Hidden Pasadena
More than 50 million viewers begin each new year looking to Pasadena, tuning into the Rose Parade to see flower and seed-coated floats cruise slowly down Colorado Boulevard. But to nearly 1450,000 of those viewers, the “City of Roses” is home, a complex suburb of downtown Los Angeles with a deep history. Internationally known for the Rose Bowl, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena Playhouse, the Arts and Crafts Movement, Jackie Robinson, Julia Child, Octavia Butler, Mildred Pierce, its little old ladies, the Arroyo Seco, and so much more, Pasadena has played a greater role in American and Pacific histories than most of its residents even know.
This season digs deep into the “Crown City” of the San Gabriel Valley with six little-known Pasadena stories, from Simons brickyard to Vroman’s bookstore, St. Barnabas church to the Shoya House at The Huntington. It also considers Pasadenans from the past, from John Brown’s children to John Birch’s followers.
Season 4 of Western Edition is produced by Avishay Artsy, Katie Dunham, Eryn Hoffman, Jessica Kim, and Elizabeth Logan.
Prologue
The fourth season of Western Edition: Hidden Pasadena, from the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West (ICW), digs deep into the “Crown City” of the San Gabriel Valley. This Prologue introduces six Pasadena stories that will frame this season’s focus: sites such as Simons brickyard to Vroman’s bookstore, St. Barnabas church to the Shoya House at The Huntington, and Pasadenans from the past – John Brown’s children to John Birch’s followers.
How do the hidden histories of Pasadena help us understand this place, community, and its outsized role in history?
Episode 1: Simons Brickyard
Now an upscale, residential neighborhood in the heart of Pasadena, Madison Heights used to be home to Simons Brickyard, once the largest brickyard in the world. The Simons Brick Company imprint can still be found on bricks throughout Southern California. This episode looks at the stories hidden within them: about the laborers who made the bricks, the neighborhood then and now, and legal battles that involved allegations of animal cruelty and more.
Transcript available here.
You tell your history in a sense, you’re giving credit to people who deserve it and who are the builders of the country.
Selected images to accompany this episode: