Happy new year! Every January 1 (or January 2, if New Year’s Day falls on a Sunday), the world turns its eyes on Pasadena for the Rose Parade. This annual spectacle has been going since 1890, so as you can imagine there’s plenty of historical $#!+ to see along the 5.5 mile route. Here’s a whirlwind tour of the National Register of Historic Places sites the floats will pass by.

Etan Does LA Visit #54: Hotel Green

Added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 23, 1982

Back when the Rose Parade traversed Raymond Ave, the bridge of this historic hotel was an ideal vantage point for watching the floats. It was built in 1887 right at a railway passenger station. When the original owner went insolvent, Colonel George Gil Green took over, hired Frederick Roehrig (he of the McNally mansion, post #29) to expand it, and reopened it as Hotel Green in 1894. It was a hit, and the hotel was expanded with a Central Annex in 1899 and renamed Castle Green; in 1903 the complex expanded to the building directly to the west, which was part of Throop University (later CalTech). In its heyday, this was the place to stay for the upper crust, especially during the winter months. The Rockefellers, Vanderbilts & Roosevelts all stayed here. There’s a great story about President Benjamin Harrison’s disastrous visit in 1891, when the waiters got so wasted they ate all the fish before dinner! 

The original Hotel Green section was torn down in 1935. Since the 1920s, Castle Green has been used as cooperative apartments. There are still residents there today. 

+Hotel Green @ NRHP website

+Historical timeline @ Castle Green official website

+The Hotel of Mirth: Pasadena’s Castle Green (KCET)

Etan Does LA Visit #55: Pasadena Civic Center Financial District

Added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 29, 1982

These five buildings at the intersection of Colorado Blvd. & Marengo are evidence of the eastward shift of Pasadena’s commercial locus during the early 1900s. The contributing buildings are: Security Pacific Building (1924), Citizens Bank Building (1914), Equitable Savings & Loan Association (aka MacArthur Building – 1926), Mutual Building (1909), Crown Building (1907). 

+Pasadena Civic Center Financial District @ NRHP website

Etan Does LA Visit #56: Singer Building

Added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 16, 1985

This was a grand showroom for the venerable Singer Sewing Machine Company. Its architect, Everett Phipps Babcock, designed a refined Spanish colonial structure with fanciful stone friezes, decorative piers, tiling and other fun details that reward close inspection. It’s now a Patioworld.

+Singer Building @ NRHP website 

+1926 photo of the Singer Building (Calisphere)

Etan Does LA Visit #57: First Trust Building & Garage

Added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 12, 1987

A killer Bennett & Haskell building from 1927, a great example of Beaux Arts in banking architecture. It’s also important for its revolutionary earthquake-proof support system of steel beams with reinforced concrete, designed by a local CalTech professor. The murals inside depict scenes from Pasadena history. 

+First Trust Building @ NRHP website

+1929 photo (Huntington Digital Library)

Etan Does LA Visit #58: Pasadena Playhouse

Added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 11, 1975

Opened in 1924, this theater complex benefited from an active non-professional theater community and a lot of support from theater-going locals. It was an incubator for new plays (Tennessee Williams, F. Scott Fitzgerald and more premiered their work here) and also new theater forms. The Playhouse operated a school of theatre arts for 40 years, training actors like Ernest Borgnine, Eleanor Parker, Charles Bronson, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman and more. It even operated an early TV station, and trained many of the first technicians working in TV. From 1969 – 1986 it was closed due to financial insolvency; it reopened and has been (mostly) going strong since. The Spanish colonial building itself is one of the greatest works of architect Elmer Grey, also known for the Beverly Hills Hotel & Huntington Art Gallery.

+Pasadena Playhouse @ NRHP website

+Vintage photos and architectural plans (Los Angeles Theatres blog)

+Read an expansive history at the Playhouse’s official website

Etan Does LA Visit #59: Pasadena Playhouse Historic District

Added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 19, 1994

As Pasadena’s civic and financial centers expanded eastward in the ‘20s/‘30s, the commercial, social and entertainment focus shifted, too. The 50-plus buildings that make up the district surrounding the Pasadena Playhouse include clothing stores, office buildings, auto showrooms, churches, even a newspaper HQ. While they are built in different styles, they mostly share a sense of human scale, a differentiation between ground and upper floors and an accent on well-marked entrances that give them a consistent character. 

+The Pasadena Playhouse Historic District @ NRHP website

Etan Does LA Visit #60: Kindel Building

Added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 18, 1996

Colorado Blvd. was part of Route 66 (completed in late 1926), and a lot of auto-related businesses popped up to attract motorists. This was a 1928 showroom built by auto dealer James Kindel; it was later used by the Bush-Morgan Motor Company and the Howard Motor Company (see below) and now operates as an auto body shop.

+Kindel Building @ NRHP website

+Vintage photos from ‘40s-’50s, after Howard Auto Company moved in (Calisphere)

Etan Does LA Visit #61: Howard Motor Company Building

Added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 18, 1996

While it’s vacant right now, this 1927 building was initially a fancy showroom for a Buick dealership. Check out the high-relief, churrigueresque sculpture on the facade – this definitely would have stuck out among the businesses along Route 66! In the late ‘30s, Howard swapped buildings with a Packard dealership which occupied the Kindel Building at the time. Later tenants sold Mazdas, Fords, Oldsmobiles, Acuras and various European import cars…even carpets for a spell. 

+Howard Motor Co. Building @ NRHP website

+Howard Motor Co. Building @ Route 66 Times

+Brief history of the building @ National Park Service website

Etan Does LA Visit #62: Foothill Boulevard Milestone (Mile 11)

Added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 19, 1996

In the first decade of the 1900s, LA’s Highway Commission created six highways connecting different parts of the city. They added stone markers to help early motorists find their way. This is the only remaining one in Pasadena. The numbers you see follow a system devised by Albert Bancroft: “11” marks the number of miles from the system’s focal point, the LA Country Courthouse; “220/222” tells you the block you are on within mile 11; and “FB” represents Foothill Blvd, the name of the highway. This is the kind of object we talk about when we use the word “milestone” as a metaphor.

+Foothill Milestone @ NRHP website

+Brief history on the National Park Service website

+The Milestone on Atlas Obscura

Etan Does LA Visit #127: Grace Nicholson Building / USC Pacific Asia Museum

Added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 21, 1977

The USC Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena was originally known as The Grace Nicholson Treasure House of Oriental Art. It was built in 1925 for Grace Nicholson, a young woman who traveled to Pasadena from Philadelphia in the early 1900s and opened a curio shop selling Native American baskets and weaving to collectors. When her interests turned from the Southwest to the Far East, she hired the firm of Marston, Van Pelt and Maybury to build her a new home for her Asian art collection. But this is no mere gallery – it’s one of the most spectacular examples of traditional Chinese-style architecture in America, and it remains an important center for cross-cultural learning and understanding of Asian art, nearly a century after it was built.

+Read my full history of the Grace Nicholson Building, with tons of historic and modern photos

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PS: Want to see what the Rose Parades of yore looked like? Here are some vintage photos curated by The Homestead Blog, UncoverLA.com and LA Times.