RECONNECTING COMMUNITIES 710 ADVISORY GROUP
REPORT FROM
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
Committee Members
Introduction
Restorative Justice Recommendations
Land Use and Mobility Recommendations
Placemaking and Public Art
01 03
07 15
18 COMMITTEE
MEMBERS
COMMITTEE MEMBERS
1 COMMITTEE MEMBERS
2 Danny Parker, Chair
Rémy De La Peza, Vice Chair (term ended 11/25)
Blair Miller, Vice Chair (term began 11/25)
Michelle Richardson Bailey
Ali Barar
Wayne M. Brandt
Joel C. Bryant
Jose Luis Correa
Mic Hansen
Cynthia J. Kurtz
Adriana Lim
Charles Loveman
Randy A. Shulman
Jasmin Shupper
Bryan Takeda
Tina Williams
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
3 INTRODUCTION
4 INTRODUCTION
the fault lines of a Pasadena history characterized by discrimination, exclusion, and displacement. Understanding that unfortunate history is foundational to the redevelopment of this land in an equitable, restorative way that gives all members of this community a seat at the table of opportunity and gives all members of the community a sense of justice and a recognition of past harms.
In addition to the people, businesses and institutions who were displaced from the 710 Stub, we heard from and discussed the perspectives of multiple other stakeholders:
• Residents – nearby in West Pasadena and all over the City • Businesses – those who will locate at the completed site • Nonprofits and Community Groups – an important part of the fabric of this community
• Government – Local, regional, state, and federal
To enhance the work of the Advisory Group, members formed two standing committees to focus on key areas. The respective committees, Restorative Justice and Land Use and Mobility, each held several meetings with speakers, presentations, and public comments. Their thorough analysis led to a set of recommendations that the overall body discussed and ultimately approved (see pages 7 through 17).
In addition to the Advisory Group and Standing Committee meetings, members of the Advisory Group participated in the Community Meetings that were organized by staff and the consultants, gave presentations ourselves to Pasadena residents, met with groups of students, and updated Council Members directly.
The members of the Reconnecting Communities 710 Advisory Group (the “Advisory Group”) thank the Pasadena City Council for selecting us to participate in this process. The formation of the Advisory Group sent an important message about the importance and role of the Pasadena community in this process.
The Council’s appointments brought together a diverse group with expertise in various areas such as restorative justice, real estate, nonprofits, and the public sector, who were united by their ongoing and passionate commitment to community service. We learned a tremendous amount from each other, and from the community.
In addition to the Advisory Group members, dedicated
community members spent many hours participating in the Advisory Group’s meetings, and their engaged, thoughtful contributions were valuable in understanding the potential community impacts of the future development, and in driving us towards a more comprehensive vision of placemaking.
The Advisory Group had the pleasure of working closely with a dedicated team of City of Pasadena staff as well as talented consultants who brought expertise, insight, perspective, and patience to the process. The input from our members, City staff, consultants, and the public led to robust discussions that identified and analyzed nuances, tradeoffs, and key issues to resolve in pursuit of the goal of reconnecting the physical and social fabric of the community.
Over the three years that this Advisory Group has met, our members benefitted from dedicated research on the history of the “710 Stub” area. The historian consultants exposed some of 2) Through traffic numbers on the north/south streets on and between Orange Grove and Arroyo Parkway.
3) Average speed on the north/south streets on and between Orange Grove and Arroyo Parkway; number of vehicles waiting through more than one light cycle and peak and off-peak travel times.
4) Pedestrian and bicycle/scooter counts, percentage of 710 Stub residents who use public transit, and percentage of 710 Stub residents who have cars.
5) Percentage of power generated onsite.
6) Percentage of stormwater that is captured and percentage of water that is reused.
7) Average temperature compared to other parts of Pasadena. 8) Conduct (and track) a Community Health Needs Assessment for the area.
9) Number of temporary and permanent jobs created, and the median wages.
10) Number of new businesses located at the site, and existing businesses relocated
What information may be critical to the decision makers? 1) The consultants were unable to identify all of the households that were impacted by the demolition of the neighborhood for the 710 construction.
2) Water collects at the south end of the site. There are opportunities for capture and treatment, but there may also be engineering challenges with moving water through the site. 3) The actual size of the project area is only approximately 33 acres.
4) The area between Union and Walnut is still controlled by Caltrans but should be an integral part of the proposed development, so there will need to be future negotiations. 5) Real estate markets can change dramatically over time, therefore flexibility for the planned build-out will be critical. 6) It is possible to re-direct traffic through and around the site and create development that generates new vehicle trips without worsening the local roadway conditions.
INTRODUCTION
With respect to the Perkins Eastman Vision Plan (“the Vision Plan”), the work is professional, extensive, and well framed. By way of this letter, we seek to highlight, supplement, and make certain recommendations regarding the Vision Plan.
Advisory Group members have prepared recommendations on the following subjects, which are included in this presentation:
• Restorative Justice
• Land Use and Mobility
• Placemaking
These recommendations are meant to enhance and inform the Vision Plan, which is being presented to the City Council on March 30, 2026.
The Advisory Group recommends that the City Council use the following questions to frame their review of both the Advisory Group recommendations and also for the Vision Plan.
In 15 or 20 years, how will Pasadena know if this project is “a success”?
1) The land will be transformed from a place for cars to a place for people to live and work, in a way that the vast majority of Pasadenans believe is positive.
2) That transformation will meet the goals outlined in the Restorative Justice Elements.
3) For 95% of the people who live in the vicinity of the Stub area, their living situation (traffic, noise, etc.) will not have been materially changed for the worse.
4) The project will be financially successful, and not a burden on Pasadena taxpayers.
5) Today’s Pasadena youth will want to and be able to afford to live here when it is completed.
6) The process will have been transparent, and the community will have been engaged and informed.
7) This project will be a national model of redevelopment of a former freeway.
What metrics should the Council track to measure and
define success?
1) Progress towards the fulfillment of the Restorative Justice housing, business opportunities, education, and compensation recommendations.
5 www.whittier.edu6
INTRODUCTION
What are the top priorities for the build-out?
1) Create opportunities for local residents and businesses, with a priority on those displaced from the area, so that where possible dollars are recirculated in the community.
2) A built environment that is uniquely Pasadena, where the design is considered world class, and where the style matches and enhances traditional Pasadena architecture.
3) An environmentally sustainable mixed-use development with housing (including affordable housing), commercial, retail and public uses.
4) Create a place where people can gather, thrive, and create community.
5) Determine the impacts of traffic and mitigate these impacts at each phase of development.
What are the next steps?
1) Determine financial feasibility.
2) Determine a model of project management that will move the project forward.
3) Create the RJCOC.
4) Engage Pasadena youth in the decision-making process. 5) Perform additional market analysis.
6) Negotiate with Caltrans regarding the relinquishment of the area between Union and Walnut.
7) Continue to collect histories from displaced residents, businesses and institutions, and their descendants.
8) Continue to collect census data as it becomes available.
RESTORATIVE
JUSTICE
RECOMMENDATIONS
RESTORATIVE JUSTICE RECOMMENDATIONSRESTORATIVE JUSTICE RECOMMENDATIONS 7 8
RESTORATIVE JUSTICE RECOMMENDATIONS
PASADENA’S DRAFT DEFINITION FOR RESTORATIVE JUSTICE
Restorative Justice is a dynamic process which takes action to repair direct and indirect harms caused by the proposed construction of the 710 and the construction of the 210 freeways and their broader impact in Pasadena. It will identify, publicly inform, officially acknowledge, respond to, and remedy these injustices through open and responsive engagement with the disproportionately impacted communities. This will ensure the development of community-driven solutions, including non- repetition of harm, integrated through the vision plan design elements for City Council’s consideration.
RESTORATIVE JUSTICE RECOMMENDATIONS
*For the purposes of this document, “DISPLACED COMMUNITIES” is defined as people and their descendants who were forced to move due to the construction of the 710 and 210 freeways.
This includes those displaced from neighborhoods within the parameters of the 710 and 210 freeway bounded approximately by Northwest Arroyo/Woodbury to the north, Mentone/Montana to the northeast, St. John Avenue to the west, and Pasadena Avenue to Columbia Street on the east, or other institutional policies, practices, and projects that contributed to segregation, including housing discrimination, redlining, and the redevelopment of the central business district and adjacent areas.
**For the purposes of this document, “IMPACTED COMMUNITIES” are adjacent to those that are negatively impacted, but not displaced by the 710 & 210 parameters as stated above.
Eligibility for specific recommendations are reflected in the element’s recommendations below.
Highway Construction
Restorative Justice Element
RESTORATIVE JUSTICE RECOMMENDATIONS
RJSC Recommendation
Policy Adoption
The Restorative Justice Standing Committee (RJSC) acknowledges that the City of Pasadena recognizes the harm caused by the construction of the SR-710 and, through the Reconnecting Communities Planning project, is working to recognize and address this harm.
Historical Acknowledgement
The City should consider the RJSC’s revised restorative justice elements for application to the 710 Vision Plan project and to the entire City where applicable. Prioritizing measures that prevent future harm caused by infrastructure or policies to impacted or vulnerable communities in Pasadena.
1) A formal public acknowledgment of harms and an apology from the Mayor on behalf of the City of Pasadena. We also encourage apologies from other government entities involved in the displacement of the impacted communities (e.g. State and Federal government). 2) The creation of permanent programmable and publicly accessible physical space reflective of the community, that brings to life the cultural, and physical aspects of the community that existed before the construction of the SR-710, and triggers reflection of cultural histories for the future.
3) The creation and inclusion of an educational or performing arts component, based on the history of the 710 Stub area, in the curriculum of local schools and/or libraries.
Hard Infrastructure
The City should prioritize circulation and mobility options for the 710 Vision Plan project that prioritizes infrastructure connectivity with the historically redlined Northwest section of Pasadena. Creating infrastructure that will foster involvement and movement to and from impacted communities and the entire City into the proposed 710 Stub area and related community engagement events or opportunities.
9 1
2 3
4 255 Waverley Drive. Pasadena, CA 91105
Home purchased in 1021 by Laura B. and Harrison Bailey Sr. 10 Restorative Justice Element
RESTORATIVE JUSTICE RECOMMENDATIONS
RJSC Recommendation
While the RJSC recognizes that the decision-making power in Pasadena lies in the hands of the City Council, it understands the importance of open dialogue with impacted communities** in the development of the 710 Stub area. This should be a structured and inclusive process where impacted community members are actively heard, allowing them to share their experiences, express concerns, and articulate their aspirations for their community, even if the community isn’t a formal or final decision-maker.
What is the Restorative Justice Community Oversight Committee? The Restorative Justice Community Oversight Committee (RJCOC) is a body of community stakeholders that will be responsible for ensuring that all aspects of implementation of development of all matters pertaining to the 710 Stub will be consistent and will follow all the RJ Elements of the RC 710 Vision Plan.
The RJCOC will play an essential role in ensuring the success and accountability of the project. Working in close coordination with the Planning Commission, the RJCOC will be integrated into the process at a key stage to help keep the project on track and aligned with community expectations.
The RJCOC is responsible for reviewing project plans prior to their presentation to the Planning Commission and City Council, providing early input and oversight. The committee will be actively involved in all aspects of the project, offering guidance, raising concerns, and ensuring transparency throughout the planning and implementation phases.
This is a stipend-based position, requiring a significant time commitment.
Specific recommendations include:
1) Creation of a RJCOC appointed by the City Council, with at least 51% of the members being descendants and/or a representative of those displaced or impacted by the construction of the SR 710 freeway and 210 freeway (between Northwest-Arroyo/Woodbury, Northeast-Mentone/Montana, West- St. John, East Pasadena Ave to California Street. The priority criteria for RJCOC selection of the 4-year term must include the following:
Restorative Justice
Community Oversight
Committee (RJCOC)
5 a. Representation of the displaced, descendants and those that were directly harmed or their designated representative (51%) and those that no longer reside in Pasadena. b. Representative demographics and ethnicity as specified in the UCLA report Representation of each City Council District.
c. Individual or professional skills.
d. Renters.
2) The RJCOC will facilitate and ensure impacted communities participate in an inclusive open dialogue process meant to guide the implementation of the 710 Vision Plan project. 3) To enable participation, the RJCOC will be tasked with creating a registry of those displaced by the partial construction of the 710 freeway within the parameters listed above and other institutional policies, practices, and projects that contributed to segregation, including housing discrimination, redlining, and the redevelopment of the central business district and adjacent areas for identification of right of first opportunities outlined in the remainder of the document. 11 RESTORATIVE JUSTICE RECOMMENDATIONS
Restorative Justice Element RJSC Recommendation
Community Benefits
Planning Framework
Meaningful, measurable community benefits, such as equitable labor practices, affordable housing, or shared public spaces, should be delivered and maintained. Legal agreements to be considered include, but are not limited to, Disposition and Development Agreements, Ground Leases, and Community Benefit Agreements (CBAs). City policies applicable to the entire 710 stub area, such as Specific Plans, may also apply. These instruments are legally binding and commonly used in development negotiations. Ultimately, the City Council serves as the final decision-making authority and signatory to any agreements.
Specific recommendations include:
1) Based on the Restorative Justice Elements, a matrix of the anticipated community benefits will have been received by the end of the project. The matrix will include all of the different types of benefits outlined in this document, the potential funding sources of the benefit, and the timeline. 2) RJCOC to receive copies of each legal agreement signed by the City, along with a summary of the community benefits included in the agreement, the mechanism for enforcement, applicable penalties outlined by the RJCOC (to be determined), and the implementation schedule. RJCOC shall also have the capacity to monitor compliance with these agreements, including reviewing progress, identifying non-compliance, and recommending corrective actions to the City Council as needed. 6 12
Restorative Justice Element
RESTORATIVE JUSTICE RECOMMENDATIONS
RJSC Recommendation
The City should prioritize housing affordability, but more importantly, home and business ownership as part of the implementation of the 710 Vision Plan. The RJSC believes home ownership is a vehicle for wealth generation. Displaced Community members at various levels of affordability should have access to priority home ownership and/or business ownership incubator programs. The approach recognizes that lasting economic justice requires not only jobs and services but also asset-building, ensuring that community members can own property, build equity, and remain rooted in their place.
Specific recommendations include:
1) The focus of community wealth generation through home or business ownership must be on displaced homeowners, renters, and non-profit, business owners and institutions affected by the construction of the SR-710 and I-210 freeways, as well as other institutional forces such as land-use regulations, redlining, and racially restrictive covenants, regardless of age or income level. Displaced communities include institutions and businesses that were also displaced. 2) The RJSC aims to make community wealth generation accessible to all impacted communities by providing a range of ownership opportunities across various income and age levels and by ensuring access to homeownership opportunities for low-, moderate-, middle-income households and above.
They support ownership models that allow for upward mobility and neighborhood stability. Some homes may contain covenants that ensure a constant inventory of affordable housing while also requiring a portion of housing units in all sizes, allowing for the eventual resale to help residents build equity.
Communities Wealth
Generation through
Home and Business
Ownership
7 a) The total housing benefit for Targeted Beneficiaries will be valued at least $25M 2025 dollars, or 1% of the estimated value of the housing and commercial, whichever is higher. These housing benefit dollars can be used for any of the programs listed below, or any additional programs developed by the City and the RJCOC. These housing benefit dollars are meant to be in addition to the value of the 20% set-aside, in-lieu fees and any external subsidies, such as tax credits. b) Financing for the proposed 1% of estimated housing benefit dollars should be included in first round of tax increment financing, infrastructure bonding or other financing tools. c) Prior to initiating the project, a survey shall be completed of Displaced Communities, to determine the optimum affordability and size mix that would meet the needs of the greatest number of interested and qualified buyers and renters. Based on this information, the RJCOC will work with the City to define recommended affordability levels (15% ownership affordable and 20% rental affordable) and unit sizes for the affordable for-sale and rental homes in the 710 Stub area, within the parameters of what is typically finance-able. 3) The RJSC strongly believes in creating generational wealth through education, scholarships, internships, and other workforce-development opportunities, with priority given to the project’s impacted communities. Opportunities for workforce development should be tied to the CBA, other mechanisms and RJ elements.
4) Additional research will be conducted to identify the mechanism to administer the funds the Community Trust will provide support for eligible individuals and projects within the impacted communities by providing such as but not limiting to:
a) The proposed 1% of estimated housing benefit dollars, referenced above in 2a will also fund remuneration to homeowners, business owners, and institutions displaced by the 710 freeway.
Remuneration payments will be calculated to be approximately $150k based on the 1% estimated housing benefit calculation and the number of businesses, institutions, and residents displaced identified in the Architectural Resources Group report. Additional data and verification is necessary to identify, locate and determine the number of qualified participants and the potential cost of this entire proposal.
13 RESTORATIVE JUSTICE RECOMMENDATIONS
Communities Wealth
Generation through
Home and Business
Ownership
(Continued)
Restorative Justice Element RJSC Recommendation
b) Forgivable second mortgages.
c) Business loans.
d) Educational scholarships.
e) Tuition assistance.
f) Grants to impacted or displaced cultural institutions.
Affordable Housing
and Affordable
Housing Registry
Create an affordable housing registry for individuals displaced by the 710 and 210 freeways, serving as a mechanism to facilitate accessibility to affordable housing for those on the registry. The system will use marketing to notify qualified communities about housing stock availability, ensuring a transparent and seamless application process and emphasizing that 25-35% of affordable housing units built in the 710 Stub Area shall be affordable, as well as the development of workforce housing units. 1) The City will create an eligibility registry for affordable housing in the 710 study area. The registry will prioritize those who are eligible, with Displaced Community members and their descendants at the top of the list, followed by other Impacted Community members. Those at the top of the list will have the first right of opportunity to rent or purchase a home in the 710 Stub area. 2) A survey of Displaced Communities shall be conducted to determine the optimal mix of affordability levels, unit sizes and types. Based on the survey findings, the RJCOC will collaborate with the City to recommend affordability targets— ex. 15% affordable ownership and 20% affordable rental—as well as appropriate unit sizes, including family-sized units with three or more bedrooms, that would best meet the needs of the greatest number of interested and qualified buyers and renters of for-sale and rental homes in the 710 Stub area. The creation of affordable housing will be responsive to internal/external subsidies available and prioritized at the Federal and State funding levels. 7 8
a) Displaced Homeowners - Persons who previously owned and occupied the 710 properties at the time it was acquired by the state and were displaced due to the project. b) Displaced Renters (Including Impacted Communities) - Individuals who rented and were displaced from the area because of the construction of the SR-710 freeway. c. Adjacent Displaced - Individuals displaced by Parsons, Ambassador Auditorium, Pepper Street Project, and the Norton Simon Museum.
Business Development
Support
The City should provide or increase the existing 5% bid preference for certified small businesses in procurement and contracting for development in the 710 Stub area. Additionally, creating mechanisms to facilitate the use of local training and hire programs for the local workforce requirements. Impacted communities or those harmed who no longer reside in Pasadena are also eligible to participate.
Specific recommendations include but are not limited to:
1) The Restorative Justice Community Oversight Committee (RJCOC) will work with City staff in building a local business database and maintaining a certified registry of impacted community businesses owned by individuals or families displaced by the construction of the SR 710. 2) Request for Proposals (RFPs) will be created to prioritize accessibility, encourage participation from local and small businesses, and maximize the likelihood of success. 9 14
Restorative Justice Element
RESTORATIVE JUSTICE RECOMMENDATIONS
RJSC Recommendation
Business Development
Support (Continued)
3) Access to micro-loans, working capital, or mobilization funding for businesses preparing to fulfill contracts.
