Real Estate Primer

I read a lot of blogs (too many or not enough, I haven't decided). One I particularly enjoy is Pasadena Real Estate With Brigham Yen. Brigham is full of ideas and enthusiasm for a better Pasadena. He regularly posts about what's going on real estate-wise in town.

I took today's photo from a window in one of the offices of the Pasadena Professional Building at Union and Madison. This empty lot on Union St. is part of the Fuller Theological Seminary Campus. Here's a link to a view from the rooftop when the Herkimer Arms still stood there. That's City Hall in the background.

What's happening with the lot? As usual, Brigham has the scoop. When Fuller Theological Seminary removed the Greene & Greene-designed Herkimer Arms (not destroyed, thanks to preservation efforts, but relocated to Raymond just north of Maple), the Fuller Worship Center was supposed to go in. If you want to know why building hasn't begun, read Brigham's post. After all, it's his scoop.

Pasadena Professional Building

Last week we viewed a bit of Pasadena skyline from atop the Professional Building. (To see those posts, click on the label "Pasadena Professional Building" below.)

Here's a view looking up at the building itself. I wish I'd had a ladder. Better yet, a jet pack. I'd like to get up to those rosettes for a close-up. The best I can do is suggest you click on the photo for a closer look at the tasty superfluous details on this creamy building.

Amelia, the building manager, told me when she began working there in 1989 the basement was creepy, with lights hanging from the ceiling (some of them nonfunctional) over an old wooden desk amid boxes and old furniture. Supposedly there's a ghost of a little boy in the basement, too. Amelia's never met him face to face, but he's closed a few doors on her when she knew she was the only one on the premises.

The basement's been cleaned up now. Originally it held an assembly hall for meetings, but it's no longer in use.

There have been other changes. When Amelia first came to the Professional Building the elevators still had seats for the uniformed operators. Not anymore. The elevators are nice, but I prefer the stairs. I'd take them even if I had a jet pack to get to my doctor's office. (Use it or lose it, they say.)

For a view from a bit further away, see Ben's post.

Presbyterian from on High

I snapped this shot of Pasadena Presbyterian Church on Colorado Blvd. from atop the Pasadena Professional Building at the corner of Madison and Union. If you click on this picture to enlarge it, you can get a better view of the cloisters to the right. You can also see the bells mounted in the slim, modern bell tower. These bells survived the 1971 Sylmar earthquake, but the original bell tower didn't. (Thanks to Elizabeth for sharing this info in yesterday's comments.)

Pasadena Heritage says the church began in 1875 in a private home; this site was purchased in 1908. But this view wasn't available until 1925 when the Pasadena Professional Building came into being.

I took several more shots, but I knew security man Ernie had other things to do, and though he was too kind to rush me I thought it best to head back downstairs to see Amelia.

Amelia's the building manager, and a fountain of facts about the Pasadena Professional Building. In order to build the eight story structure, a group of 57 doctors, surgeons and dentists formed a corporation. For a cost of nearly a half million dollars, Los Angeles architects Dodd & Richards and LA's Schofield Construction Company built to the corporation's specifications. Each office suite is different due to the arrangements made for the original occupants. Where are you gonna find that today?

Just walk into the lobby and you'll know you're in a special place.

We'll take a three-day weekend to bring home the bacon and do some other blog business, and I'll finish the tale of the Pasadena Professional Building on Tuesday.

Belvedere of the West

I'll get to pictures of the Pasadena Professional Building itself, but first I'd like to show you a few more shots I took from the roof. And I ought to tell you how I got up there.

The building in today's picture is Bank of the West, at the corner of Madison Ave. and Colorado Blvd. I've long admired the belvedere atop this building, which the PlayhouseDistrict tour says is on the National Register of Historic Places. See the bottom of page 2 of this .pdf for info, then print out the .pdf and keep it! No, no, no, don't thank me, thank Pasadena Heritage. The tour doesn't say what the building was originally called or who the architect was, but it does say it's a 1927-28 Italian Renaissance Revival, and there's lots of other great info in there.

I intend to get up to that belvedere some day, but in the meantime I was photographing it from the roof of the Professional Building. It started when the dashing Dr. Ferrante was examining my petite peds. (Well, okay, my pedestrian peds.) I mentioned I like the Professional Building and its 1920's style, but I'd been unable to learn much about it on the web. He said, "Go see Amelia. She knows everything."

Amelia turns out to be the building manager. I don't suppose she knows everything, but she knows everything about the Professional Building, and she's happy to tell it. While she sent for her archive file she recruited security man Ernie to guide me to the roof for a Pasadena photographer's dream. Ernie was patient, and I snapped away.

Do you recognize what's in the lower right corner of the shot? More on that, and Amelia's stories, tomorrow.

Guess Where I Am

Hint: Ben posted about it recently. In fact, the very day of Ben's post, I was in the very building he mentioned, visiting the dashing Dr. Ferrante, super-podiatrist!

I know what you're thinking: great minds think alike. What? You weren't thinking that about the coincidence of me being in the building Ben was posting about? Oh. You were thinking you've never heard the words "dashing" and "podiatrist" in the same sentence. Whatevs.

I'm on the roof of the Pasadena Professional Building, looking west down Union Street. The Professional Building stands gracefully at the intersection of Union and Madison Avenue, just as it has since it was built in 1925 (two years before City Hall). The official address is 65 N. Madison. The building has an interesting history, some of which I learned while I was there. I'll post more about it in the coming days.

Actually, the building hasn't always stood at Madison and Union. It used to stand at Madison and Herkimer; Union Street was once called Herkimer Street. Now I know how the Herkimer Arms got its name. That's the square white building in the lower center of this photo, the only extant apartment building designed by Greene and Greene and slated to be moved to a new location in the near future. Just beyond the Herkimer, with the aquamarine trim, is the brand new David Allan Hubbard library of the Fuller Theological Seminary, another of Ben's great recent posts. Further west on Union you see All Saints Episcopal Church and Pasadena City Hall. I don't know what those two huge buildings center right are called. Does that make me a bad person? Don't answer that.

More to come about the Professional Building and its early 20th century super-doctors. They didn't fly, but they built a mighty nice building.

Superfluous Detail: Professional Lamp

The Professional Building at 65 N. Madison Avenue is one of Pasadena's quieter architectural gems. You've been by it; it sits on the southwest corner of Madison and Union. The internet is strangely silent about it, so I welcome tips from readers on who the architect was or when it was built. My guess is 1920s or 1930s. It's got a bit of Deco flair to it.

If you aren't lucky enough to have a doctor, lawyer or accountant in the building, there's a pharmacy and a coffee shop on the first floor. A reasonable excuse to drop by and pretend you're Hildy Johnson for a few minutes. If that's reasonable.