If you haven’t been there before, Pasadena is a small town with a lot of vibe. It’s where the annual Rose Parade is held.
The Pasadena City Hall is the center of the city. Many films and TV shows have been shot here, and if you watch The Big Bang Theory, this is the view from outside the characters’ apartment window.
I don’t know why, but it seems buildings from the early 1900s were so cool. Then, as the years went on, everything got uglier. I guess the Industrial Revolution took craftsmanship out of city architecture and planning.
This building was built in 1927 then renovated in 2004 to meet modern building codes. It’s good that “the big one” didn’t happen before then, or this might not be standing. If you don’t know, “the big one” is a legend in Southern California, where a giant earthquake is due to occur any day. They’ve been talking about it since I was a kid. 30 years, and I’m still waiting. It’s like if you live in Hawaii, every storm that’s sort of big somewhere in the Pacific is always reported by the news as having an almost positive chance of making that 145-degree turn, picking up power, and hitting the islands as a hurricane. It never happens, either. Well, I take that back. It did once in the 80s or something. I think the media likes scaring people. After all, what else do they have to talk about in Hawaii? It’s like San Diego, “Oh, the weather was perfect again. A cat was hit by a car, and the Chargers still suck.”
Well, here it is: the Pasadena City Hall. It’s probably one of my favorite Night HDR photos that I’ve taken lately.