4) Require or incentivize prime contractors and developers to subcontract with impacted community businesses, where possible utilize materials sourced from local suppliers. 5) Facilitate joint venture partnerships that benefit all types of business structures including co-ops and intentionally cultivating business districts that support displaced business populations. 9 10 Workforce
Development
The City should include the impacted communities and those who were harmed, even if they no longer reside in Pasadena, in any training or workforce development programs created as a result of the RJSC’s work.
Specific recommendations include:
1) At the direction of the RJCOC City staff (EDD) will develop a local business database and maintain a certified registry of impacted community businesses owned by individuals or families displaced by the construction of the SR-710, even if they no longer reside in Pasadena. The creation of a partnership with existing businesses in Pasadena as well as new businesses in all industries occupying the 710 Stub area to train and develop impacted communities. Training and employment percentage requirements will be part of the CBA that will cover the entire 710 Stub area. 2) Business interventions should include training programs in project management, compliance, and finance.
3) Facilitate mentorship or joint venture partnerships between large firms and small, local, disadvantaged businesses.
15 LAND USE AND
MOBILITY
RECOMMENDATIONS
LAND USE AND MOBILITY RECOMMENDATIONS
15 9) The City should consider partnering with a local school to create college student housing including but not limited to PCC and the Art Center.
10) There should be both rental and home ownership options. 11) If possible, housing typologies should include both traditional multifamily and other forms, such as townhomes, work-live units, and flats.
12) Where possible, the City requirements regarding affordable housing should support the ability of development teams to be competitive for non-City public sources of subsidy. These requirements may include affordability levels, unit types, target demographics, unit distribution, zoning, and other regulations.
13) Please refer to the Restorative Justice Framework for additional recommendations regarding housing.
Design, Land Use, and Community Interaction Recommendations 14) Recommend City Council request a site plan with some portion of City of Gardens compatible as well as townhome-style building types in Neighborhood 3 and multifamily residential in Neighborhoods 1 and
2. 15) Recommend moving the commercial space in the current plan to Neighborhood 1 to connect with Colorado Boulevard. The density of what is built must be graduated from North to South, compatible with the adjacent neighborhoods. South from Del Mar should provide for lower density and context compatibility. 16) Consider including a medium size (e.g. 150-room) extended or limited-service hotel in the commercial portion.
17) Recommend providing sports fields and ample open space for outdoor events in Neighborhood 3, potentially with parking underneath. 18) Recommend de-coupling parking spaces from the units. Selling/ renting units independently may result in better structures, and more thoughtful management of parking needs and availability. 19) Fitting into the context of the area should be of paramount consideration. Neighborhood character, adjacencies, stylistic compatibility, and Pasadena’s unique ‘sense of place’ need to be respected. Physical integration into the surrounding neighborhoods and contextual compatibility are key, including connection to Old Pasadena.
LAND USE AND MOBILITY RECOMMENDATIONS
We identified Five Key Elements of Land Use and Mobility that we consider foundational. Where we do not comment on a specific topic, it indicates agreement with the current approach from Perkins Eastman. For example, Sustainability is a cornerstone of the project. The absence of recommendations on this topic reflects our support for what has been presented.
Additionally, several of our recommendations extend beyond the scope of the consultant’s work. We acknowledge this and are identifying these issues for consideration by the City Council and the Planning Commission.
Recommendations for the Five Key Elements
Mobility and Circulation Recommendations
1) No net additional daily vehicle trips through the study area should be the goal against which all of the other land use decisions are made. The transportation system should be designed to minimize through traffic and facilitate local mobility. 2) Access to Huntington Hospital should remain as good as it is now or better.
3) LUM recommends selecting the street design option
that would best achieve this goal, which we believe is the “Boulevards and Paseos” option.
4) The City should consider a “mobility hub” north of Union. which would enable people to transfer from cars to other modes of transportation. As this area is still under Caltrans jurisdiction, a partnership with the State will be needed to access this property.
Housing Recommendations
5) 30% of the targeted household incomes should have rents or purchase prices that are affordable to households whose income levels are defined as Very Low, Low, Moderate, or Workforce.
Affordable should also include subsidized, independent, and assisted living housing for seniors
6) 30% affordability level will be achieved with the 20% Inclusionary Zoning, plus standalone buildings where
affordability is created via external subsidy.
7) Unit sizes and configuration should encourage a range of household types, including singles, roommates, couples, families with children, students, and seniors.
8) There should be at least one independent senior living building on site, preferably near Huntington Hospital.
16 LAND USE AND MOBILITY RECOMMENDATIONS
17 28) LUM recommends that the City ask the consultants to run a feasibility scenario where Phase I is 100% housing with little or no speculative office. Phase I should include neighborhood- supporting retail.
29) Phase II would bring commercial space (tech office or life sciences, for example) online at Year 5.
30) Phase III is all uses stabilized by Year 20 from the time predevelopment begins.
31) The City should assess all impacts of project phasing at each stage, including traffic disruption and the effects of vacant land held for future development.
LAND USE AND MOBILITY RECOMMENDATIONS
20) The General Plan guidelines, as well as to Specific Plan(s) that may be applicable to adjacent areas should be consulted and respected during the planning process to create an
integrated plan that connects with adjacent neighborhoods. 21) Public spaces need to be thoughtfully designed and
placed throughout the site. If a site is dependent on ongoing programming to activate, consider an endowment to create a permanent fund for programming. Other spaces should have built-in activation so that ongoing programming is not required. 22) Recommend a commitment to public art and community
programming around cultural touchstones to Pasadena’s history.
Land Contribution Recommendations
23) The Committee recommends the City continue to hold
title to the land and enter into long-term ground leases with developers as it begins Phase I. These leases may be at market rates or discounted rates to promote a specific use to meet a City priority. This will allow the City to collect both lease revenues and property taxes while still owning this valuable asset into the future.
24) All future economic feasibility analysis should include not only the one-time cost of vertical infrastructure but also the ongoing operational service and maintenance costs of the new Pasadena community, including police, fire, park maintenance, streetcleaning, street maintenance, and other non-fee services.
Economic Feasibility and Funding Recommendations
25) LUM recommends that the City consider the lower density 60% housing scenario with a 40% allocation to park and
flexible open space. The open space, depending upon future market demand, could flex to accommodate commercial space, including but not limited to biotech, deep technology, and lab space.
26) All scenarios should include the cost of the Restorative Justice commitments.
27) All scenarios should focus on Return on Cost (Stabilized NOI / Total Development Cost) as the metric to compare across scenarios. Do not use leverage considerations; they are too assumptive. Using today’s expected return criteria for mixed use urban development, a +/- 6.5% Return on Cost is appropriate to attract public and private capital to the project.
PLACEMAKING
AND PUBLIC ART
PLACEMAKING AND PUBLIC ART
18 Standing Committee Alignment
The Restorative Justice recommendations include the following related to placemaking:
PLACEMAKING AND PUBLIC ART
The task of the Reconnecting Communities 710 Advisory Group entails social as well as physical reconnection of the 710 Stub.
Social reconnection can occur via “placemaking” – providing gathering spots that bridge socioeconomic gaps and bring together a cross section of a community.
As more people, more often, work from home and shop from home, how do we as a community bring people together? How do we get people to look up from their cell phones? Placemaking provides an answer.
Placemaking exists at the intersection of the arts, culture, and space. The National Endowment for the Arts offers this useful definition/reference “Creative placemaking integrates arts, culture, and design in efforts to advance local economic, physical, and other community desired outcomes. ”
History
Historically, Pasadena has celebrated and prioritized arts and culture. The rich cultural history of Pasadena includes a long presence of major cultural institutions, such as the Pasadena Playhouse and the Norton Simon Museum; a rich architectural history that includes the Beaux Arts Civic Center and the Arts and Crafts Movement; and the world-renowned Rose Parade and Rose Bowl game.
The City formalized its commitment to arts and culture via two plans that integrated input from large, broad cross sections of the City. The 2005 Cultural Nexus plan comprehensively provided a plan for arts and culture. The Public Art Master Plan 2014 provided a framework for the future of public art. The plan outlined policies that reflect the role of public art in reinforcing Pasadena’s identity and how public art can weave together culture, people, neighborhoods and ideas to create a memorable urban landscape.
An Economic Engine
Successful placemaking generates foot traffic, which leads to economic activity. The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that Arts & Cultural Economic Activity in the U.S. generated 4.2% of GDP, or $1.17 trillion in 2023. That activity supported 5.4 million jobs. Arts & Cultural Economic Activity included performing arts, museums, design services, and education services.
The City also has its 1% for Art program, which should apply to the redevelopment of the 710 Stub. These recommendations are separate and apart from the public art that will be included in this project, though some of the ideas listed here could be funded partially through that program.
PLACEMAKING AND PUBLIC ART
19 • Public spaces need to be thoughtfully designed and placed throughout the site. If a site is dependent on ongoing programming to activate, consider an endowment to create a permanent fund for programming. Other spaces should have built-in activation so that ongoing programming is not required. (Item 21)
• Recommend a commitment to public art and community
programming around cultural touchstones to Pasadena’s history. (Item 22)
• The creation of permanent programmable and publicly
accessible physical space reflective of the community, that brings to life the cultural, and physical aspects of the community that existed before the construction of the SR-710, and triggers reflection of cultural histories for the future. (Element 3) • Meaningful, measurable community benefits, such as... shared public spaces, should be delivered and maintained. (Element 6) The Land Use and Mobility recommendations include the following related to placemaking:
We believe this key pillar of reconnection merits greater detail and focus to ensure that it does not become an afterthought lost in the shuffle of more prominent issues like traffic. We present the following to increase the likelihood of successful placemaking:
Recommended Physical Elements
1) An amphitheater or other gathering space that includes lawn or grass areas for people to be on the ground, as well as elevated seating, either built-in or a raised area for viewing.
2) A civic gathering space for larger group events. This could be the same as the amphitheater, or separate.
3) Multiple smaller gathering spaces that are designed specifically for use and interaction. Special attention needs to be paid to shading these areas, as our warming climate will make outdoor space without shade usable for shorter periods of time over the next century. 4) Shade trees, lighting, planters, public art, and water features. 5) Retail that includes “third spaces, ” such as cafes.
THANK YOU FOR ALLOWING THE
RECONNECTING COMMUNITIES 710 ADVISORY
GROUP TO OFFER OUR RECOMMENDATION
TOWARDS THE REVITALIZATION OF THIS
IMPORTANT PART OF PASADENA.
WE OFFER THESE RECOMMENDATIONS FOR
THE BENEFIT OF FUTURE GENERATIONS OF
PASADENA RESIDENTS.
20 Recommendations for Next Steps:
1) Structure a process to develop the concept and plan for public space by building on the foundations of the 2005 Cultural Nexus and the Public Art Master Plan 2014, where and as appropriate. 2) Install the administrative and human (including artists) infrastructure to execute this concept as well as provide ongoing oversight/management. Similar to the ongoing involvement of the Departments of Planning and Transportation, the Arts and Cultural Affairs Division and RJCOC should be an integral part of planning.
3) Seek funding. Funding may come from:
(i) allocation of some of the overall 710 project funding; (ii) arts and cultural related third-party sources;
(iii) the 1% public art fee; or (iv) from other sources to be determined.
4) Early phase priority. Include public space in all of the phases of the site development, including the earliest.
PLACEMAKING AND PUBLIC ART
Potential Physical Elements
The following elements and ideas merit consideration, including, but not limited to:
• Live/work units for artists, musicians or food businesses. • Dedicated nonprofit office space.
• Pooling the 1% for Art funds to ensure the most cost-effective approach to developing places and programs for the area. • Incorporating urban agriculture into the redevelopment in the form of gardens or greenhouses, or plants and trees with edible produce.
• An internal “maker space” or other ground floor space that is accessible to the entire community.
• Interactive museum.
• Ethnic business district.
Potential Programming
• Performances, festivals.
• Storytelling elements that can tell 710 history as well as citywide history.
• Public market – farmers markets, popup markets.
• Food cart pavilion or pod(s).
• Rotating art or other types of dynamic exhibits.
Placemaking offers an opportunity to translate the values we espouse as a community into tangible action. More ideas should be collected as part of a community-driven cultural planning process to gauge their feasibility. The Public Real Plan referenced in the “Next Steps” chapter of the Vision Plan should involve co-design and collaboration with community stakeholders, including RJCOC, and draw upon examples from other cities for the funding, management, and maintenance of the project’s public space.
Historic Report on the 710 Displacement
Task 1: Historical Background and Data
Prepared for
City of Pasadena
City Manager’s Office
Prepared by
Architectural Resources Group
July 2025
Architecture
Planning
Conservation
Opporite: Aerial view of Pasadena looking east in 1945; Colorado Boulevard can be seen at center, Green Street to the right (Photo courtesy of Pasadena Public Library)
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task I c
Table of Contents
Conclusion
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .88 For Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .88 Bibliography
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Appendices
Appendix A: Division of Highways Right of Way Maps
Appendix B: Right of Way Map Listings
Appendix C: City of Pasadena City Directory Listings,
1966-1968
Appendix D: Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps
Introduction
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 Project Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 Document Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 Project Team . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 Research Methodology and Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9 Notes on Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Pasadena’s Early History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17 Freeway Development at the State & National Levels .24 History of Freeway Construction in Pasadena . . . . . . .41 Part II: Historical Data
Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71 The Property Acquisition Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71 Types of Property Acquisition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Property Acquisition Process for the 710 . . . . . . . 76 Effects of Displacement and Freeway Construction in
Pasadena . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .79 Existing Communities in the Path of the Freeway . . . .79 The Process of Displacement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .82 Aftermath of Displacement and Its Impacts . . . . . . . . .84 Details of Displacement: Building Counts . . . . . . . . .86 this page was intentionally left blank
Introduction
Opposite: Construction of the Foothill Freeway (Interstate 210) near Devil’s Gate Dam, 1955 (Photo courtesy of University of Southern California)
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task I 3 Introduction
these attitudes, entrenching and then reinforcing
unequal access to wealth, privilege, and decision
making . A host of public and private mechanisms
were used to this end, eventually influencing the
siting of freeways in the post-World War II period.
During this period, freeway construction became
one of the driving forces in urban planning, and
decision-making related to freeway construction
continued to privilege the voices and
neighborhoods of affluent White residents over
working class neighborhoods and communities
of color. This same pattern would negatively
impact the communities of color in Pasadena in
the 1960s and 1970s during the planning and
construction of the 710 Freeway.
Document Organization
This report provides a detailed examination of the
history of the construction of the 710 Freeway in
Pasadena, the impacts of its construction, and the
community that was lost as a result . It includes
details on the residents and businesses displaced
as a result (full list of property owners found
in Appendix B and list of occupants found in
Appendix C) . The list of property owners includes
name, street or location, and the type of property
acquisition used.2 Details on name, address, and
building type are included in the list of occupants .
The report does not include detailed information
on property values in the displacement area at
the time properties were acquired by Caltrans or
discussion of any relocation assistance provided
to area residents (no evidence was found) .
Part I provides a brief overview of events
nationally and regionally before focusing
on Pasadena specifically. Sections include:
Pasadena’s Early History, Highway and Freeway
Development at the State and National Levels,
and the History of Freeway Construction in
2 For an explanation of property acquisition and the
different types, see Part II.
Project Overview
This report was prepared for the City of
Pasadena as part of the Historic Portion of the
Reconnecting Pasadena 710 Master Plan process,
which will develop a master plan for the State
Route (SR) 710 Freeway relinquishment area, also
known as the 710 Stub. The information herein
will serve as background for the master plan .
For the purposes of this report, the study area is
defined as Walnut Street on the north, Pasadena
Avenue on the east, California Boulevard on
the south, and St. John Avenue/Havendale
Drive on the west as well as the parcels cleared
immediately south of Bellefontaine Street
on either side of S . Pasadena Avenue) . It also
includes the area bounded by St. John Avenue,
Walnut Avenue, and what would have been Holly
Street and Terrace Drive prior to their removal
for the 710 Freeway. In addition, it includes non-
contiguous parcels bounded by Bellefontaine
Street, South St. John Avenue, Barclay Alley, and
South Pasadena Avenue .1 (See maps below . ) The
report provides an overview of the history of, and
the displacement related to, the construction
of the SR-710 Freeway (also known as the Long
Beach Freeway) in the City of Pasadena . It
explores how the history of freeway construction
was influenced by earlier planning practices
and intersected with racism, discrimination,
segregation, and exclusion to systematically
marginalize and displace communities of color.
The history of planning and land use in the
twentieth century, including the creation of
the nation’s freeway system, is fundamentally
intertwined with then-prevailing ideas of race,
class, and ethnicity. Land use policies in the first
half of the twentieth century were influenced by
1 The study area examined in this report is larger than the Relinquishment Area delineated in the 710 Master Plan . It encompasses parcels affected by the construction of the 710 Freeway .
4 Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task I Introduction
Pasadena. The sections on freeway history and
development provide national and state context
to the occurrences in the City of Pasadena .
Part II of this report provides an overview of
the property acquisition process and those
affected by the construction of the 710 Freeway.
It includes a breakdown of the individuals,
businesses, and institutions displaced by the 710
Freeway, as well as numerical counts of buildings
demolished in the study area . It concludes with a
discussion of the effects of freeway construction
on Pasadena’s communities of color.
A breakdown of the contents of the report and
their location is as follows:
Part I History of freeway construction
History of segregation and
displacement
Freeway construction in Pasadena
Freeway opposition in Pasadena
Part II Property acquisition
Property acquisition process
Effects of freeway construction
Study Area building counts
Appendix A Property acquisition maps
Appendix B List of property owners
Appendix C List of occupants and building types
Appendix D Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task I 5 Introduction
Map of the project study area on a 1967 aerial (Map base courtesy of University of Santa Barbara Frame Finder) 6 Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task I Introduction
Map of the relinquishment area (Courtesy of City of Pasadena) Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task I 7 Introduction
Project Team
The project team included Architectural
Resources Group (ARG) staff Katie Horak,
Principal; Elysha Paluszek, Senior Associate;
Brannon Smithwick; Sydney Landers; and Kiara
Hosseinion, as well as subject-matter experts
Becky Nicolaides, Ph.D.; Eric Avila, Ph.D.; William
Deverell, Ph.D.; Elizabeth Logan, JD/Ph.D.; and
Danielle Wiggins, Ph.D. Research support was
provided by ARG intern Tyler Dahlgren .
Katie Horak is a Principal Architectural Historian
at ARG . She has extensive experience related to
preservation planning and the built environment
in Southern California . Ms . Horak has managed
and contributed to numerous projects
documenting the history and built environment
of Los Angeles, including sections of the Los
Angeles Citywide Historic Context Statement and
SurveyLA, the historic resources survey of the
City of Los Angeles . Elysha Paluszek is a Senior
Associate Architectural Historian and Preservation
Planner at ARG. Her specialties include the
preparation of historic context statements and
historic resources surveys; her work has included
researching and writing about the history of
communities in Southern California, including
Los Angeles. She has completed multiple
projects related to communities of color and
marginalized communities in California, including
the Los Angeles Historical Housing and Land Use
Study, West Hollywood Historical Context Study,
African Americans in California Multiple Property
Documentation Form, and Historic-Cultural
Monument Nominations for the Los Angeles
African American Historic Places Project .
