouette of the wealth and prominence that had coalesced in the Pasadena area. It became the base of activities for Eastern tycoons families enjoying the balmy Southern California climate, even fostering the development of the winter mansions on Orange Grove Avenue. After the original 200-room hotel with 80 chimneys burned down on Easter Sunday in 1895, the second 300-room Raymond Hotel opened in 1901. The pioneering orange groves on the sprawling grounds gave way to a golf course. Pres. Theodore Roosevelt and Charles Chaplin are just two examples of the early-20th-century celebrities who stayed there. This visually stunning collection of images is a mere sample of the vintage professional photography that exists of South Pasadenas iconic landmark.

"Beautiful clothes, bad habits, ugly secrets: Sherri L. Smith probes the vulnerable underbellies of a lot of toothy sharks in this page-turning California noir."—E. Lockhart, New York Times bestselling author of We Were Liars Bad things happen everywhere. Even in the land of sun and roses. When Jude's best friend is found dead in a swimming pool, her family calls it an accident. Her friends call it suicide. But Jude calls it what it is: murder. And someone has to pay. Now everyone is a suspect—family and friends alike. And Jude is digging up the past like bones from a shallow grave. Anything to get closer to the truth. But that's the thing about secrets. Once they start turning up, nothing is sacred. And Jude's got a few skeletons of her own. In a homage to the great noir stories of Los Angeles, award-winning author Sherri L. Smith's Pasadena is a tale of love, damage and salvation set against the backdrop of California's City of Roses.

The name Pasadena evokes images of a sunny paradise filled with the wafting scent of orange blossoms and roses. The world looks to Pasadena every January 1, when the world-famous Tournament of Roses carries on a century-long tradition and the Rose Bowl game reigns as college football's "granddaddy of them all." Many of the city's other cultural and architectural icons also trace their roots to Pasadena's early days. From citrus groves to resort hotels, a bicycle highway and a commuter blimp, presidential visits, and summer snowstorms, the rich and varied history of early Pasadena can be seen in this volume's many unique photographs. Many of these images, taken from the archives at the Pasadena Museum of History, have never before been published. They reflect the colorful origins of a city that remains to this day a popular tourist destination, California cultural center, and a beloved home to thousands.

At sunset, the San Gabriel Mountains form a rosy sculptural backdrop for Pasadena, a city of stately street trees and lush gardens. Attracted by a paradisiacal climate, health seekers and wealthy Easterners flocked to its resort hotels--the Green, the Maryland, the Huntington, the Painter, the Raymond--and built grand residences along Orange Grove and Grand Avenues. Scores of commercial and industrial buildings rose downtown, punctuated by public works, civic buildings, schools, and churches that doubled as works of art, like the Colorado Street Bridge, the Christian Science Church, and the California Mediterranean-style city hall. Preservation efforts have succeeded in putting Old Pasadena and the Pasadena Civic Center on the National Register of Historic Places, and continued restoration has made the city's unique architectural treasures a major attraction in Southern California.