Parting Shot

Highland Park circa 1905. (Click to biggify.)

Before this blog goes to sleep, want to include this never-before-seen photo of Highland Park circa 1905.

This view is looking Northeast up toward the San Gabriel Mountains from where today is the upper parking lot of the Southwest Museum on Mount Washington. On the left is the The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, that we know better today as The Metro Gold Line. On the right is Figueroa lined with power, trolley, telegraph poles and Echo Street running east to Avenue 52. In the foreground are homes of Professor’s Row on Sycamore Terrace. The large buildings to the left are Occidental College on Figueroa Street at Avenue 50.  On the other side of the railroad tracks along between Avenue 50 and 51 where court apartments are today is a very large government-like structure that I can only assume was part of Occidental college. Also, next to the tracks on the south side of Avenue 50 is a building where today is that empty lot with a cement slab and steps to nowhere. In the distance on the left around Avenue 55 is another large building I’m guessing is Saint Luke’s Methodist Church. The hills around Highland Park are largely undeveloped. If this photo were in color we could likely see patches of orange on Poppy Peak to the left.

On the right side of the photograph, just as automobiles do today, the blur of a horse and buggy can be seen speeding down the hill on Figueroa Street (Then Pasadena Avenue) in front of the newly built Pillar of Fire church building. The building closest building to the camera is now where the Arroyo Seco Magnet School is. At this point in 1905, the branch of Arroyo Seco creek has already been graded and bridged over by the Attison Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, and Figueroa Street. Just across Figueroa from Professor’s Row, it looks like there was a park where the Hillside Baptist Church is between Avenue 50 and Echo. Way off in the distance on the right is The Raymond Hotel (the new 1901 one) in South Pasadena. Along Figueroa, what looks like little bushes are growing, those will become the towering palm trees we see there today. The photo is similar to one found in the LA Library photo archive dated 1908, taken near the same spot, but I haven’t seen this particular photo anywhere before. It’s amazing how many of the homes are still there. Amazing how familiar this place looks. It looks like home, it looks like a place with a history, a place awaiting its future.