Brannon is an Architectural Historian and
Preservation Planner at ARG. She has a dual
degree in historic preservation and urban
planning from the University of Southern
California . Her professional experience in
historic preservation consulting includes
conducting historic research and oral history
interviews, site documentation and fieldwork,
California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)
documentation, and drafting historic context
statements and landmark nominations.
Sydney is an Architectural Historian and
Preservation Planner at ARG. Her work includes
conducting historic resources surveys, HABS/
HALS documentation, 508 compliance, historic
context statements, cultural landscape reports,
historic resource assessments, and producing
technical reports for compliance with Section
106 of the National Historic Preservation Act.
Sydney received her Master of Science in
Historic Preservation from the University of
Texas at Austin, where her research centered on
affordable housing, adaptive reuse, and university
housing cooperatives.
The project team relied on the expertise of
several project advisors who have worked
extensively on the history of Southern California,
the urban and suburban environment, and the
West. They reviewed the draft report and lent
their expertise to the project.
Dr . Eric Avila is a professor in the departments
of History and Chicana/o Studies at UCLA.
He also holds a courtesy appointment in the
Department of Urban Planning . He teaches
courses on the history of the Los Angeles, the
history of American cities, and the history of
Mexican Americans, California, and the West.
His research has won various awards and prizes,
including the recent inclusion of his article,
“Popular Culture in the Age of the White Flight:
Film Noir Disneyland, and the Cold War (Sub)
Urban Imaginary” published in the Journal of
Urban History, within a new publication by the
Organization of American Historians featuring
the ten best articles in American history written
between the summers of 2004 and 2005 . He
is the author of the books The Folklore of the
Freeway: A Race and Revolt in the Modernist City
and Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight:
Fear and Fantasy in Suburban Los Angeles
.
8 Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task I Introduction
Dr . William Deverell is a historian of the
nineteenth and twentieth century American West
and the director of the Huntington-USC Institute
on California and the West, a collaborative
research and teaching entity between USC’s
College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences and the
Huntington Library. He has published numerous
books and papers on the history of California
and the American West . His work includes
Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and
the Remaking of its Mexican Past, and he is the
co-author of Water and Los Angeles: A Tale of
Three Rivers with Tom Sitton. He is the co-editor
of Land of Sunshine: An Environmental History
of Metropolitan Los Angeles and the Blackwell
Companion to Los Angeles and Blackwell
Companion to California
. Professor Deverell’s
other research focuses on the aftermath of the
Civil War in the American West .
Dr . Elizabeth Logan is a legal historian specializing at the intersection of landscape and community
culture throughout California and the American
West. As Co-Director of the Huntington-USC
Institute on California and the West (ICW), she
blends her skills in historical analysis and strategic
management. She provides critical content
and program coordination for ICW’s Chinatown
History Project – focusing on the neighborhood
razed for the Union Station terminal – and
the West on Fire Project . Her work involves
blending archival analysis, creation of new
archives through oral histories, and community
engagement in service of public-facing history
projects rooted in academic research .
Dr . Danielle Wiggins is an assistant professor of
history at Caltech . She is currently working on a
book manuscript preliminarily entitled The Politics
of Black Excellence: Atlanta and the Making of
Modern Black Liberalism which examines the
evolution of racial uplift in the post-civil rights
era and the intersections between black politics
and the rightward-shifting Democratic Party
between the early 1970s and the early 1990s .
Dr . Wiggins’ work has been supported by the
Institute for Citizens and Scholars, the American
Council of Learned Societies, and the Jefferson
Scholars Foundation at the University of Virginia.
Her writing has been published in the Journal of
Urban History, the Journal of African American
History, the Journal of Southern History, Black
Perspectives, and Atlanta Studies. At Caltech, she
teaches courses on radical Black movements,
modern African American history, and United
States history with a focus on the recent past .
Dr . Becky Nicolaides is a historian specializing
in the history of cities, suburbs, and Los
Angeles . Her books include The New Suburbia
(2024), My Blue Heaven (2002), and The Suburb
Reader, edited with Andrew Wiese (2016), and
her writing has appeared in academic journals,
New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and other
outlets . She was a member of Los Angeles Mayor
Eric Garcetti’s Civic Memory Working Group
and is currently working on Pasadena All Saints
Church’s “Telling the Whole Story Project,” which
focuses on reparative justice for the Tongva
people . She has given numerous public lectures
to community groups in and around Pasadena
about the history of local race relations and
segregation. Working with Stephen Berrey who
heads the national Sundown Project, she is
developing a “Suburb Toolkit” to help suburban
communities create more inclusive, welcoming
communities for all people. She has taught at
UCSD, UCLA, and Pitzer College, and is currently a
research scholar at the Huntington-USC Institute
on California and the West .
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task I 9 Introduction
Research Methodology and Sources
While this document is not meant to be an
exhaustive history of freeway construction and
displacement in Southern California, it serves
as an introductory overview of the topic as well
as an examination of how this history affected
Pasadena and its communities of color.
The project team consulted a variety of primary
and secondary source materials to inform the
history of freeway construction. These included:
• Sources related to the history of freeway
construction, such as the “Historical Context
and Methodology for Evaluating Trails, Roads,
and Highways in California,” published by
the California Department of Transportation
(Caltrans), “The Implications of Freeway Siting
in California” from the Pacific Southwest
Region University Transportation Center, and
articles published by the Federal Highway
Administration (FHWA).
• Sources on the history of Pasadena, such
as The New Suburbia by Becky Nicolaides,
which provided background on the history of
Pasadena during the post-World War II period
and the complex racial dynamics that existed in
the city at the time.
• Sources on the history of freeways and their
displacement in Los Angeles included Eric
Avila’s Folklore of the Freeway: Race and Revolt
in the Modernist City and Popular Culture in
the Age of White Flight: Fear and Fantasy
in Suburban Los Angeles, as well as Gilbert
Estrada’s “If You Build It, They Will Move:
The Los Angeles Freeway System and the
Displacement of Mexican East Los Angeles” in
Southern California Quarterly
.
• Newspaper archives . Newspapers were also
key in documenting the history of freeway
construction in Pasadena and its effects on the
community . Newspapers consulted included
the Los Angeles Times, Pasadena Star News,
Pasadena Independent, South Pasadenan, Los
Angeles Sentinel, El Sereno Star, and others.
Researchers also consulted sources at the
City of Pasadena City Clerk’s office, Pasadena
Museum of History, and Pasadena Public
Library .
For the completion of Part II, sources included:
• Right-of-way (ROW) maps produced by the
California Department of Transportation
(then the Division of Highways) . The project
team used ROW maps to obtain the names
of property owners from whom land was
purchased for the 710 Freeway in the late
1960s and early 1970s . The maps include the
names of property owners from whom land
was purchased for the construction of the 710
Freeway, in this case, and other transportation
projects. They also include parcel outlines, the
type of acquisition used, date of purchase, and
the amount of land area purchased for each
parcel or ROW take . The maps for Caltrans
District 7 are available online here through the
Office of Right of Way Engineering library. The
maps that cover the study area are included in
Appendix A .
• Caltrans Archives. Acquisition records were
sent to the Caltrans library in Sacramento .
Acquisition records related to property
purchasing before a final property transaction
are not public because they contain personal
property owner information. Grant deeds
10 Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task I Introduction
related to the purchase of property by the
state are available and contain largely the same
information as the ROW maps. They do not
include information related to property values.
• California Department of Transportation
manuals. These included documentation
on right-of-way and property acquisition
procedures .
• Los Angeles County Assessor records . The ARG
team checked select ROW map lists against Los
Angeles County Assessor records, which are
archived in the City of Pasadena permit center,
to confirm that the information in the ROW maps
matches that on record with the Assessor .
• City directories published between 1966 and
1968 . The ARG team used city directories to
obtain the names of residents and businesses
located in the study area, as property owners
and tenants/residents were not always the
same . These years were selected because they
are the listings closest in time to when the
Division of Highways purchased the land in
the study area for the construction of the 710
Freeway .
• Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps . The project
team used the Sanborn maps to cross check
addresses and to obtain building counts
to the extent possible . The latest Sanborn
map available for Pasadena was produced in
1951, so it does not necessarily reflect exact
building counts from the late 1960s and early
1970s. City directory listings, which include
address and information about the residents
and business at each address, were used to
supplement the Sanborn maps and obtain
more information to inform the building
counts .
In addition to reviewing primary repositories and
known resources, ARG undertook an extensive
and deliberate search for property acquisition
data related to the Caltrans-owned homes within
the study area. This multi-pronged effort included
the following steps, none of which yielded the
sought-after information:
• A records request was submitted to Caltrans
in October 2024 to obtain information on the
property values at the time of acquisition for
properties in the study area. In addition, ARG
contacted Caltrans staff to inquire about any
correspondence or records on file related to
contact with property owners in the study
area. Caltrans staff informed ARG that there
are no such records on file with the District 7
office. Acquisition records were sent to Caltrans
headquarters in Sacramento but that any
transactions before the final transaction are
not public records because they would have
included private property owner information
and is thus confidential.
3 Caltrans staff also
informed ARG that records older than 30 years
of age are not typically kept in their archives .
• ARG conducted research at the Pasadena
Museum of History, specifically related to
individuals and/or businesses located in the
study area and displaced by the construction of
the I-710 Freeway. Museum staff informed ARG
that no lists of individuals and/or businesses
displaced by the I-710 Freeway are on file in
their archives .
3 Phone conversation with Fatima Choudhury, Caltrans
District 7, July 26, 2024.
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task I 11 Introduction
ARG also conducted research on Garfield
Elementary School, located adjacent to the study
area (no longer extant) . A records request was
submitted on March 7, 2025, to the Pasadena
Unified School District to inquire about records
on file related to Garfield Elementary School
enrollment records, including enrollment
numbers and the names of students . The
response to the request stated, “The District
does not maintain enrollment records for the
time period requested. The District asked
the California Department of Education if it
maintained records for this time period and
learned that the CDE only possesses records
by county, rather than by school site or district
between 1948-1980. Additionally, the District’s
archive of board meetings and agendas only
extends to 2004 .”4
For a full list of sources, please see the
bibliography .
Notes on Language
The terms used to refer to individuals and
groups of people carry meaning and power .
They can convey positive or negative attitudes
towards people or a group of people . Racism
and discrimination influence the language used
both in the past and today when referring to
groups of people, especially those who have been
historically disenfranchised .
This document endeavors to talk about difficult
topics, including race, ethnicity, displacement,
and disempowerment, with inclusivity and
respect . Several sources related to the usage
of inclusive and sensitive language were
consulted, including the American Psychological
4 Pasadena Unified School District Office of
Communications, “RE: Public Records Request dated March 7, 2025 #25-074,” March 17, 2025.
Association’s style guide on race and ethnic
identity (which can also be found online at APA
Style Guide and in the APA Publication Manual,
Seventh Edition), the Diversity Style Guide online,
and the Racial Equity Tools glossary online . The
authors also consulted the National Archives’
“Statement on Potentially Harmful Content”,
which provides guidance on the presentation of
materials or sources that reflect outdated, biased,
or offensive views and opinions.
Since this report addresses issues of race,
ethnicity, and inequity, as well as historic
attitudes towards race and ethnicity, sensitive
terminology does appear . This includes language
utilized in the past but now regarded as
derogatory and offensive, particularly in primary
source materials. If such language is used, it is
included in quotation marks, either on its own
if necessary to provide context or in situ within
a primary source quotation. It is not included to
perpetuate or excuse it, but to honestly convey
historic attitudes towards race and ethnicity.
The APA notes that while care must be taken
to avoid perpetuating biases and demeaning
attitudes about people, at the same time,
“historians and scholars writing analyses of past
events or times or of historical figures must be
careful not to misrepresent the ideas of the past
in an effort to avoid language bias.” Alterations
to language may result in changes to the ideas
conveyed in a primary source, and “the best
approach is to retain the original language and
to comment on it in the discussion. Quotations
should not be changed to accommodate current
sensibilities.”
5 Below is a discussion of the terms used related
to race and ethnicity in this document . This
5 American Psychological Association, “Historical Context,” accessed October 19, 2022, https://apastyle.apa.org/style- grammar-guidelines/bias-free-language/historical-context. 12 Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task I Introduction
is not necessarily a comprehensive list . Race
refers to the “physical differences that groups
or cultures consider socially significant” (for
example, Black or African American, Asian, etc.).
It is a social construct that is not universal and
has changed over time. Some groups that are
considered “White” in the United States today
were considered “non-White” in previous eras, in
U . S . Census data and in mass media and popular
culture (for example, Irish, Italian, and Jewish
people). Ethnicity, on the other hand, refers to
“shared cultural characteristics such as language,
ancestry, practices, and beliefs” (for example,
Latino).
6 Terms for racial and ethnic groups are
proper nouns and are therefore capitalized .
Please note that terminology is highly personal
and not uniform across a particular group of
people . There are a variety of reasons that people
may prefer one identifier over the other .
• African American and Black: Refers to people in
the United States whose lineage traces directly
or indirectly back to Africa . The terms do not
necessarily mean the same thing . Black tends
to be a broader term because it encompasses
those of African descent who do not identify as
American or are not from America . According
to the APA, some American people of African
ancestry prefer “Black,” and others prefer
“African American.” Both are acceptable,
and some individuals may prefer one or the
other . In this document, the group referred
to are generally of African descent and born
in America, though it is recognized that this is
a generalization. Both terms are used in this
report .
6 American Psychological Association, “Race and Ethnicity,” accessed October 19, 2022, https://apastyle.apa.org/
style-grammar-guidelines/bias-free-language/racial-ethnic- minorities.
• Asian and Asian American: The term Asian
refers to people of Asian ancestry from Asia .
The term Asian American is appropriate for
people of Asian descent from the United States .
According to the APA, they are not to be used
synonymously, as doing so “reinforces the idea that
Asian Americans are perpetual foreigners .” In this
document, when both terms are used, it is done to
encompass both groups . Its intent is to recognize
that historically, both groups existed side by side,
not to lump them together as one group . When a
specific group is discussed (for example, Japanese or
Japanese Americans), that moniker is used.
• BIPOC: A term referring to “Black and/or
Indigenous People of Color .” P eople of Color
(POC) is often used as well. BIPOC explicitly
leads with Black and Indigenous identities,
which helps to counter anti-Black racism and
the erasure of Native communities.
• Hispanic and Latino: The usage of the terms
Hispanic and Latino is evolving. Neither is
all encompassing, and each has a different
connotation. The term Latino may be preferred
by people from Latin America. Some use the
term Hispanic to refer to Spanish-speaking
people, though not all people from Latin
America speak Spanish. Various groups use
and advocate for different identifiers. This
document uses the term Latino, except in
data tables containing information taken from
the U.S. Census, or when referring to a more
specific group of people.
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task I 13 Introduction
• Indigenous Peoples: Terminology related to
Native people can vary from person to person
and nation to nation. Some Native nations
operate with names that they did not choose
for themselves but were instead selected by
others. As with any group, it is best to consult
members of that group for their preference .
Therefore, sources written by Native Americans
were consulted on the appropriate terminology
to use .7
• People of Color: Often the preferred collective
term for referring to non-White racial groups.
Racial justice advocates have been using the
term “people of color” (not to be confused
with the pejorative “colored people”) since the
late 1970s as an inclusive and unifying frame
across different racial groups that are not
White, to address racial inequities.
• White: This document uses the term “White”
for people of European ancestry . The APA
notes that “the use of the term Caucasian as an
alternative to White or European is discouraged
because it originated as a way of classifying
White people as a race to be favorably
compared with other races.” Therefore, this
document avoids the use of the term Caucasian
unless it is from a primary source quote .
Many media outlets and inclusive language
guides now capitalize terms when referring to a
race, including both Black and White, though this
is not universal and may change . It must also be
recognized that language evolves over time and
7 For more on appropriate language when referring to
Native people, please see the Native Governance Center’s guide “How to Talk about Native Nations,” here https:// nativegov.org/resources/how-to-talk-about-native-nations/. continues to do so. Terms that are regarded as
acceptable and inclusive as of the completion of
this document may not necessarily remain so in
the future .
Additional terms used in this document include:
• Discrimination: the unequal treatment of
members of various groups based on race,
gender, social class, sexual orientation, physical
ability, religion, and other categories.
• Freeway: a divided arterial highway with full
control of access and with grade separations at
intersections.
8 • General Plan: a California city or county’s
outline for the overall pattern of future
development; a collection of the goals and
policies which a municipality will base their
land use decisions; each General Plan must
include seven elements – land use, circulation,
housing, conservation, open-space, noise,
and safety – but each municipality may adopt
additional elements.
• Highway: a public right of way for the purpose
of travel or transportation; an arterial highway
is defined as a highway primarily for through
travel usually on a continuous route; a divided
highway is defined as one with separated
roadbeds for traffic traveling in opposing
directions.
9 8 California Department of Transportation, Chapter 60:
Nomenclature, Highway Design Manual, December 2020,
60-5. These are current definitions. Historic definitions are included in the report below .
9 California Department of Transportation, Chapter 60:
Nomenclature, Highway Design Manual, December 2020,
60-5.
14 Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task I Introduction
• Parkway: an arterial highway for
noncommercial vehicles, for full or partial
control of access, which is typically
located within a park or a ribbon park-like
development .10
• Racism: different from racial prejudice, hatred,
or discrimination. Racism involves one group
having the power to carry out systematic
discrimination through the institutional policies
and practices of the society and by shaping the
cultural beliefs and values that support those
racist policies and practices.
• Redlining: a discriminatory practice that
puts services (financial services, i.e. loans,
or otherwise) out of reach for residents of
certain areas based on race or ethnicity . The
term “redlining” originated in the 1930s, when
a government-sponsored corporation (the
Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, or HOLC)
assessed and categorized neighborhoods
occupied by ethnic groups and people of
color as “declining” or “hazardous” and
therefore viewed them as investment risks;
the policy discouraged investment in these
neighborhoods, the legacy of which is felt to
this day .
• Restrictive covenant: a clause in a deed or
lease that restricts the free use or occupancy
of property by forbidding certain uses, types of
buildings, or owners/occupants based on race
and ethnicity .
10 California Department of Transportation, Chapter 60:
Nomenclature, Highway Design Manual, December 2020,
60-5.
• Right-of-way: the land over which a public road
is constructed, land occupied by a railroad,
or land used by a public utility (such as
transmission line) .
• Segregation: “the separation or isolation of
a race, class, or ethnic group by enforced or
voluntary residence in a restricted area, by
barriers to social intercourse, by separate
educational facilities, or by other discriminatory
means .”11
• “Slum”: a derogatory term used to describe
areas or neighborhoods containing substandard
housing, unsanitary conditions, and often
overcrowding; historically, the term was
often
associated with neighborhoods in which
communities of color lived.
• Suburb: the residential area on the outskirts
of a city or large town; a smaller community
adjacent to or within commuting distance of a
city .
• Urban renewal: the process of seizing and
demolishing a large swath of public and private
property for the purposes of “modernizing”
and “improving” what was regarded as aging
infrastructure .
