The City Is Home To The World-Renowned California Institute Of Technology (Caltech) And The Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Pasadena Is Also Home To The Annual Tournament Of Roses Parade And The Rose Bowl Football Game.
Pasadena Is Also Home To Many Beautiful Homes And Gardens, Including The Gamble Garden And The Huntington Library, Art Collections, And Botanical Gardens. The City’s Downtown Area Is Also Known For Its Vibrant Shopping And Dining Scene, Featuring Many Independent Boutiques, Restaurants, And Cafes. The Old Pasadena Historic District Is A Popular Destination, Featuring Many Well-Preserved Victorian And Craftsman-Style Buildings, As Well As Many Art Galleries, Museums And Cultural Venues. Pasadena Is Also Home To Many Parks And Hiking Trails, Such As The Eaton Canyon Park And The Hahamongna Watershed Park, Providing Ample Opportunity For Outdoor Activities.
The exquisite 1927 landmark exhibits Italian Renaissance and Spanish influences with its red tile roof, ornate fountain, and lush garden courtyard. Pasadena City Hall is a rectangular edifice outlining a spacious court. The east side is a one-story arcade, and the other three sides are three stories high, with towers at each corner and the main dome over the west entrance. The massive circular structure rises perpendicularly for six stories, and at the top of the dome is the lantern, a column supported cupola 41 feet high, surmounted by an urn and ball.
The Rose Bowl is an outdoor athletic stadium located in Pasadena, California. Opened in October 1922, and designed by Myron Hunt, the stadium is recognized as a National Historic Landmark and a California Historic Civil Engineering landmark. The Rose Bowl is the 16th-largest stadium in the world, the 11th-largest stadium in the United States, and the 10th-largest NCAA stadium.
The Rose bowl is one of the most famous venues in sporting history and specifically for hosting the annual Rose Bowl Game for which it is named.
The Rose Bowl hosts several different events throughout the year like, the spectacular Independence Day firework show, the largest flea market on the West coast, various musical events, and many different sporting events.
Baseball super star Jackie Robinson attended John Muir High School in 1935 and Pasadena Junior College in the city. Mack Robinson, older brother to Jackie Robinson, also made sports history during the 1936 Olympic Games, taking the Silver Medal in the 200-meter sprint, behind teammate Jesse Owens. Both sports power houses are memorialized in front of Pasadena City Hall.
Located 10 miles from downtown Los Angeles, Old Town Pasadena is the downtown historic business district of Pasadena. The area is eclectic and lively with a multitude of restaurants and cafes, museums, shopping, and entertainment.
The Norton Simon Museum was named after, none other than, Norton Simon and is located on the corner of Orange Grove and Colorado BLVD. Simon was a pilar in the art community and believed that art had the power to communicate. Simon held the belief that the ability of visual arts to inspire and reflect the human condition was immense. The Norton Simon Museum was founded in 1924 as a privately donated non-profit institution. These donations mainly were derived from Simon himself as he spent over 30 collecting more than 8,000 antiquities and works. Endowments of 19th-century painters such as Rembrandt, Daumier, Degas, Renoir, and Gauguin were part of the collection. The Norton Simon Museum also includes Italian, French, Spanish, Dutch and Flemish Old Masters, as well as 20th-century paintings, sculpture and works on paper by Maillol, Picasso, Henry Moore, Braque and Giacometti, to name a few. The current collection boast over 12,000 pieces with one being the only painting by Raphael on the west coast. The institution’s infrastructure includes 9.5 acres of land, and a 22-room Victorian house called the Reed mansion. Lastly, the Norton Simone Museum has ties to the Rose Bowl Parade by selling grandstand seats for the Tournament of Roses in Pasadena for the purpose of weathering the Great Depression. The benefit maintained the upkeep of the extensive-picturesque gardens as well as the general property and the public continues to enjoy the establishment over 80 years later.
The Rose Bowl Parade, also known as the Tournament of Roses, has origins back to 1890. The parade usually starts at 8:00am, right before the famous Rose Bowl Games on New Year’s Day (if January 1st occurs on a Sunday, the parade is moved to January, 2nd). While the theme of the parade is predetermined, each participant is encouraged to be highly creative, imaginative, skilled as the spectacle is broadcast to millions of homes each year. The Parade is 5.5 miles long and takes place mostly on Colorado Boulevard. The event is a huge undertaking as thousands of guests arrive from all over the world just to see dozens of parade marchers preform. Participating in the Rose Bowl Parade is a prestigious engagement as the top-rated marching bands from high school, college, and military service strut down the asphalt. Famous singers, celebrities, equestrian performers, dancing groups, Olympic medalists, state officials, and sports personnel all congregate to provide merriment for the masses. The real star of the show is the Tournament of Roses Floats. These floats are created with millions of flowers, greenery, and other plant life. The parade begins on the corner of Green Street and Orange Grove Boulevard and officially closes at Sierra Madre Boulevard and Villa Street.
The Gamble House, also known as David B. Gamble House, is a recognized national landmark for being an America Craftsman style home. It was designed in 1908 by architects Greene & Greene and commissioned by David and Mary Gamble to use as a winter home. The Gambles were from Ohio and wanted a warm winter retreat located in California. Southern California being a natural choice due to pleasant weather and at the time, Pasadena was the preferred choice for the wealthy and famous. David Gamble, being the son of James Gamble (the founder of Procter & Gamble) was drawn to the prestige, beauty, and location of Pasadena California.
Today the Gamble house was considered to be a marvel. The house is located on a grassy knoll overlooking Pasadena’s Arroyo Seco, seasonally dry river and continues the rustic look outside and inside of the home. In the 1920’s the home was very different from the surrounding houses. Originally the house faced mass criticism for being gawdy and vastly different from homes of the era. The Architects drew inspiration from Japanese aesthetics, the notion of expansion, and using natural materials and leaving them in their natural state. Leaving natural materials in their natural state was seen as unfashionable in the 1920’s as things were often painted white and created with uniformity in mind. The home itself, is located in a grassy area that overlooks a seasonally dry riverbed call Arroyo Seco.
The interior is just as impressive as the exterior. The rooms of the home were built using multiple kinds of woods like teak, maple, cedar from Port Orford, and the highly sought-after mahogany. The interior design features angels, organic lines, and exposed imperfections in the wood.
The USC Pacific Asia Museum started out as a humble curio shop located on Raymond Street in Pasadena in 1901. The owner and operator of the shop was named Grace Nicholson who became interested in Native American artwork, baskets, and basket weaving. Her procurement of these artifacts directly led to her acquiring more indigenous artifacts. These acquisitions caused the curio shop to be crowded full of natural history. Nicholson also began taking trips to the American mid-west to carefully document and photograph the making of Native American baskets and weaving techniques. The anthropologic endeavor of understanding Native American heritage has never been reproduced and is now recognized as a national treasure.
In 1924, the artifacts from the curio shop were transferred to the newly designed Pacific Asia Museum, then called “Chia.” Nicholson choose “Chia” as the museum name because in Native American culture the chia seed was a life sustaining food and in Chinese the term meant, “Lifesaving vessel.” The building was constructed by Marston, Van Pelt, and Maybury, an architectural firm located in Pasadena in the Chinese Imperial Palace Courtyard style. The roof tiles, stone and marble carvings, and bronze and copper work were imported directly from China or hand created in Pasadena while following plans and pictures of authentic Chinese standards.
In November 2013, the museum partnered with University of Southern California to become USC Pacific Asia Museum. Form 1924 to today, the museum has amassed 15,000 antiquities and continues to provide information about Native America weaving techniques.