• Zoning: the process by which a municipality
organizes land into areas, or zones, and
regulates the allowable uses in each zone; it
typically establishes development standards
such as lot size, building size, setback, and
other features in a particular zone.
12 11 Merriam-Webster Dictionary, “Segregation,” accessed June 12, 2024, https://www.merriam-webster.com/
dictionary/segregation .
12 For more on terms related to planning, see “A Citizen’s Guide to Planning,” prepared by the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research, State of California, January 2001.
Part I
Historical Background and Setting
Opposite: The Pasadena Freeway (Arroyo Seco Parkway/110 Freeway), circa 1940 (Photo courtesy of Pasadena Public Library) Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 17 Some argue that a more accurate name is
Kizh (pronounced Keech).15 This was what the
Indigenous people in the Whittier Narrows area
called themselves and may be “the closest thing
to a pan-tribal name” that exists today.16
The Tongva lived in what is today the southern
portion of Los Angeles County, northern portion
of Orange County, and western portions of San
Bernardino and Riverside counties.
17 The region
was known as Tovaangar and included the land
from what is now Palos Verdes to San Bernardino,
and between Saddleback Mountain and the
San Fernando Valley. Scholars estimate that the
Indigenous population of the area numbered
approximately 5,000 before 1770.
18 They lived
in about 100 villages, each of which was an
independent entity that was interconnected to
those surrounding it .19
gabrielenoindians.org/2022/08/09/kizh-not-tongva/.
15 E. Gary Stickel, “Why the Original Indian Tribe of the Greater Los Angeles Area is Called Kizh Not Tongva,”
Gabrieleño Band of Mission Indians Tribal Government,
February 2022, 3, accessed May 13, 2024, https://
gabrielenoindians.org/2022/08/09/kizh-not-tongva/.
Anthropologist A.L. Kroeber referred to the group as
Gabrieliños in 1925 in the first published compendium
about California’s Native Americans. Earlier anthropological works referred to them as the Kizh or Kij.
16 E. Gary Stickel, “Why the Original Indian Tribe of the Greater Los Angeles Area is Called Kizh Not Tongva,”
Gabrieleño Band of Mission Indians Tribal Government,
February 2022, 3, accessed August 25, 2022, https://
gabrielenoindians.org/2022/08/09/kizh-not-tongva/.
17 Los Angeles Almanac, “Original People of Los Angeles County, accessed August 25, 2022, http://www.laalmanac. com/history/hi05.php.
18 William McCawley, The First Angelinos: The Gabrielino Indians of Los Angeles County (Banning, CA: Malki Museum Press, 1996), 25.
19 Sean Greene and Thomas Curwen, “Mapping the Tongva
Villages of L.A.’s Past,” Los Angeles Times, May 9, 2019, accessed August 25, 2022, https://www.latimes.com/
Pasadena’s Early History
Indigenous People in Pasadena
The displacement of disempowered groups of
people has a long history in the United States,
and Pasadena is no exception. The land that is
occupied today by the City of Pasadena was first
inhabited by Indigenous people who are known
as the Gabrieleño and Tongva . The Indigenous
people of Southern California were descended
from the Uto-Aztecan peoples, who entered
the area between 2,000 B.C.E. and 700 C.E. By
1500, dozens of Indigenous villages had been
established in what is now Los Angeles County .
Each village operated as an independent unit
with distinct leadership and governance, but they
remained interconnected by interpersonal ties
and alliances .13 The name Gabrieleño was given
to the local Indigenous people by the Spanish
when they arrived in the area in the eighteenth
century . The name is derived from the nearby
Mission San Gabriel .
The name Tongva has been introduced as a
substitute for Gabrieleño, though usage of
this name is not universal . The name was
introduced in the early twentieth century by
an anthropologist interviewing an Indigenous
woman and was based on the name of the village
in which she lived . The name was incorrectly
interpreted as the name of her entire tribe. The
Indigenous people of the region derived their
identity primarily from their associated villages
and did not have a central, unifying tribal identity
the way that the name Gabrieleño suggests .14
13 Geosnytec, Olin, and Gehry Partners LLP, L.A. River
Master Plan, prepared for Los Angeles County and Los
Angeles County Public Works, June 2022, 74.
14 E. Gary Stickel, “Why the Original Indian Tribe of the Greater Los Angeles Area is Called Kizh Not Tongva,”
Gabrieleño Band of Mission Indians Tribal Government,
February 2022, 3, accessed May 13, 2024, https://
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 18 Americas . The Doctrine of Discovery gave Spain
and other European nations exclusive territorial
rights to the lands of the Americas . It stated that
any land not inhabited by Christians was available
to be “discovered” and claimed by Christian
rulers. According to the document, the lands’
inhabitants should be converted to Christianity
and their lands claimed by Christian rulers.
22 Spain applied this principal in the Americas,
Africa, and Asia, and other European nations
followed suit . Using the Doctrine of Discovery as
justification, Spain colonized the land in Southern
California and forcibly removed the area’s
Indigenous population that had been living there
for centuries .
The colonization of Alta California was
accomplished by a three-pronged approach, part
of which was the establishment of the mission
system. Spain intended to create a self-sufficient
regional colony that was both protected from
foreign incursions and would help maintain the
country’s foothold in the region .23 The missions
(including the San Gabriel Mission, founded
in 1771) became the most important part of
this system, for they helped sustain the region
economically .24 This economic success relied
on the exploitation of the region’s Indigenous
people, who were forced to work in the missions’
agricultural fields and in other capacities.25
22 Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, “The
Doctrine of Discovery, 1493,” accessed May 13, 2024,
https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight- primary-source/doctrine-discovery-1493 . The Vatican
formally repudiated the Doctrine of Discovery in 2023 . 23 Spain also established pueblos, or towns, and presidios, or military settlement created to protect Alta California from attack by other countries.
24 Daniel Prosser, “Spanish Colonial and Mexican Era
Settlement, 1781-1849,” Los Angeles Citywide Historic
Context Statement, prepared for the City of Los Angeles department of City Planning, February 2016, 2-3.
25 Prosser, “Spanish Colonial and Mexican Era Settlement,” 5 .
The Tongva built “a complex society of significant
economic power and cultural influence” due
to their location between other Indigenous
groups and the natural resources available in
the region .20 The largest village in the area was
Yaanga (or Yanga), which was located in what is
now downtown Los Angeles . What is today the
City of Pasadena is located near what was the
villages of Hahamogna and Hahamog-na, which
take their names from the local Tongva band
named Hahamog’na . The Hahamog’na lived in
the Arroyo Seco between that is now the Los
Angeles River, Glendale, Highland Park, South
Pasadena, Pasadena, and part of Altadena.
21 Hahamogna itself was one of the largest Tongva
villages in the San Fernando Valley area.
The Spanish and Mexican Periods
Following the arrival of the Spanish in North
America, the lives of the area’s Indigenous people
changed dramatically. In 1769, Captain Gaspar
de Portolá and Father Junípero Serra led an
expedition from Baja (in what is today Mexico) to
the area they called Alta California . They traveled
through the Los Angeles Basin in the summer of
1769 as they made their way north . On the heels
of this expedition, the Spanish founded a system
of missions with the purpose of converting
the Native Americans to Christianity and, by
extension it was believed, into loyal subjects of
Spain .
The colonization of land in North American was
legitimized by the Doctrine of Discovery, which
was the result of a series of Papal Bulls (or formal
statements from the Pope) issued by the Vatican
between 1452 and 1514 . The documents played
a central role in Spain’s colonization of the
projects/la-me-tongva-map/.
20 McCawley, 9.
21 PSC SoCal, “Hahamog’na: Native Tongva People,” October 4, 2010, https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/departures/
hahamogna-native-tongva-people .
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 19 few Indigenous people gained land following
the secularization of the missions, and those
that did were unable to maintain possession
for long . The majority of mission land became
ranchos and were owned by local governments
and in turn, members of the local ruling class.
Indigenous people continued to be subjugated
and were “categorically deemed nonwhite,
politically disenfranchised, and ruthlessly
segregated from European Americans” after
California was admitted to the United States in
1850 .31 The people who once called the land
that is now Pasadena home were systematically
displaced from their homes to make way for
European settlement and development driven
by incoming European colonizers, a pattern that
would be repeated in the twentieth century as
communities of color were forcibly removed from
their homes to make way for the SR-710 and
I-210 Freeways.
During the period of Mexican governance, the
area which now makes up the City of Pasadena
became part of Rancho San Pasqual, Rancho
Santa Anita, and Rancho San Rafael. The Mexican
government granted Rancho San Pasqual to the
Juan Marine family in 1827. Following Marine’s
death, the land was acquired by Jose Perez and
Enrique Sepulveda, and in 1843, Manual Garfias
acquired part of the rancho. By 1860, John S.
Griffin and Benjamin Wilson had acquired the
land, parts of which they subdivided and sold.
32 Rancho Santa Anita, located east of Rancho
San Pasqual, the western portion of which
eventually became part of a ranch owned by
Leonard Rose named Lamanda Park, which was
31 Tomás Almaguer, Racial Fault Lines: The Historical Origins of White Supremacy in California (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994, repr 2009), 5.
32 Pamela O’Connor and Urban Conservation Section, City of Pasadena Planning Division, “Architectural/Historical Development of the City of Pasadena Historic Context/
Property Type Report,” January 1993, 10.
Missionaries believed that the Indigenous
population was in need of improvement
through conversion to a more “settled” way
of life (i.e. agriculture and the domestication
of animals) .26 The missionaries “considered
agricultural land use a way to cultivate civilization
and Christianity among Indigenous peoples.”
27 The missions themselves became the places in
which Indigenous people were forced to convert
to Christianity, work, and live in adherence to
a Spanish “civilized” way of life .28 Many of the
area’s Indigenous people were forcibly relocated
to land in proximity to the missions . Not all of
the area’s Indigenous people were forced onto
mission lands or converted to Christianity. Those
that did not convert and move to mission lands
instead lived in or near the pueblo of Los Angeles
(in what is today downtown Los Angeles) and
worked in the pueblo or on privately owned
Spanish ranchos .29
In 1821, Mexico gained its independence from
Spain, and in the 1830s, the new Mexican
government secularized the missions . The new
government believed that it would be more
beneficial for both the Indigenous people and the
land itself to be removed from the oversight of
the mission’s fathers .30 The land previously held
by the missions was supposed to revert to the
ownership of the area’s Indigenous inhabitants
and the missions would serve as parish churches
for local Indigenous communities. In reality,
26 Yvette J. Saavedra, Pasadena Before the Roses: Race, Identity, and Land Use in Southern California, 1771-1890 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2018), 51.
27 Saavedra, 51.
28 Saavedra, 52.
29 William McCawley, The First Angelinos: The Gabrielino Indians of Los Angeles County (Banning, CA: Malki Museum Press, 1996), 200. For more on Indigenous life in the
nineteenth century, see The First Angelinos
.
30 Prosser, “Spanish Colonial and Mexican Era Settlement,” 18 .
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 20 later annexed by the City of Pasadena in 1906 .
Rancho San Rafael, located west of Rancho San
Pasqual, was acquired by Jose Maria Verdugo in
1784. Later, portions of it were purchased by a
series of individuals, including Prudent Beaudry
and Benjamin Dreyfus . This would become the
foundation for what was later Pasadena.
Early Pasadena
In the 1870s, a group of farmers from
Indianapolis formed the Indiana Colony to
purchase land in a warmer location. Though the
economic panic of 1873 postponed the endeavor
and forced many of the original investors to
withdraw, a subsequent organization, the San
Gabriel Orange Grove Association, purchased
land belonging to Rancho San Pasqual . The
land was subdivided in 1874 and residential
construction began over the next two years.
The new community was named Pasadena .
A commercial center developed near the
intersection of Fair Oaks Avenue and Colorado
Boulevard .33 The new community’s economy was
based in agriculture, specifically citrus cultivation.
Following the completion of the transcontinental
railroad in 1886, California became more
accessible to the rest of the country and began
to grow in earnest . This included Pasadena . The
downtown commercial area developed steadily
along Colorado Boulevard, Fair Oaks Avenue,
and Raymond Avenue .34 Soon, new hotels were
also constructed to accommodate the increasing
number of residents and tourists, a trend which
would continue into the next century. The City
of Pasadena was incorporated in 1886 . The new
33 O’Connor, 12-13.
34 O’Connor, 16.
View of early Pasadena, looking northeast from Valley and Pasadena Avenues, 1885 (Photo courtesy of the Pasadena Public Library
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 21 city’s economy was based heavily in tourism, with
boosters promoting the area’s “healthful,” mild
climate that doctors believed could help cure,
or at least lessen the effects of, tuberculosis and
other diseases .35 Through the promotion of the
new city, it grew quickly into a desirable tourist
destination. Tourists tended to stay for the winter
and return to their homes in the East or Midwest
for the summer . By the mid-1890s, tourists began
to purchase land and construct permanent
homes rather than make use of the resort hotels
that had sprung up in Pasadena .36
By the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, Pasadena had a growing multi-ethnic
and multi-racial population. They initially were
primarily domestic workers who came with
their employers or were middle-class people
who traveled to Pasadena on their own . Many
of these domestic workers lived along South
Vernon Avenue (now South St. John Avenue)
37 early on, leading to the area becoming one of
the city’s primary neighborhoods for residents
of color .38 Later groups were more “economically
and occupationally diverse” and may have been
encouraged by accounts from families and friends
who had already moved there .39 By 1919, the
city had a population of approximately 3,000
immigrants representing 24 nationalities.
40 The
city’s population had dramatic divisions along
class and racial lines – a wealthy White upper
class on one hand, and a working class population
of color who worked in the service industry for its
White residents on the other .41
35 O’Connor, 17.
36 O’Connor, 20.
37 Vernon Avenue was renamed St. John Avenue circa
1970. No mentions of Vernon Avenue are found in area
newspapers after 1970. However, a precise date or reason for the change was not found .
38 Lynn M. Hudson, West of Jim Crow: The Fight Against
California’s Color Line (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2020) .
39 Carson Anderson, “Ethnic History Research Report,” 3. 40 Anderson, 5.
41 Andy Weise, Places of Their Own, 35.
In the first half of the twentieth century,
Pasadena residents of color primarily lived west
of Fair Oaks Avenue . This included Northwest
Pasadena and the aforementioned neighborhood
surrounding South Vernon and South Raymond
Avenues south of Colorado Boulevard (to the
west of Fair Oaks Avenue). These multi-ethnic
neighborhoods included African American, Asian,
Latino, and European immigrant residents.
42 Northwest Pasadena became a core of
Pasadena’s African American community, as
did the South Vernon Avenue area (South
Vernon Avenue from Colorado Boulevard on
the north and Del Mar Avenue on the south) .43
A commercial area of Black-owned businesses
and institutions developed along North Fair Oaks
Avenue in Northwest Pasadena and along Dayton
Avenue to the east of the area that would later
be cleared for the SR-710 Freeway. Community
institutions included First AME Church on South
Vernon Street (founded in 1886), Friendship
Baptist Church on Dayton Avenue (founded
in 1893), and the Scattergood Settlement on
North Fair Oaks Avenue run by Black Pasadenans
(which provided after school programs for school
children). Scott Methodist Episcopal Church was
founded in 1903 and eventually had a church
on Mary Street, completed in 1930, which was
a major architectural landmark for the city’s
African American community .44 There were also
newspapers, social groups, and clubs run by
and for people of color . The Pasadena chapter
of the National Association of the Advancement
of Colored People (NAACP , founded in 1919)
was active in local affairs, as were other civic
organizations such as the Afro-American State
Council .45 The Black population increased at
42 Anderson, 6. For more, please see the “Ethnic History Research Report .”
43 Anderson, 20.
44 Anderson, 23.
45 Anderson, 21.
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 22 a more rapid pace than other populations of
color in Pasadena. By 1920, Pasadena’s African
American population was approximately 1,094,
and by 1930, it had nearly doubled to more than
3,000.
46 Among the population were domestic
workers and other working-class professionals,
as well as doctors, lawyers, and builders/real
estate developers .47 By the late 1940s, Pasadena’s
African American population was approximately
6,500, as people moved to California cities in
search of work during the Great Depression and
World War II .48
Pasadena also had populations of Latino and
Asian residents that were present in smaller
numbers in the early twentieth century. The
city’s Latino population initially lived primarily
in the area around South Raymond Avenue and
Broadway (now Arroyo Parkway) .49 By 1910,
Latinos also began moving to northwest Pasadena
in the vicinity of Washington Boulevard and an
area known as Titleyville to the east .50
Pasadena’s Asian community, which was
smaller than the African American and Latino
populations well into the twentieth century
due to exclusionary immigration policies, lived
initially near South Raymond Avenue and then
also in the northwest Pasadena by the 1920s .
Some Asian residents lived and had businesses
in the city’s central business district on or near
Colorado Boulevard and Fair Oaks Avenue .51 The
city’s Asian population was majority working-class
during the first two decades of the twentieth
century, but also included small business owners.
Several churches, including a Japanese Union
Church on Mary Street (1913), opened during
46 Anderson, 22-24.
47 Anderson, 24.
48 Anderson, 28.
49 Anderson, 5.
50 Anderson, 6.
51 Anderson, 2.
Scott Methodist Episcopal Church at 55 Mary Street, 1929 (Photo courtesy of Pasadena Public Library)
Meiji Laundry at 244 W. Colorado Boulevard, unk. date
(Photo courtesy of Pasadena Public Library)
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 23 line between Blacks and Whites, […] We lived
over there on the Black side … and the we
couldn’t even cross to this side, the White side.”58
These well-established neighborhoods – among
the only areas Pasadena residents of color
could live for decades – would be targeted for
redevelopment and removal in the post-World
War II period .
58 Andy Weise, Places of Their Own, 35.
this time.52 The Chinese population, targeted
by harsh anti-Chinese sentiment at the end of
the nineteenth century, was prohibited from
living outside a proscribed area south of South
Raymond Avenue and California Boulevard (to
the south of the study area) .53 Japanese-owned
businesses tended to be located in this same
vicinity, while Japanese residents lived in small
pockets in northwest Pasadena, the Lincoln
Triangle, and Brenner Park.
54 Several Japanese
nurseries were located to the east and south of
the study area as well as in northwest Pasadena .
The Japanese School and Cultural Center,
established in 1910, served the city’s Japanese
and Japanese American community.
55 Garfield Grammar School, located at the corner
of South Pasadena Avenue and California
Boulevard (demolished), served a diverse student
body composed of students from the wealthier
Orange Grove Avenue area to the west and the
working-class area along South Vernon and South
Raymond Avenues to the east .56
In the early twentieth century, Pasadena actively
segregated people of color into specific areas,
and city leaders enacted legislation early in
Pasadena’s history to ensure continued racial
segregation. As will be discussed in the next
section, city leaders and community members
used multiple tools to ensure the segregation
of people of color from White neighborhoods .
These included city legislation, restrictive
covenants, homeowners associations, and
intimidation and violence.
57 Willa Mae Robinson,
sister of baseball player Jackie Robinson, recalled:
“North Fair Oaks [Avenue], that was the dividing
52 Anderson, 49.
53 Anderson, 36.
54 Anderson, 50.
55 Anderson, 50-51.
56 Anderson, 8.
57 Nicolaides, The New Suburbia, 151.
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 24 federal land holdings to settlers who in turn
built roads with government generated revenue,
thus contributing to the overall expansion and
maintenance of America’s earliest roadways .62
Government- and privately-funded roads
continued to develop in a piecemeal fashion
across the Northeast and Midwest at the turn
of the nineteenth century, but as Americans
began moving west at an increasing rate, the
need for a trans-Appalachian roadway became
increasingly apparent .63 This resulted in the
construction of the Cumberland Road, later
renamed the National Road, in 1811.
64 The
National Road, which ran between Maryland and
Illinois, was technically America’s first federally
funded interstate highway, laying the foundation
for the U . S . federal highway system to come in
the following century . Its popularity would only
be surpassed in the mid-nineteenth century by
the ever-expanding transcontinental railroad
network, which quickly became faster and more
efficient than road travel.
65 In California, the earliest roads served as supply
chains for the missions that has been established
between San Diego and San Francsico . Mission
roads played an essential role in maintaining
political stability for the Spanish and Mexican
governments in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries and formed the foundation upon which
California’s modern highway system evolved over
the course of the next two hundred years .66 The
62 National Research Council, “Assessing and Managing the Ecological Impacts of Paved Roads,” 39.
63 Alexander, “The National Road – First Highway in
America .”
64 National Research Council, “Assessing and Managing,” 39; Alexander, “The National Road – First Highway in America.” 65 Caltrans, “A Historical Context and Methodology for
Evaluating Trails, Roads, and Highways in California,” 51; Alexander, “The National Road.”
66 Caltrans, “A Historical Context,” 35, 51-54, 75, 144.
Freeway Development at the State
and National Levels
Highway Development at the National
and State Levels Before World War II
Though it was not until the mid-twentieth
century that a nationwide interstate highway
system was established in the United States,
efforts to develop regional connections via a
network of roads and highways date to the early
nineteenth century .59 In the earliest years of
American nation-building, roads were largely
unpaved, providing local access for the passage
of people and goods by wagon to complement
an extensive waterway transportation system
along the East Coast .60 As American settlement
expanded westward and the country began to
urbanize in response to industrialization, political
authorities and private landowners recognized
the need to unify the young nation by improving
its roadways to accommodate more regional
access across state lines .61 The government took
advantage of westward migration as a means by
which to improve road construction by selling
59 The term “highway” was not used widely until the 1910s.
Prior to this, the most commonly used term was “road.” The term “freeway” came into usage in the postwar period and was often used interchangeably with “expressway.”
60 National Research Council, Committee on Ecological
Impacts of Road Density, “Assessing and Managing the
Ecological Impacts of Paved Roads,” United States: National Academies Press, 2005, 38-39.
61 California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), “A Historical Context and Methodology for Evaluating Trails, Roads, and Highways in California,” prepared for the
Cultural Studies Office, Division of Environmental Analysis, California Department of Transportation, California:
Sacramento, 2016, 51; Kathy Alexander, “The National Road – First Highway in America,” Legends of America (blog), updated March 2024, accessed May 2024, https://www.
legendsofamerica.com/ah-nationalroad/
.
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 25 economic growth and social problems in its
cities. Policymakers and activists responded with
reform efforts, coalescing around the Progressive
Movement, which worked to alleviate the ill
effects of rampant industrial capitalist growth
while supporting the interests of middle-class
Americans. Their efforts coincided with the
advent of new transportation technologies
such as the internal combustion engine, which
emerged in the 1890s and led to production
of America’s first gas and electric motorized
vehicles .
Among the myriad of Progressive campaigns was
the “Good Roads Movement,” which sought to
improve local and regional roads in the 1880s
and 1890s as transportation had become a
crucial driver of social and economic growth
and middle class leisure time was on the rise.
70 Various chapters of the Good Roads Association
developed across the nation to address the poor
conditions of the nation’s roadways.
71 Coupled
with the “Back to Nature Movement,” which
encouraged Americans to explore the outdoors
away from overpopulated urban environments,
the demand for new and better roads was at
an all-time high.
72 The Good Roads Association,
composed predominately of bicyclists and
wealthy automobile owners, made hard surfaced
roads the organization’s primary goal. It lobbied
Congress and state governments to provide
increased federal funding for roadbuilding and
maintenance .73
During the Progressive Era, California
70 Caltrans, “A Historical Context,” 54, 64-67.
71 Carol Roland et. al., Mead & Hunt, Inc., “U.S. Highway 66 in California,” National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Inventory/Nomination Form,
prepared for the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service. 2011, E-4.
72 Caltrans, “A Historical Context,” 54, 64-67.
73 Roland et. al., “U.S. Highway 66 in California,” E-5. first mission road in the state that embodied
characteristics of an interconnected highway
was the El Camino Real (or the “Royal Road”) .
Constructed in sections between 1769 and 1833
and spanning a total of 600 miles, the unpaved
trail was developed by Spanish colonizers for
carreta
(cart) and pack mule transport . The
purpose of El Camino Real evolved over time,
transitioning slowly from a commerce trail to an
automobile highway in the twentieth century.
67 Following an economic recession in the late
1830s, federally funded road construction
halted, and road development fell to local
governments and often relied on private
funding .68 This practice continued until the
1880s when the country again began to prosper
and the Progressive Era took hold . California
was one of the first states to seriously expand
its roadbuilding capacity during this period .
Its population rapidly increased, and the need
for adequate roads rapidly became apparent .
Despite various road improvements, its roads and
early highways were spotty and noncontiguous,
and transportation was difficult due to the state’s
variable terrain .69 Despite these challenges,
westward bound trails from the Southwest
were converted to roads, and hundreds of new
wagon and stage roads were built to support the
state’s economic growth in fields like agriculture,
industry, and technology between the 1850s and
the 1890s. As the state’s population grew, so did
its appeal as a tourist destination. Increases in
tourism reinforced California’s need for better
road capabilities.
By the late nineteenth century, the United
States had become an industrial nation, spurring
67 Caltrans, “A Historical Context,” 52, 57.
68 National Research Council, “Assessing and Managing,” 15-16; Alexander, “The National Road.”
69 Caltrans, “A Historical Context,” 51-54, 57.
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 26 roads, which would establish more statewide
government oversight rather than relying on
local governments and privatized spending to
propel highway development .75 Subsequent
legislation continued this trend of financing road
construction and maintenance by the state.
By the early 1900s, both public and private forces
backed the creation of a transcontinental highway
system. Middle-class motorists played a key role,
especially as they became voracious consumers
of automobiles with the introduction of the Ford
75 Caltrans, “A Historical Context,” 85-87, 114; Roland et. al., “U.S. Highway 66 in California,” E-7 and E-8; “Caltrans History,” California Department of Transportation, accessed May 2024, https://dot.ca.gov/programs/public-affairs/
caltrans-history. In 1907, the Department of Highways was reorganized under the State Department of Engineering
until the Department of Public Works was established in 1921 .
roadbuilding accelerated with the rise of
automobile production and subsequent pressure
and private funding from local chapters of
interest groups like the Good Roads Association,
American Automobile Association (AAA), and the
Automobile Club of California (ACC, established
1901), the latter of which played an influential
role in helping to develop the El Camino Real
into a modern thoroughfare for motorized
vehicles in the first decade of the twentieth
century .74 In 1895, the state established the
California State Bureau of Highways (Bureau)
to centralize highway and road development .
Policymakers solidified state-regulated highway
construction by adopting a constitutional
amendment that authorized the creation of a
single highway system in 1902. This was the first
time the California legislature made a budgetary
appropriation of funding specifically for state
74 Caltrans, “A Historical Context,” 64-67; 70-72.
The Lincoln Highway (now Foothill Boulevard) near Hayward, CA, unk. date (Photo courtesy of University of Michigan Library Special Collections)
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 27 miles running from Chicago, Illinois through
Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico,
and Arizona before ending in Los Angeles . Route
66 remained a primary route for westward
travelers and helped facilitate auto-centric
commercial tourism across the American West
for over fifty years.
78 The success of the Lincoln Highway and its
contemporaries incentivized the federal
government to become more involved in
improving highway systems overall by the late
1910s .79 At the time, most roads and highway
systems were still mostly privately funded
and varied in quality between states and
municipalities. Most lacked signage and suffered
from poor maintenance and infrastructure . For
example, many transcontinental highway bridges
that had been constructed prior to highway
alignment were unable to bear the weight of
trucks carrying freight cargo, and thus were at
risk of collapsing as traffic increased.
80 To address
these issues and provide financial support
to state and local governments for ongoing
highway development, the federal government
passed a series of legislative acts in the following
decades. The first of these was the Federal Aid
Road Act of 1916, which created the Federal-Aid
Highway Program and provided a framework for
which states could receive federal funding for
highway construction. The Federal Aid Highway
Program remains the basis for which federal
support of highways is administered today .81
78 Roland et. al., “U.S. Highway 66 in California,” Section E; Caltrans, “A Historical Context,” 144-46; Kathy Alexander, “Route 66 Information & History,” Legends of America
(blog), updated April 2024, accessed May 2024, https:// www.legendsofamerica.com/66-info/ .
79 Caltrans, “A Historical Context,” 77, 87.
80 Caltrans, “A Historical Context,” 80-82, 109.
81 National Research Council, “Assessing and Managing,” 39-40; Roland et. al., “U.S. Highway 66 in California,” E-9; Richard F. Weingroff, “Federal Aid Road Act of 1916:
Model T in 1908. Most road legislation passed
in the early twentieth century was galvanized by
grassroots initiatives led by automobile owners
and clubs, local politicians, business leaders, and
other local actors .76 While these stakeholders
pushed for better local and regional roads,
other organizations emerged to promote the
construction of interstate or transcontinental
highways to compete with railroad transportation
nationwide. One of the most influential of these
was the Lincoln Highway Association (LHA), which
created the Lincoln Highway between 1913 and
1928 . It ran from New York City to San Francsico
with support from local communities and minimal
financial support from the federal government.
The Lincoln Highway became popular with
motorists and highway advocates who used it as a
public relations tool to promote transcontinental
interstate construction. In 1919, a young Dwight
D. Eisenhower helped lead the first convoy of
military trucks over 3,000 miles along the Lincoln
Highway from Washington D.C. to Oakland, the
first trip of its kind that spurred the use of trucks
to transport goods long distances across the
Lincoln Highway beginning in the early 1920s .77
Several other transcontinental highways
sprung up across the U.S. in the in the first two
decades of the twentieth century. These were
essentially sections of local and state roads that
were cobbled together and developed with
funding from private benefactors and booster
clubs in partnership with municipal and state
governments . Perhaps the most famous of these
was Route 66 (now U . S . 66) . Later referred to as the “Main Street of America,” it spanned 2,448
76 Caltrans, “A Historical Context,” 77.
77 Caltrans, “A Historical Context,” 80-82. Today, the Lincoln Highway comprises U .S . Route 30 from Pennsylvania to Wyoming . Other former alignments of the Lincoln Highway were replaced by Interstate 80 in the 1950s as the primary east-to west route from the New York City area to San
Francisco .
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 28 During the Depression years of the 1930s,
highway development continued, but was
heavily bolstered by New Deal programs and
other sources of federal relief that provided road
construction jobs for unemployed American
workers . The California Division of Highways
used New Deal federal funding to create jobs
for road and highway construction throughout
the state . Many of California’s projects centered
around highway beautification, improving road
conditions, and relieving traffic. California’s roads
were especially prone to traffic congestion as a
result of the state’s steadily increasing population
and rising rates of automobile ownership, which
were among the highest in the nation. In 1934,
the California state highway code was revised
to allow the Division of Highways to build
highways in urban areas like Los Angeles using
reapportioned gas-tax revenues.
85 These were
the first organized efforts to allocate state and
federal funding toward the specific construction
of freeways .86
Simultaneously, planning was underway for a
new national system of high-speed expressways
to address increasing traffic issues caused by the
everyday usage of automobiles, which by this
point were owned by almost every household in
America . Planning suddenly halted in 1941 when
the United States prepared to enter World War
II after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and it was
not until after the war that roadbuilding efforts
resumed and plans for the new nationwide
system began to formalize .87 Similarly, it was
85 Caltrans, “A Historical Context,” 94.
86 Roland et. al., “U.S. Highway 66 in California,” E-11. 87 National Research Council, “Assessing and Managing,” 40; Caltrans, “A Historical Context,” 94, 110-11; Roland et. al., “U.S. Highway 66 in California,” E-11 and E-12; David E. Kyvig, Daily Life in the United States, 1920-1940: How Americans Lived through the ‘Roaring Twenties’ and the
Great Depression (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee Publishing, 2002), 27 .
Subsequent legislation in the 1920s incentivized
states to construct paved, two-lane highways to
accommodate automobile travel that resembled
the earliest iteration of American interstates.
82 California created the Division of Highways in
the 1920s . It worked with the California Highway
Commission to administer federal funding and
oversee highway development. By the mid-1920s,
thirteen of the seventy State Highways that had
been previously designated in California were
incorporated into the new U.S. Highway System,
including U . S . Highway 66 and U . S . Highway
101 .83 By 1937 State Route 1, also known as
the Pacific Coast Highway, linked Northern and
Southern California as the state’s first complete
north-south highway.
84 Building the Foundation,” Public Roads 60, No. 1 (Summer 1996), accessed May 2024, https://highways.dot.gov/
public-roads/summer-1996/federal-aid-road-act-1916-
building-foundation; Federal Highway Administration,
“America’s Highways 1776-1976: A History of the Federal- Aid Program,” prepared for the U.S. Department of
Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, 1977,
86-88.
82 Roland et. al., “U.S. Highway 66 in California,” E-9 and E-10; Federal Highway Administration, “America’s Highways 1776-1976,” 108-09.
83 Caltrans, “A Historical Context,” 89-91; Roland et. al., “U.S. Highway 66 in California,” E-7, E-8, and E-11. After 1927, the California Highway Commission’s powers were
limited in favor of the California Division of Highways yet not altogether dissolved . It remained a policymaking body rather than an oversight organization as it had been in the years prior. The CHC was now responsible for routing highways, funding some projects, designating roads within the state highway system, and condemning properties
for new routes, rather than designing, constructing, and maintaining highways, which was now the role of the
Division of Highways . The Division of Highways remained the primary governing agency for highway construction
until 1973 when it became the California Department of
Transportation (Caltrans).
84 “Caltrans History .”
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 29 However, what began as a desire for civic
improvement soon also became “a mechanism
for protecting property values and excluding
the undesirables .”91 Early planning principals
became embedded with then prevailing ideas
about racial and class hierarchies. At this time,
city officials often viewed communities of color
and the working class through a racist lens that
inaccurately equated them with immorality,
disease, and inferiority. White residents often
blamed people of color and immigrants for
problems like overcrowding and unsanitary
conditions that plagued newly industrialized cities
in the East and Midwest – issues that people
of color and the working class suffered, but for
which they were not responsible. Cities often
failed to invest in municipal services and modern
91 Christopher Silver, “The Racial Origins of Zoning in American Cities,” Manning Thomas, June and Marsha
Ritzdorf eds . Urban Planning and the African American Community: In the Shadows. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
Publications, 1997.
not until after World War II that a coordinated
effort to plan for the future of automobile
transportation in California took hold, despite an
aggressive campaign for transportation planning
that began a decade earlier .88
Land Use Policies and Housing Practices
Before World War II
The use of zoning, which involves the division of
a municipality’s land in areas (or zones) as well as
the regulation of land use, building density and
scale, and population in each zone, dates to the
early twentieth century.
89 City planning in the
United States originally reflected the values of
the Progressive Movement at the beginning of
the twentieth century, and began as a “search for
order” in a rapidly industrializing world .90 Officials began to use city planning as a way to organize a
city into distinct areas for industry, residences for
different classes, commercial activity, and other
uses. Practitioners believed that city planning
would improve quality of life by reducing
the spread of disease, regulating the flow of
traffic, designating open space for leisure, and
preventing homes’ exposure to environmental
toxins, among other things. To accomplish these
goals, city planners tended to organize urban
land into specific land use districts – commercial,
industrial, institutional, residential, and mixed.
The desire to separate so-called noxious uses
from residential areas would underly the goals of
early planning efforts.
88 Caltrans, “A Historical Context,” 75, 87, 94-95; Roland et. al., “U.S. Highway 66 in California,” E-11 and E-12.
89 The regulation of what were originally called nuisances, or “noxious” uses, date further back to both North America and Europe when cities used them to regulate land use
until the creation of modern zoning laws. Source: Sonia Hirt, “Home, Sweet Home: American Residential Zoning in Comparative Perspective,” Journal of Planning Education and Research 20 (1), 2013, 3.
90 Robert H. Wiebe, The Search for Order, 1877-1920 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1967).
Urban planners sought to avoid the conditions found in
places like the tenements of New York’s Lower East Side, as documented by urban reformer Jacob Riis. Photo circa 1890. (Photo courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York)
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 30 use of zoning to separate land uses, building
densities, and population groups became a
common way to keep people of color out of
certain neighborhoods. Along with zoning, an
array of private sector tools worked to racially
segregate American cities, including violence,
intimidation, racial steering,
94 and restrictive
covenants .
Restrictive covenants were one of the most
effective of these tools, used widely in cities
around the country between 1900 and 1948 .
Restrictive covenants were legal clauses written
into a property deed, which specified that the
owner could only sell or rent the property to
“Caucasians,” otherwise the owner could be
sued or lose the property . Many covenants listed
the excluded racial groups by name, such as
“Negroes,” Mexicans, Japanese, Chinese, or Jews,
among others .95 Covenants predated zoning as a
form of land use regulation. They were intended
to run with the land, despite future transfers in
ownership, and typically lasted twenty to thirty
years, and sometimes in perpetuity.
96 One African
American resident of Los Angeles described the
impact of these covenants this way: they created
“invisible walls of steel . The whites surrounded us
and made it impossible for us to go beyond these
walls .”97
94 Racial steering refers to the practice of guiding
prospective buyers towards or away from certain
neighborhoods based on their race .
95 Wendy Plotkin, “Restrictive Covenants,” in David
Goldfield, ed., Encyclopedia of American Urban History, vol. 2 (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2007), 681; Flamming, 69; Laura Redford, “Intertwined History,” 308.
96 Plotkin, “Restrictive Covenants,” 679; Flamming, 69; Lawrence B. de Graaf, Kevin Mulroy, and Quintard Taylor, eds., Seeking El Dorado: African Americans in California (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001; and Autry Museum), 25.
97 Quintard Taylor, In search of the racial frontier: African Americans in the American West, 1528-1990 (New York:
amenities such as proper sewage, sanitation,
electricity, and paved roads in working class
communities and communities of color. As a
result, conditions in these neighborhoods were
often worse than in neighborhoods occupied
by White residents. In seeking solutions to the
problems associated with industrialization, some
city leaders concluded that keeping people of
color out of White residential areas would help
solve these issues . This eventually evolved into a
belief which historian Carl Nightingale has called
the “racial theory of property values,” or the
idea that residents of color represented a threat
to real estate values and thus must be kept out
of certain neighborhoods .92 Planner Frederick
Law Olmsted, Jr ., who had been among the first
to promote the use of comprehensive zoning
ordinances, admitted in 1918 that divisions by
social class were “more or less coincident with
racial divisions .”93
Early legislation separated people of color
from White residents. In cities across the
American South, Jim Crow era zoning ordinances
designated separate areas for White and African
American residents. In numerous California cities,
Chinese immigrants were impacted by legislation
confining laundries to certain areas; in the late
nineteenth century, laundries were often equated
with the Chinese population. Even after the
use of explicitly racial zoning ordinances were
struck down by the Supreme Court, cities found
ways to use zoning as a means of segregation
through the control of land uses. For example,
multi-family residences were typically associated
with people of color and working-class White
residents. So, following the prevailing racial logic,
municipal leaders believed that allowing multi-
family residences would threaten property values
in single-family neighborhoods. Thereafter, the
92 Carl H. Nightingale, Segregation: A Global History of Divided Cities (University of Chicago Press, 2012), 305. 93 Nightingale, Segregation, 323.
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 31 realtors. A statewide survey conducted by the all-
White California Real Estate Association (CREA)
revealed strong support of racial restrictions
by realtors and described their own efforts
to prevent people of color from moving into
White neighborhoods . Survey takers deemed
African Americans the greatest threat to White
neighborhoods, compared to other racial
groups .102
By the onset of the Great Depression in 1929,
which devastated the American economy in
general and the housing market in particular,
these public and private sector forces had
segregated people of color into certain areas
in cities for decades. Between 1925 and 1933,
housing construction in the United States fell
90 percent .103 In 1933 alone, fourteen million
102 Flamming, Bound for Freedom, 219-221; Andrea Gibbons, City of Segregation: One Hundred Years of Struggle for
Housing in Los Angeles (New York: Verso Books, 2018), 25- 27 .
103 Peter G. Rowe, Modernity and Housing (Boston: The MIT Press, 1993), 103.
After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled explicitly
racial zoning unconstitutional, restrictive
covenants became one of the few enforceable
mechanisms of maintaining discriminatory
housing policies in this era. In 1919, the California
Supreme Court upheld their use . It ruled that
restrictive covenants, while they could not
prevent people of color from buying a home, they
could prevent them from living in it .98 Restrictive
covenants were widely used across Southern
California. By 1941, about sixty percent of
Pasadena’s residential parcels included restrictive
covenants .99
The real estate industry also played a pivotal
role in reinforcing segregation by codifying and
enforcing racist norms within the profession,
at both the regional and national levels. In
1924, the National Association of Real Estate
Boards (NAREB) established a code of ethics
that prohibited realtors from selling property
to “members of any race or nationality” where
they would threaten property values .100 If a real
estate agent violated these rules, he could lose
his license . The code of ethics would stay in
effect until the late 1950s.101 These professional
pressures spurred the practice of steering among
Norton, 1998), 235.
98 The case was Los Angeles Investment Co . v . Gary (1919) .
Douglas Flamming, Bound for Freedom, 156.
99 Nicolaides, The New Suburbia, 151.
100 Code of ethics quoted in Hirsch, “With or Without Jim Crow,” 75.
101 Sides, L.A. City Limits , 106.
Text from restrictive covenants for properties in Los
Angeles County (Courtesy of LA County Registrar
Recorder)
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 32 neighborhood and whether it was considered a
risk. The ratings were: A-green, B-blue, C-yellow,
or D-red. Areas that were White, middle-class,
zoned residential, and low density received the
highest ratings (green and blue). Neighborhoods
that were non-White, higher density, in proximity
to industrial uses, and had combined land uses
were rated lower (yellow and red). This practice
has become known as “redlining.” Often race was
the most determining factor in a neighborhood’s
grade, regardless of other factors. The presence
of African Americans in a neighborhood had
a more negative impact on HOLC ratings than
other ethnic groups or communities of color.
The redlining of these areas reinforced the idea
that these neighborhoods were unworthy of
investment .
The HOLC ratings for Pasadena varied, revealing
the contours of segregation and racialized
settlement in the city. The areas to the east
of where the SR-710 Freeway now runs were
generally rated yellow, while the areas through
which it passed were rated red. Area C27,
for example, was given a yellow grade. Deed
restrictions, the rating sheet noted, had expired
but “racial restrictions in many cases are still in
force .” It w ent on:
Zoning is mixed: 5/8 single-family
residential; 2/8 permits duplexes; and
1/8 commercial. Regardless of zoning,
however, [the] area is preponderantly
single-family residential and [this] pattern
is definitely established. Conveniences
are all readily available. This section
was subdivided many years ago and
was a very popular district 20 years ago
and is still highly regarded. Many of the
large old residences are still occupied
by original owners, who are people of
means. Construction is generally super
standard and quality of maintenance
is excellent. In fact, this is a chief
Americans were unemployed and nearly
275,000 families lost their homes to mortgage
foreclosure .104 In response, the state and federal
government sought to address the housing
problem, which resulted in a number of initiatives
and funding programs. This was the first time
the federal government intervened in the private
housing market in such a concerted way, and it
put in place policies that reinforced segregation
and inequality into the future .
The federal government’s intervention in
the housing market took the form of two
new departments – the Home Owners Loan
Corporation (HOLC) and Federal Housing
Administration (FHA). Part of President Franklin
D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, the HOLC and FHA
were intended to provide emergency relief for
home indebtedness and make homeownership
financing more attainable to Americans, thus
providing a much-needed boost to the housing
market. The HOLC developed a system of rating
neighborhoods as security risks for home loans
that were influenced by the racial assumptions of
the time. The HOLC system would influence the
longer-lived FHA.
105
The HOLC appraisal system assigned a rating to
every neighborhood across the U.S., including
Pasadena, where the survey was completed in
1939 .106 This system used racial considerations,
among others, to rate the financial security of a
104 Gertrude S. Fish, “Housing Policy during the Great
Depression,” in The Story of Housing (New York: Macmillan Publishers, 1979), 196.
105 Kenneth T. Jackson, “Race, Ethnicity, and Real Estate Appraisal: The Home Owners’ Loan Corporation and the
Federal Housing Administration,” Journal of Urban History 6 (August 1980), 419-452; Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier, ch. 11. 106 Pasadena, University of Richmond, “Mapping Inequality:
Redlining in New Deal America,” accessed June 10, 2024, https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/map/CA/
LosAngeles/area_descriptions
.
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 33 A portion of the HOLC map for Pasadena, 1939 (Image courtesy of University of Richmond’s “Mapping Inequality” project).
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 34 Area D6 (the northwest portion of Pasadena
where the 210 Freeway would later be
constructed) was said to have mixed zoning with
single-family, multi-family, and commercial all
included . The sheet stated:
This old unrestricted area has long been
inhabited by the servant class who were
employed by wealthy families in the
higher grade areas to the west and south .
This district was originally much smaller
but constant infiltration into other
sections as deed restrictions expired has
created a real menace which is greatly
concerning property owners of Pasadena
and Altadena. Population, improvements
and maintenance are all highly
heterogeneous . Many parts of the area
zoned for business are honeycombed
with single family dwellings, many
of them of the ‘shack’ variety, which
are occupied by Negroes and other
subversive racial elements . The adjoining
blue area to the west is protected
from the subversive elements by deed
restrictions. The area is blighted and its
future is a matter of concern and doubt.
A movement is on foot to re-restrict in
perpetuity adjacent areas which are not
as yet affected.
110
This is in notable contrast to later personal
recollections of the area. When asked about
northwest Pasadena, one former resident who
lived there just before the construction of the
210 Freeway said it was home to a “close-knit
neighborhood” and “beautiful old houses.”
111
110 Pasadena Area D6, University of Richmond, “Mapping
Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America,” accessed June 10, 2024, https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/
map/CA/LosAngeles/area_descriptions .
111 Bob Gonzalez oral history interview, qtd. in Lloyd, 9-10. characteristic of the area. … Population
is generally substantial, although not
altogether homogeneous in character .107
The yellow rating for area C29 appears to have
been a result of a high rate of rental units rather
than ownership, the fact that many of the
residences had been converted to multi-family
units, the presence of working-class residents,
and its proximity to the central business district
along Colorado Boulevard .108
In contrast, areas D9, which included South
Vernon Avenue south of Orange Grove Boulevard,
was described as the “‘melting pot’ area of
Pasadena .” The shee t noted that
while [it was] zoned for business and
industry, [it] is honeycombed with
poorly constructed cottages and shacks.
That portion of area which is graded is
residential 4
th grade and is almost wholly
given over to single family structures,
but the adjacent business and industrial
section is also infiltrated with similar
structures, which are occupied by
Negroes, Mexicans and Japanese. … This
area is thoroughly blighted and a slum
clearance project is under discussion .109
107 Pasadena Area C27, University of Richmond, “Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America,” accessed June 10, 2024, https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/
map/CA/LosAngeles/area_descriptions .
108 Pasadena Area C29, University of Richmond, “Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America,” accessed June 10, 2024, https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/
map/CA/LosAngeles/area_descriptions .
109 Pasadena Area D9, University of Richmond, “Mapping
Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America,” accessed June 10, 2024, https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/
map/CA/LosAngeles/area_descriptions .
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 35 The policies of the HOLC significantly influenced
the practices of the FHA, which became the most
important program for homeownership in the
country . The FHA’s mortgage insurance program
guaranteed loans granted by private lenders,
including low-interest loans to homeowners
and construction loans to builders. As part of
the stipulations of a construction loan, the
FHA established construction guidelines that
regulated lot size, building setback, materials,
and other features . These standards by their
very nature favored new single-family suburban
development and disqualified most existing urban
residential areas from loan eligibility.
112 Areas that
were zoned for homogeneous land uses (namely
single-family residential construction) and which
kept out “incompatible” land uses were the
most likely to meet FHA standards . Areas which
included mixed land uses, on the other hand, did
not meet FHA standards and were thus ineligible
for these loans. In addition, the FHA supported
the use of restrictive covenants until 1948 and
was reluctant to guarantee home construction
loans in areas without them . The FHA
Underwriting Manual noted, “If a neighborhood
is to retain stability, it is necessary that properties shall continue to be occupied by the same social
and racial classes .”113 The Manual emphasized
that restrictive covenants “provide[d] the surest
protection against undesirable encroachment and
inharmonious use .”114
The HOLC’s appraisal system significantly
influenced the lending practices of private
banks, which were resultant to provide loans
112 Becky Nicolaides and Andrew Wiese, “Suburbanization in the United States after 1945,” April 26, 2017,
accessed June 10, 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/
acrefore/9780199329175.013.64.
113 Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier, 208.
114 Federal Housing Administration, Underwriting Manual:
Underwriting and Valuation Procedure under Title II of the National Housing Act, Washington, D.C., rev. 1938, 980 (1). for properties in redlined areas. Both public and
private investment in older, mixed-use areas of
cities decreased, leading to disinvestment and
neighborhood decline over time. Historian Ryan
Reft summarized the impacts of redlining in
Southern California:
Redlined communities struggled to
receive federally backed home loans,
making property ownership much more
difficult for residents. Moreover, it made
getting loans for home improvements
– maintenance, upkeep and renovation
– though not impossible, very unlikely.
Neighborhoods fell into a vicious circle
of decline: the inability to access capital
led to disrepair and the physical decline
of a community’s housing stock, which in
turn reinforced the redline designation.
That redlining became equated with
race and class led to the naturalization of
segregation. […] Redlined communities
also sat closer to industrial areas,
vice districts, and environmentally
compromised settings, exposing residents
to health risks and crime .115
Due to the policies and practices outlined above,
Pasadena in the first half of the twentieth century
was highly segregated . African Americans tended
to live adjacent to the mansions on Orange Grove
Boulevard, where they worked. As the African
American population grew, people settled in
northwest Pasadena, where they could buy land
and build homes, though municipal services
were sparse .116 By 1935, the city’s communities
of color were largely concentrated on the west
115 Ryan Reft, “Segregation in the City of Angels: A 1939 Map of Housing Inequality in L.A.,” for Lost LA, KCET, November 14, 2017, https://www.kcet.org/shows/lost-la/segregation- in-the-city-of-angels-a-1939-map-of-housing-inequality-in- l-a.
116 Nicolaides, The New Suburbia, 148.
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 36 Map of the racial distribution of racial and etchnic groups in Pasadena in 1935 (Source: James Crimi).
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 37 freeway networks . The goal of the Act was to
reduce traffic congestion overall in the state.
Though it increased funding for highway
construction and improvement, the flow of
revenue for that purpose remained slow .118 The
passage of the Collier-Burns Act redistributed
state highway funds more equally between the
northern and southern parts of the state, making
it possible to embark on an aggressive freeway
construction campaign in the Los Angeles area.
119
In 1949, the state of California passed a freeway
law that gave “the state broad powers of land
acquisition for the construction [and financing]
of freeways .”120 This would be instrumental in the
construction of freeways in the postwar period.
At the federal level, politicians linked the
development of an interstate highway system
with the nation’s economic health, which, in
turn, would justify funding for the construction of
additional highways. Highways were seen as key
to the expansion of American commerce and the
creation of jobs.
121 A report to Congress on the
state of the nation’s highway system argued:
We are indeed a nation on wheels and
we cannot permit these wheels to slow
down… We have been able to disperse
our factories, our stores, our people;
in short, to create a revolution in living
habits. Our cities have spread into
suburbs, depending on the automobile
for their existence . The automobile
has restored a way of life in which
the individual may live in a friendly
neighborhood, it has brought city and
country closer together, it has made us
118 “Planning for Cars in Cities,” 24.
119 Roland et. al., “U.S. Highway 66 in California,” E-15. 120 California Highways, “Interstate 710,” accessed May 23, 2024, https://cahighways.org/ROUTE710.html .
121 Weingroff, “Original Intent: The Purpose of the Interstate System, 1954-1956,” 2.
side of Pasadena . The policies put in place in the
first half of the twentieth century would continue
to be influential in the post-World War II period,
as redlined communities became vulnerable to
redevelopment (discussed further below) .
Highway Development at the National
and State Levels After World War II
Though the country had been moving towards
the creation of a unified highway system since
the first half of the twentieth century, it was
not until the post-World War II period that this
effort reached full fruition. Following World
War II, funding again became available for the
maintenance and construction of freeways, which
had been deferred during the war . Significant
funding for the construction of urban highways,
as opposed to those in rural areas, accelerated
in this period .117 In 1944, the federal government
established a national system of interstate
highways, which was intended to connect major
metropolitan areas, cities, and industrial centers
in addition to serving national defense purposes.
After World War II, the United States entered a
period of economic prosperity and experienced
a development boom . In places like Southern
California, residential construction occurred at
a rapid pace to meet demand, and vast tracts
of single-family housing were built on the urban
fringes. In response, transportation infrastructure
expanded rapidly and extensively . It quickly
became evident that the country’s existing
transportation network was not sufficient.
Some states, including California, passed
legislation to address these issues and provide
additional funding for freeway construction. In
1947, California passed the Collier-Burns Act,
which consolidated county road administration
efforts and increased state fuel taxes and other
fees to aid in developing intra- and intercity
117 Roland et. al., “U.S. Highway 66 in California,” E-14.
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 38 routes for cities during the Cold War, and
provided Americans free access to urban areas
all over the country .126 It also shifted the control
over freeway development from local officials
and urban planners to state highway engineers .127
It has been argued by some scholars that these
officials largely examined the issue of freeway
construction through a theoretical and economic
lens, while failing to consider the impact of
freeways on cities and neighborhoods. It also
took most of the decision-making power out
of the hands of local planners, who had more
extensive knowledge of the neighborhoods which
these freeways would traverse and who would
have been able to make more informed decisions
about how freeways would dovetail into local
land use and infrastructure planning .128
The 1950s and 1960s saw a frenzy of freeway
construction in California. In 1959, the state
created the California Freeway and Expressway
System, which facilitated the construction
of new freeways to replace the earlier U . S .
highway system .129 The 1962 Federal-Aid
Highway Act created a federal mandate for
urban transportation planning in areas with
populations of 50,000 or more, driving further
freeway development . This coincided with
urban areas increasingly planning for interstate
highways .130 In California, Governor Edmund G.
“Pat” Brown backed the initiation of statewide
126 Caltrans, “Historical Context,” 111.
127 Wasserman, J. L, Garrett, et al., 41.
128 Loukaitou-Sideris et al., 18. For more on this, see Jeffrey R. Brown, Eric A. Morris, and Brian D. Taylor, “Paved with Good Intensions: Fiscal Politics, Freeways and the 20 th Century American City,” ACCESS Magazine , Fall 2009, and Cliff Ellis, “Interstate Highways, Regional Planning and the Reshaping of Metropolitan America,” Planning Practice & Research 16 nos. 3-4 (2001).
129 Roland et. al., “U.S. Highway 66 in California,” E-15 – E-16.
130 Caltrans, “Historical Context,” 95.
one country and a united people . But
America continues to grow. Our highway
plant must similarly grow if we are to
maintain and increase our standard of
living…122
President Eisenhower pushed for improvement
of the nation’s highway system in the 1950s. A
series of federal aid highway acts in the 1950s
set up a funding mechanism for an interstate
highway system. The Federal-Aid Highway Act
of 1956 (also known as the National Interstate
and Defense Highway Act) was the final push in
establishing the infrastructure for an interstate
highway system . It resulted in changes to the
ways highways were connected in the U . S . and
the ways they were financed. It increased taxes
on gasoline and automobiles and created the
Highway Trust Fund to funnel revenue directly
toward constructing highways; funding jumped
from $79 million in 1956 to $1 .125 billion in
1960 in urban areas .123 This funding provided
90 percent of the capital cost of freeway
construction “in exchange for states keeping
highways toll-free, meeting certain design
criteria, paying for operation and maintenance
costs, and accepting responsibility for the
finished freeways.”
124 The 1956 Act paved the
way for today’s intestate system and restructured
the way goods and services are transported
around the country .125 It unified the nation’s
transportation system, provided evacuation
122 Weingroff, “Original Intent: The Purpose of the Interstate System, 1954-1956,” 4.
123 Eric Avila, The Folklore of the Freeway: Race and Revolt in the Modernist City. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014, 23.
124 Wasserman, J. L, Garrett, et al., 41.
125 U.S. Department of Transportation, “Celebrating
50 Years: The Eisenhower Interstate Highway System,”
accessed May 23, 2024, https://www.transportation.gov/
testimony/celebrating-50-years-eisenhower-interstate-
highway-system; Caltrans, “Historical Context,” 109.
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 39 which essentially entailed wiping out older,
poorer neighborhoods to bring in newer
housing, businesses, and commerce. In
California, legislators passed the Community
Redevelopment Act in 1945 to facilitate this
process. The law was based on the idea that so-
called “blighted” (economically depressed) areas
contributed to social problems and typical land
use controls such as zoning and building codes
were not enough to combat it; this became a
rationale for clearing away these neighborhoods
for more economically lucrative uses. This view
was gaining traction around the country by the
mid-1940s.
California’s law created community
redevelopment agencies (CRAs) in cities around
the state . It gave CRAs the ability to acquire
property (through eminent domain if necessary)
and develop that property and it gave them the
authority to impose development and land use
controls .136 Though one of the goals of the CRA
to create affordable housing, this did not come
to fruition in many cases.
137 It was only later that
“it became obvious to the housing movement’s
progressives that slum clearance was a form of
racial discrimination that had the opposite effect
of its intentions: it actually made affordable
housing more scarce .”138 Neighborhoods with
significant populations of people of color became
targets for urban renewal in the postwar period .
136 Mara A. Marks, “The Rise and Fall of the Community
Redevelopment Agency,” Southern California Quarterly 86, No. 3 (Fall 2004), 245.
137 Later laws in 1975 and 1976 would require that CRAs replace housing for low- and moderate-income residents
destroyed by redevelopment and some of the housing
constructed in redevelopment areas be made affordable for low- and moderate-income residents. Source: Marks, 245. 138 Cuff, The Provisional City, 216 qtd. in Architectural Resources Group, “Garden Apartments of Los Angeles
Historic Context Statement,” 18.
traffic surveys to assist with freeway planning,
and an ambitious state freeway construction plan
commenced .131 This freeway construction in turn
fueled residential expansion into suburban areas,
which in turn increased the need for freeways – a
continuous cycle. Many of these new freeways
bypassed or cut around major urban areas,
though in some cases, such as Los Angeles, they
cut directly through to connect different parts of
the city .132
During this period, freeways became
synonymous with economic prosperity and home
ownership .133 By the 1960s, interstate highway
system emerged as a symbol of “individuality,
freedom, and opportunities,” though this largely
applied to White Americans .134 However, only
certain segments of the American population
had access to this suburban dream and the
benefits that went along with it. An oil embargo
in the 1970s affected automobile transit, slowing
freeway construction and turning planners’
attention towards mass transit.
135 By this
time, both officials and the public increasingly
examined the impacts of freeways on public
health, the urban fabric, city development, and
other aspects of life that had not been widely
considered in previous decades .
Freeway Construction, Urban Renewal,
and Displacement in the Postwar Period
The post-World War II period saw a boom in
construction and development in response
to the need for housing and facilities as the
population exploded. As part of this effort, many
cities adopted a strategy of redevelopment,
131 Caltrans, “Historical Context,” 105-107; Wasserman, J. L, Garrett, et al., 41.
132 Caltrans, “Historical Context,” 112.
133 Caltrans, “Historical Context,” 112.
134 Caltrans, “Historical Context,” 112.
135 Caltrans, “Historical Context,” 107.
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 40 beginning in 1947 in East Los Angeles; so-called
“substandard housing” was cleared to make
way for the freeway in this community, while
the existing railroad tracks running along the
river remained untouched .143 As Gilbert Estrada
writes of the clearing of housing for the Santa
Ana Freeway in 1948, “two hundred ten families
were cleared in what the state claimed was their
best effort to route the freeway with the least
amount of disturbance, but the least amount of
disturbance for whom?”
144 In East Los Angeles
alone, 1,171 buildings had been demolished
for the construction of the Santa Ana Freeway
by 1953 .145 The subsequent construction of
the Long Beach Freeway and others eventually
displaced nearly 11,000 residents in East Los
Angeles, taking more than seven percent of the
area’s total land .146 Resident Bob Eula recalled his
neighborhood was home to numerous Japanese
gardens before the arrival of the Long Beach
Freeway . He recalled receiving no warning from
officials. He first learned about the freeway when
he saw construction crews working on freeway
bridges in the area. Initially, he was not alarmed,
but after “three or four major streets [of] homes
were gone,” he and his neighbors became
increasingly upset but had no recourse .147 Despite
the cost to residents’ homes, communities, and
livelihoods, freeway construction throughout the
region continued.
143 Gilbert Estrada, “If You Build It, They Will Move: The Los Angeles Freeway System and the Displacement of Mexican
East Los Angeles, 1944-1972,” Southern California Quarterly 87, No. 3 (Fall 2005), 294.
144 Estrada, 296.
145 Estrada, 296.
146 “The 710 Long Beach Freeway,” PSC So Cal, accessed
June 4, 2024, https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/departures/ the-710-long-beach-freeway-a-history-of-americas-most-
important-freeway
.
147 “The 710 Long Beach Freeway,” PSC So Cal, accessed
June 4, 2024, https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/departures/ the-710-long-beach-freeway-a-history-of-americas-most-
important-freeway .
This period also saw the usage of freeway
construction as a means of “slum clearance”
and urban renewal in cities around the country.
Highway planners often recommended the
placement of freeway routes in areas that had
been redlined in the 1930s . Some highway
planners saw the chance to coordinate urban
renewal and highway construction; it was
a chance to get rid of “the mean clutter of
narrow streets” and “decaying slum areas”
that prevented the efficient movement of
automobile traffic.
139 City officials at the time
“welcomed freeways to their cities, seeing them
as job creators, slum destroyers, and all-around
growth generators .”140 While the construction of
freeways brought jobs to millions of Americans,
increased the scale of American life and the
urban environment, and bolstered the American
economy, it devastated those low-income and
immigrant communities targeted for removal
to make way for the freeways . Between 1956
and 1966, approximately 37,000 units of urban
housing in California were demolished for the
construction of freeways, displacing untold
thousands of people, the majority of them low-
income or people of color .141 Though publications
on highway planning did not include an overt
discussion of race, scholar Eric Avila notes that
the racialized bias was inherent, for planning
thought at the time equated poverty and
“blight” with racially and ethnically mixed urban
neighborhoods .142 Such areas, where redlining
had suppressed property values and made
land cheaper for the state to seize via eminent
domain, became vulnerable to yet a new threat
during this era of freeway construction.
One powerful example of this bias in freeway
planning was East Los Angeles. Early sections
of the Santa Ana Freeway (Interstate 5) opened
139 Avila, Folklore of the Freeway, 39.
140 Avila, 18.
141 Avila, 30; Caltrans, “Historical Context,” 104.
142 Avila, Folklore of the Freeway, 40-41.
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 41 1910, Route 66 traversed several different paths
from Pasadena to Los Angeles, including along
Huntington Drive through South Pasadena and
into the El Sereno area before terminating in
Downtown Los Angeles .4
The region’s development occurred alongside
the rising popularity of the automobile,
shaping it in fundamental ways. In 1910, less
than 20,000 residents of Los Angeles County
owned automobiles. By 1920, that number had
increased to over 100,000 car owners, due in
large part to the mass production of the highly
economical Ford Model T . Now the dominant
mode of travel in Southern California, the rise
in automobile consumption forced Los Angeles
area policymakers and planners to address
the worsening problem of automobile traffic
congestion. They faced mounting pressure from
community leaders, private automobile owners,
and the Automobile Club of Southern California
(ACSC), which was established as the LA area’s
local chapter of the American Automobile
Association (AAA). In its early years, the ACSC
played an instrumental role in helping pass Los
Angeles County’s first successful bond measure
for urban road improvements .5
In 1922, the Los Angeles County Board of
Supervisors created the Los Angeles County
Regional Planning Commission . One of its
roles was to study how the county’s street and
highway systems could further be improved to
accommodate automobile travel . One of its top
priorities was developing a preliminary plan
for a comprehensive network of highways to
connect downtown Los Angeles with growing
Angeles Department of City Planning, Office of Historic Resources, August 2016, 4-5.
4 Later in 1931, the alignment was moved to the west side of the Arroyo Seco riverbed along Figueroa Street and through the Highland Park neighborhood. Source: Roland et. al., “U.S. Highway 66 in California,” E-18.
5 Roland et. al., “U.S. Highway 66 in California,” E-5.
History of Freeway Construction in
Pasadena
Highway Development in the Greater LA
Area and Pasadena Before World War II
Southern California was particularly well-
positioned to emerge as a leader of highway
development at the turn of the twentieth century.
Beginning in the 1880s, the region’s population
exploded because of the burgeoning real estate
and oil markets, and it grew at a faster rate than
any other part of the state . The arrival of the
Southern Pacific and Santa Fe Railroads propelled
an already-growing agriculture industry and gave
rise to tourism, driving settlers westward to reap
the benefits of Southern California’s emerging
economic opportunities and mild weather .1
Pasadena was no exception, quickly establishing
itself as a resort town for part-time tourists,
health seekers, and wealthy families from the East
Coast and Midwest .2
By 1900, Los Angeles was the most populous
and prosperous city in Southern California . The
Pacific Electric interurban rail and local system
of streetcars bolstered the area’s sprawl, making
it easier for residents to spread out beyond the
urban core and settle in suburbs like Pasadena.
Residential pockets grew around interurban rail
stops, and rural surroundings created prime
locations for residents to settle as access to
automobiles became increasingly attainable.
3 By
1 Roland et. al., “U.S. Highway 66 in California,” E-12; Glenn Dumke, “The Boom of the 1880s in Southern California,”
Southern California Quarterly 76, no, 1 (1994): 99-114. 2 Roland et. al., “U.S. Highway 66 in California,” E-59, E-60, and E-61; Thomas D. Carpenter, Pasadena: Resort Hotels
and Paradise (Azusa, CA: March Sheldon Publishing, 1984), 147-169.
3 Daniel Prosser, “SurveyLA Los Angeles Citywide Historic Context Statement, Context: Commercial Development,
1850-1980, Theme: Commercial Development and the
Automobile, 1910-1970,” prepared for the City of Los
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 42 The Great Depression caused a general halt in
road and highway construction throughout the
county, though it did not stop legislators from
enacting policies to utilize federal funds for future
projects. In addition, efforts to chart what would
soon become known as “freeways” began to
ramp up .9 Beginning in the mid-1930s, a series
of policies and studies laid the foundation for
tangible freeway planning in the years to follow .
By 1935, the City of Pasadena had implemented
its first Master Plan of Highways, adopted jointly
by the City and County of Los Angeles .10 A study
by the ACSC titled Traffic Survey, Los Angeles Area
(1937) found that the only feasible solution to
solve Los Angeles’ ever-increasing traffic issues
was to create a network of automobile-exclusive
routes that barred the crossing of pedestrians
and non-motorized vehicles and restricted other
land use activities that would interfere with the
flow of traffic. Their report became the basis on
which a countywide freeway plan was developed,
and together these policies and findings
incentivized the Regional Planning Commission
to begin preparing for an expansive system of
high-speed freeways in Los Angeles County.
11 By
1941, a comprehensive Master Plan of Highways
outlining the need for “express highways” in the
county had been codified and was underway.
12 of Los Angeles (Los Angeles: Traffic Commission of the City and County of Los Angeles, 1924), 28-29, 34.
9 Prosser, “Commercial Development, 1850-1980,” 15.
10 Pasadena Planning Commission, 1962 General Plan, City of Pasadena, California, prepared for the City of Pasadena, 1962, 40-45.
11 Prosser, “Commercial Development, 1850-1980,” 15-16; Roland et. al., “U.S. Highway 66 in California,” E-13.
12 Prosser, “Commercial Development, 1850-1980,” 15;
Pasadena Planning Commission, 1962 General Plan, 48 .
suburban communities like Pasadena.6 To
accomplish their goals, the County and City of
Los Angeles jointly hired landscape architect
and urban planner Frederick Law Olmsted Jr .’s
firm to prepare a survey of conditions and make
recommendations for improving the area’s roads
in 1924. Influenced by City Beautiful
7 concepts,
the report, titled A Major Traffic Street Plan
for Los Angeles, focused primarily on upgrades
for local and arterial streets throughout Los
Angeles. Several recommendations were
also made to improve access between Los
Angeles and suburbs like Pasadena via widened
thoroughfares with landscaped parkways . The
city began implementing the suggestions in the
Traffic Street Plan to reconfigure arterial and
local roads into major distribution streets in the
years immediately following, though it would
take over a decade of planning before highspeed
connections to Pasadena and other LA area
suburbs would commence .8
6 Caltrans, “A Historical Context,” 98; Prosser, “Commercial Development, 1850-1980,” 5-6.
7 The City Beautiful Movement was a movement led by
architects, landscape architects, and urban reformers
that emphasized the idea that beautiful public spaces and an organized, aesthetically pleasing urban environment
would lead to social harmony and civic pride . As a
result of the rapid industrialization of cities in the late nineteenth century, conditions in cities worsened, giving rise to inadequate and unsanitary housing conditions,
overcrowding, and deteriorating urban environments.
The City Beautiful Movement arose following the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893 and was popular between the 1890s
and 1920s. Source: “City Beautiful Movement” Britannica Encyclopedia, accessed June 11, 2024, https://www.
britannica.com/topic/City-Beautiful-movement
.
8 Prosser, “Commercial Development, 1850-1980,” 6-7;
Roland et. al., “U.S. Highway 66 in California,” E-12 and E-13; Frederick Law Olmsted, Harlan Bartholomew and Charles
Henry Cheney, A Major Traffic Street Plan for Los Angeles, prepared for the Committee on Los Angeles Plan on Major Highways of the Traffic Commission of the City and County Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 43 The proposed highway plan for Pasadena in the 1941 Master Plan of Highways by the Los Angeles Regional Planning Commission .
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 44 The first major effort to construct a freeway in
Los Angeles County involved the Arroyo Seco
Parkway, now known as the Pasadena Freeway.
Plans to widen Arroyo Seco Boulevard into a
freeway that would connect Pasadena and South
Pasadena to Los Angeles stemmed from the 1924
Traffic Street Plan. By the mid-1930s, Pasadena
was firmly established as one of Los Angeles’
leading suburbs, and planners understood the
importance of connecting it with the city’s
downtown central business district to relieve
traffic congestion. Building on Olmsted’s City
Beautiful-inspired suggestions, the Parkway
restricted commercial vehicles and was designed
strictly for passenger automobiles to be used as
a landscaped thoroughfare for leisurely passage
into Downtown Los Angeles, rather than for
use as a commuter stretch into the city . The
route was surveyed and approved in 1934, and
construction began in 1936.
13 The Arroyo Seco
Parkway was dedicated in December 1940 and
was the first planned, limited-access, high-
speed roadway in the United States, marking
the beginning of the freeway era in California .14
Other limited-access freeway projects followed
suit, such as the construction of the Cahuenga
Pass Parkway, now called the Hollywood Freeway,
which connects Downtown Los Angeles with the
San Fernando Valley.
15 13 Prosser, “Commercial Development, 1850-1980,” 6-7; Roland et. al., “U.S. Highway 66 in California,” E-20, E-21 and E-22.
14 Caltrans, “A Historical Context,” 99; Caltrans History.” It became the new alignment of U .S . Route 66 through Pasadena, replacing the former routing along Figueroa
Street and Colorado Boulevard, which at that point became the U .S . Route 66 Alternate for the Los Angeles County area. Source: Roland et. al., “U.S. Highway 66 in California,” E-20, E-21 and E-22.
15 Although both the Arroyo Seco and Cahuenga Pass
Parkways exhibited characteristics of a modern freeway, planners would soon come to find that pre-World War II
freeways were not equipped to handle the area’s social
and economic boom that occurred after the war. Source:
The onset of World War II fundamentally changed
the use of freeways in the country. The war effort
took precedence over civilian use, and limits
were placed on civilian access to freeways . Road
construction largely halted except for the usage
related to military purposes, and funding for state
highway departments became extremely limited
aside from defense-related highway projects,
which focused on roads which provided access to
military bases, defense manufacturing plans, and
other specific sites.
16 Caltrans, “A Historical Context,” 99, 103.
16 Roland et. al., “U.S. Highway 66 in California,” E-13.
Mention of a scenic highway in the Arroyo Seco can be
found as early as 1911 (Source: Los Angeles Times, Los
Angeles Public Library)
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 45 Illustration of the proposed Arroyo Seco to Pasadena from the 1941 Master Plan of Highways by the Los Angeles Regional Planning Commission .
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 46 Southern California experienced a rapid
population increase after World War II. Between
1940 and 1950, Los Angeles County’s population
nearly doubled from 2,785,643 to 4,151,687.
20 At the same time, the automobile continued its
ascent as the primary form of transportation
in the region. Automobile registration in Los
Angeles alone increased from 1 .2 million to 2 .6
million between 1946 and 1956 .21 As the number
of automobiles exploded and traffic increased,
planners’ priorities for freeways shifted. As a
result of the area’s increase in population, a
number of construction projects were needed
including the construction of freeways because
“without them no city can grow … Los Angeles,
above any other city, needs a complete system
of freeways because of the enormous area .”22
Freeways were increasingly seen as a way to
redirect traffic congestion off city streets and
onto a centralized arterial road .
The area’s earliest freeways, the Arroyo Seco
Parkway and the Cahuenga Pass Parkway (now
the Hollywood Freeway), opened in 1942. The
Arroyo Seco became a model for future freeway
construction projects. As Jovanni Perez notes, the
success of the Arroyo Seco Parkway convinced
city planners that freeways were the answer
to the area’s ever-present traffic problem.
23 As discussed above, the Arroyo Seco Parkway
was originally designed as a scenic route .
However, population growth and increasing
traffic in the Los Angeles region shifted the
20 California Department of Finance, “Historical Census Populations of Counties and Incorporated Cities in
California, 1850-2020,” accessed May 24, 2024, https://dof. ca.gov/reports/demographic-reports/ .
21 Prosser, “Commercial Development and the Automobile,” 16 .
22 George Read, “The Future of Los Angeles,” Los Angeles Times, April 6, 1945 qtd. in Perez, 5.
23 Jovanni Perez, “The Los Angeles Freeway and the History of Community Displacement,” 6.
Highway Development in the Greater LA
Area and Pasadena in the Postwar Period
During World War II, Los Angeles became a
major center of the defense industry . Following
its horizontal growth in the 1920s and 1930s,
the region continued to spread outward,
increasing the need for the automobile and
its infrastructure. By the 1940s, Los Angeles
County was firmly entrenched in “car culture,”
and there were more than one million cars in
the county. In 1941, the county had 880 miles
of state highways, 3,000 miles of major streets,
5,000 miles of local streets, and 4,000 miles of
unimproved streets .17 Freeways became crucial
to the war effort, as they allowed the efficient
transport of supplies, soldiers, and other needs.
This need, coupled with the rapidly swelling
population, drove demand for additional
automobile infrastructure .18 In 1941, for example,
the Los Angeles City Planning Commission
completed a proposed parkway plan for the
region entitled the Master Plan of Highways . It
was expanded over the next several years and
was ratified by the Los Angeles Regional Planning
Commission, the county’s planning commission,
in 1944 .19 It laid out a plan for transportation
growth in the region and would be a blueprint for
freeway planning the postwar period . Another
early effort at freeway planning in region was
the 1941 Report on the Feasibility of a Freeway
Along the Channel of the Los Angeles River,
which concerned a freeway connecting the San
Fernando Valley to the Los Angeles and Long
Beach Harbors – what would later become the
SR-710 Freeway. It was during the 1940s that the
Long Beach and Foothill Freeways began to show
up in other transportation planning documents
as well .
17 Caltrans, “Historical Context,” 100.
18 Perez, 5.
19 Caltrans, “Historical Context,” 102.
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 47 freeway construction” in the Los Angeles area.25
Work on the Hollywood Freeway continued
into the early 1950s and 1960s, connecting
downtown Los Angeles with Burbank . The Santa
Ana Freeway (I-5), San Bernardino Freeway (I-10),
and Ventura Freeway (SR-134) were constructed
in the 1950s and early 1960s . Much of Los
Angeles’ freeway system, as envisioned in earlier
decades, was finished by the mid-1960s.
26 The
region’s freeways decimated its neighborhoods of
color, building on decades of inequitable planning
practices and policies.
25 William Fulton, The Reluctant Metropolis: The Politics of Urban Growth in Los Angeles (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 1997), 134.
26 Prosser, “Commercial Development and the Automobile,” 16 -17.
focus of transportation projects from scenic
parkways to freeways designed to alleviate traffic
congestion and accommodate higher volumes of
automobiles .24
As noted earlier, the passage of the Collier-
Burns Act in 1947 redistributed state funding
more evenly across the state, making possible
an ambitious freeway-building campaign in the
Los Angeles region . In the roughly two decades
following the passage of the Collier-Burns Act,
nearly the entire Southern California freeway
system was constructed, fundamentally changing
the shape of the region’s transit . William Fulton
referred to this period as “the golden age of
24 Perez, 6.
Proposed freeway system map from the 1946 Interregional, Regional, and Metropolitan Parkways in the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area(Courtesy of the Southern California Rapid Transit District Library) Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 48 Origins of the SR-710 and I-210
Freeways
Planning for the SR-710 and I-210 Freeways
began in the 1940s, when the early routes for
these freeways were mapped out . The Long
Beach Freeway (SR-710) was constructed as
a means of connecting the port to the rest of
the region, including the central manufacturing
district in Southeast Los Angeles . The Long
Beach Freeway was part of Los Angeles’ planning
efforts from an early date. As noted above, the
Regional Planning Commission’s “Report on the
Feasibility of a Freeway Along the Channel of the
Los Angeles River” proposed a four-lane route
from Long Beach to Sepulveda Boulevard in the
San Fernando Valley. The cities of Long Beach and
Los Angeles began reserving right-of-way along
the river for the route as early as the 1930s and
1940s .27 In the 1940s, Long Beach financed the
planning and construction of a port highway that
it named the Los Angeles River Freeway .28 The
Long Beach Freeway was shown on the Master
Plan of Freeways (1946) as the “Los Angeles River
Freeway” and the “Concord Parkway,” which
would be the later route of the 710 Freeway .29 In
1949, construction began on the freeway, initially
called Route 15 and later Route 7 .30 The new
route was created by connecting existing older
freeways between Long Beach and Los Angeles,
and would extend to South Pasadena. The first
27 California Highways, “Interstate 710,” accessed May 24, 2024, https://cahighways.org/ROUTE710.html .
28 Gilbert Estrada, “The 710 Long Beach Freeway: A
History of America’s Most Important Freeway,” PBS SoCal, accessed May 23, 2024, https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/
departures/the-710-long-beach-freeway-a-history-of-
americas-most-important-freeway
.
29 Tim Ivison and Julia Tcharfas, “ 710: Excerpts from the Archive,” Offramp, Summer 2019, accessed May 23, 2024,
https://offramp.sciarc.edu/articles/710-excerpts-from-the- archive
.
30 Ivison and Tcharfas, “710: Excerpts from the Archive.” section of the route, renamed the Long Beach
Freeway, opened in Long Beach in 1952.31 Various
portions of the freeway between Long Beach and
U . S . 101 in Los Angeles were completed during
the 1950s .
The Foothill Freeway had its origins in an early
state highway that ran between San Fernando
east to Pasadena as part of Legislative Route
(LRN) 9 . It later became part of US Route 99 in
1926. The 210 Freeway is mentioned as early as
1943 as a proposed route to the east following
the old State Route 118 .32 Plans for an east-west
“Foothill” freeway route through Pasadena,
intended to run parallel to Route 66, appears
in the 1946 freeway plan and again in freeway
plans in the 1950s . The routes at this stage were
approximate .33 By the 1950s, growth at the Port
of Los Angeles led to an increase in trucking
activity and renewed efforts to construct the
“Concord Parkway,” which would extend the
Long Beach Freeway past its existing terminus
southeast of Downtown LA. The northern portion
of the Concord Parkway corresponds to the
current 210, while the portion south of Pasadena
corresponds to the current and unconstructed
portions of the 710 Freeway.
34 In 1959, plans
were created to extend the 710 Freeway to the
210 Freeway, which would result in prolonged
debates over the freeway’s route through
Pasadena in the 1960s .35 More detail on the
construction of these freeways is included below.
31 Ivison and Tcharfas, “710: Excerpts from the Archive.” 32 Loukaitou-Sideris et al., 89.
33 Lloyd, “Freeway Development and Modernity in
Pasadena,” 8. A small portion of Route 118 between La
Cañada-Flintridge and Pasadena was completed to freeway standards in 1955 . It was later bypassed by the Foothill Freeway .
34 Ivison and Tcharfas, “710: Excerpts from the Archive.” 35 California Highways, “Interstate 710, https://cahighways. org/ROUTE710.html .
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 49 Pasadena in the Post-World War II
Period
In the postwar period, Pasadena, like much
of Southern California, experienced rapid and
unprecedented growth. The city’s population
grew from approximately 81,000 to about
106,000 between 1940 and 1950. It also grew in
land area, with 1,856 acres of land added in 45
annexations. One of the most significant of these
was the addition of Hastings Ranch on the east
side of the city .
By 1950, the city’s population of people of
color was 12,616; they continued to live largely
on the west side of the city in northwest
Pasadena and the South Vernon/South Raymond
neighborhoods .36 Northwest Pasadena was a
mostly working-class neighborhood with clear
pride of ownership visible in well-tended yards.
The South Vernon neighborhood was made up
of mostly single-family homes, as well as some
multi-family residences and commercial and
industrial buildings along South Pasadena and
Vernon Avenues. A 1955 study conducted by
the NAACP indicated that 65 percent of African
Americans in the city owned their homes; the
study noted, “This housing picture indicates
a highly stable, settled, relatively prosperous
group. They are home owners, family members,
and permanent residents of the community .”37
36 Demographic information courtesy of Becky Nicolaides. 37 Betty Jensen Jones and Robert W. O’Brien, “The
Negro Community in Pasadena: A Survey of Levels of
Employment,” Pasadena Chapter NAACP, 1955, 12.
Pasadena in 1945 . Colorado Boulevard can be seen at center (Photo courtesy of Pasadena Public Library) Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 50 It also had well-established institutions such as
First AME Church (115 North Vernon Avenue)
and Neighborhood Church (551 South Pasadena
Avenue) and businesses .
During this time, Pasadena shifted from “a
tourist-dependent, old-money space into a more
forward-looking, Space Age city.”
38 A significant
factor in this change was the completion of the
Arroyo Seco Parkway, which linked Pasadena to
downtown Los Angeles more easily than ever
before. City leaders also actively worked to attract
new business and industry . New commercial
shopping districts opened along Lake Avenue
and in Hastings Ranch, and office construction
occurred at Lake Avenue and Colorado
Boulevard .39
One of the most notable changes to take place
in Pasadena during this period was the increase
in the city’s light industrial and manufacturing
sectors. This shift away from a primarily
residential community came in part as a result
of the realization that “an industrial plant does
not necessarily have to constitute an ugly scar
on the face of the community,” in addition to
recognition of the importance of these sectors
to a local economy .40 Industry was discouraged
before the war as a result of an “almost single
purpose devotion of the city in its early stages to
the development of a residential atmosphere.”41
Due to the presence of Caltech and the demand
for industrial plants during the war, Pasadena’s
industrial sector grew, “particularly in the fields
of scientific research and the manufacture of
precision instruments .”42 City leaders increasingly
sought to develop Pasadena as “a center of
science, research and light manufacturing” as
38 Nicolaides, The New Suburbia, 152.
39 Nicolaides, The New Suburbia, 152-153.
40 City of Pasadena, General Plan, 7.
41 City of Pasadena, General Plan, 27.
42 City of Pasadena, General Plan, 27.
well as “other industry that conforms to the
character of the community, including their head
offices and sales divisions.”43 Pasadena, which
had been heavily reliant on a tourist-driven
economy, began contemplating new options
for its future .44 Despite these desires, though,
Pasadena lacked available land; it was almost
entirely built out by this time.
45 Until the early 1950s, Pasadena was easily
accessible via public transportation. Into the
mid-1960s, advertisements in local newspapers
referenced the proximity of residential areas
to schools, shopping, and transportation, even
as other ads championed the new automobile
infrastructure that was cropping up in Southern
California .46 As the streetcar began to make
service cuts in the 1950s, the city became less
accessible, and freeway planning took center
stage. By this period, freeway construction had
spread throughout the region, and Pasadena sat
at the intersection of three proposed freeways
– the Long Beach Freeway (SR-710), Colorado
Freeway (SR-134), and the Foothill Freeway
(I-210).
47 The construction of a freeway through Pasadena
became linked with its economic prosperity in the
postwar period . City leaders became convinced
that freeways would provide a necessary link
between Pasadena and the rest of the Los
Angeles area .48 This was especially significant as
Pasadena became a suburban shopping district at
this time.49
43 City of Pasadena, General Plan, 37.
44 Nicolaides, The New Suburbia, 147.
45 City of Pasadena, General Plan, 37.
46 Lloyd, 8-9.
47 Loukaitou-Sideris et al., 89.
48 Loukaitou-Sideris et al., 89.
49 Nicolaides, The New Suburbia, 152.
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 51 Urban Renewal in Pasadena
As the city grew and its economy shifted, city
officials increasingly turned an eye toward its
existing building stock, especially the areas
it felt needed redevelopment . Pasadena had
begun studying the issue of redevelopment
and “housing blight” as early as 1944 when the
Planning Commission formed a Citizens Advisory
Committee to focus specifically on these issues.50
In 1950, the city conducted a study to assess the
conditions of its residential units and provide
recommendations. The city felt that its ability
to eradicate “blight” was limited, however, and
more comprehensive efforts were made in the
following decades. In 1959, Pasadena formed its
Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) . The
CRA’s first undertaking was the Pepper Street
Project, Pasadena’s first urban renewal project
of this period . The area that was eventually
redeveloped was a mixed income community of
color in northwest Pasadena . The redevelopment
project removed a well-established and varied
neighborhood of modest but well-kept homes
with public housing (later called Kings Manor
and now Kings Village). Despite ten years of
vehement opposition by the local community, the
project ultimately moved forward.
51 It displaced
nearly 300 families, most of them people of
color. Though city paid relocation costs, including
moving expenses, storage costs, and others,
52 that did not come close to mitigating the loss of
community suffered by residents displaced by the
Pepper Street redevelopment project .
In 1962, the City of Pasadena released its General
Plan. The plan set out the City’s intentions
for the future as it moved into a new era of
50 City of Pasadena, General Plan, 1962, 103.
51 Nicolaides, The New Suburbia, 175.
52 “Pepper Project Status Report and Action Required,”
prepared by T. Ross Williams, Community Redevelopment
Agency, May 7, 1968, 2.
Group of residences on Pepper Street, n.d. (Courtesy of Pasadena Museum of History)
Buildings noted as being “makeshift nonconforming
residence rear of commercial usage, on North Fair Oaks” in the Pepper Street area, n.d. (Courtesy of Pasadena Museum of History)
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 52 design, among other things. However, the plan
prioritized these needs for White neighborhoods,
while simultaneously ignoring the needs of
neighborhoods of color .
The General Plan also included a section of urban
renewal and redevelopment. In the Plan, the city
was divided into 26 neighborhood units . The Plan
then laid out the characteristics of each, including
existing population, land use, and housing type
and condition. It stated that nearly 5 percent of
the city’s residential units were categorized as
substandard, citing the 1960 Federal Census.
The General Plan noted further that 12 percent
of Pasadena’s neighborhood areas were
“sufficiently blighted to require rehabilitation
or redevelopment .”55 Redevelopment areas in
Pasadena were established, creating a roadmap
that would later be used to justify freeway siting.
55 City of Pasadena, General Plan, vi.
development. In the foreword, the plan asks,
“What kind of city is Pasadena? How did it
become such a city? What are the people’s
needs? Their aspirations? And, finally, how
can we best plan to meet these needs and
aspirations, not only for today but for the years
to come?”
53 Its purpose was to “provide the
citizens of Pasadena and the City Government
with a comprehensive long-term general
plan to guide growth and development .”54
It laid out the existing conditions in the City
of Pasadena such as population, traffic and
circulation, land use, and recreational features
(parks, schools, etc.), and then it provided a
plan to guide growth and development into
the future . The plan outlined improvements
to land use and zoning, community facilities,
circulation and transportation, and neighborhood
53 City of Pasadena, General Plan, iv.
54 City of Pasadena, General Plan, iv.
The study area was part of one of the redevelopment areas outlined in the Pasadena General Plan, 1962 (Courtesy of the City of Pasadena)
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 53 revealing a desire to protect “established”
neighborhoods (implicitly wealthier), while
virtually ignoring the integrity of existing
neighborhoods of residents of color . “Although
it is generally preferable to route freeways
around rather than through a city,” the General
Plan stated, “this is practically impossible in
Pasadena’s case and the next best solution would
appear to be the establishment of routes which
will have the most favorable influence on the
development of abutting properties and at the
same time provide maximum user benefits.”
59 It noted “we advocate that the North-South
Freeway to Long Beach be built as a dividing
greenbelt to permanently insulate the high-
income residential areas from the future research
and development area,” which incidentally were
northwest Pasadena and the South Vernon
Avenue neighborhood. No mention is made of
these areas as containing existing residential
neighborhoods; rather, they are discussed as if
they do not exist or do not matter .
60 The route
for the I-210 Freeway, it noted, “would cause a
minimum of disturbance to existing residential
developments and maintain neighborhood
integrity .”61 The neighborhoods marked for the
freeway’s route were northwest Pasadena and
the South Vernon Avenue area, the very same as
the ones marked for redevelopment . The plan
went on:
The proposed north-south route [the
SR-710] would, for the most part, take
substandard residential, commercial and
industrial developments and would not
disrupt established neighborhoods . In the
central portion of the city the freeway
would traverse areas planned for future
redevelopment .62
59 City of Pasadena, General Plan, 45.
60 City of Pasadena, General Plan, 35.
61 City of Pasadena, General Plan, 45.
62 City of Pasadena, General Plan, 45.
Some of the areas marked thusly were the
neighborhoods which were historically occupied
by communities of color. These areas were
earmarked for the city’s first redevelopment
efforts, to be converted into commercial and
industrial areas .56 These were the same areas that
had been redlined during the late 1930s by the
HOLC, and it was through these neighborhoods
that the 710 and 210 Freeways were depicted as
part of the city’s planning efforts.
Early Planning for the SR-210 and I-710
Freeways in Pasadena
In the early 1960s, business and political leaders
formed a Citizens’ Committee on Freeways,
which worked with state highway officials to
decide a freeway route . Local newspapers
proclaimed a freeway as “the road to Pasadena’s
future .”57 It was seen as the solution to the
city’s transportation issues, as long as state
highway officials ensured it did not travel near
the Pasadena Playhouse, the California Institute
of Technology (Caltech), or “other education
and cultural” sites that made the city “world
famous .”58
The SR-710 and I-210 Freeways were
incorporated into the city’s redevelopment and
transportation planning efforts. The construction
of the freeway was seen as a way to boost the
city’s development and economy . The freeway
and the provision of transit would provide long-
term benefits for residents not only because
of ease of circulation; it would also boost land
values, encourage construction, and connect
Pasadena to the rest of the region .
The 1962 General Plan outlined a rationale for
how the freeways should be sited in Pasadena,
56 City of Pasadena, General Plan, 35.
57 Lloyd, 15-16.
58 Lloyd, 15-16.
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 54 studies for the Long Beach Freeway extension .
It formally notified the cities of Pasadena, South
Pasadena, and Alhambra that studies were being
initiated for the location of a proposed freeway
extension running from Huntington Drive north
to the Foothill Freeway .65 The next year, the
Long Beach Freeway was in its advance planning
stages though Pasadena .66 At the same time,
the route that had been Route 118 from La
Cañada-Flintridge to Pasadena became LRN 210
in anticipation of the completion of the Foothill
Freeway east towards Interstate 10 . At the same
65 “Interstate 710,” California Highways, accessed May 30, 2024, https://cahighways.org/ROUTE710.html .
66 “Interstate 710,” California Highways, accessed May 30, 2024, https://cahighways.org/ROUTE710.html . The Los
Angeles River Freeway was initially known as Route 15 and was renumbered to Route 7 in 1964 as part of the “Great Renumbering” in which the California legislature changed freeway route numbers across the state .
It completely ignored the fact that these were, in
fact, long-standing neighborhoods that had been
in place since the early twentieth century.63 They
were occupied by people of color and therefore,
apparently, not worth the same consideration
as so-called “established” White neighborhoods.
And for the residents of these neighborhoods,
Lloyd notes, “once a neighborhood was slated for
a potential freeway route, it was as if someone
had placed a bull’s-eye on it. Home and business
improvement loans would be almost impossible
to obtain, ensuring that the neighborhood would
continue to deteriorate.”
64 Meanwhile, construction began on the freeways
that were intended to converge in Pasadena .
The first segment of the Foothill Freeway to
Devil’s Gate Dam opened in 1955. In 1960, the
California Division of Freeways began location
63 City of Pasadena, General Plan, 45.
64 Lloyd, 10.
Proposed location of the North-South Freeway as part of the “revitalization” of downtown Pasadena in the 1962 General Plan (Courtesy of the City of Pasadena)
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 55 Numerous groups responded to the possibility
of a freeway with petitions to stop it. In 1958, for
example, more than 2,500 residents from affluent
neighborhoods in southeast Pasadena delivered
a petition to the state highway district office in
protest of the freeway . While they did not oppose
a freeway in Pasadena per se, they did not want
it to be constructed near them. Their objections
included the following:
“First, the petitioners argued, it would
destroy ‘hundreds of … attractive residences’
and displaced families ‘will be unable to
relocate in Pasadena’ because of lack of
residential areas of similar quality. Second,
‘It will cut off many north and south streets’
that local residents use to access merchants
on Colorado St. Third, ‘It will create a
blighted area between Colorado [Boulevard]
and the freeway, where no one will care to
own a home.’ Fourth, the freeway was too
costly; and fifth, it would damage business
property values on Colorado [Boulevard].”
70 In 1964, appraisals for the first 176 Pasadena
properties needed for the construction of the
Foothill Freeway were completed . $5 .5 million
was made available for right-of-way acquisition
that year . The properties appraised were
located within the freeway “core” (excluding
interchanges) .71 Eventually, three routes (Red,
Blue, and Green) were decided upon. Initially
some individuals in Pasadena, such as the City
Manager, opposed all three routes (Green,
Red, and Blue) since they “of necessity, bisect
and carve up prime residential, as well, and
commercial and industrial areas .”72 The Green
Route traveled along Fair Oaks Avenue south
70 Lloyd, 11-12.
71 “First Appraisals near Completion for Freeway,” Pasadena Independent, January 7, 1964, 13.
72 “Pasadena Stands Fast on Freeway Position,” Los Angeles Times, September 2, 1964, D9.
time, state highway officials laid out several route
options for the freeways through Pasadena.
Debates over the freeway’s routes would be
fierce for the next several years.
The 710 and 210 Freeways in Pasadena:
The Route Debates and Opposition
In planning the Long Beach and Foothill freeways
through Pasadena, state highway engineers
and city officials explored various route options
through the city. Between 1958 and 1963, a
number of alternatives were presented to the
public .67
Opposition to the construction of the Foothill
and Long Beach Freeways through Pasadena
arose quickly following the announcement of
their planning. Early opposition questioned the
need for a freeway through Pasadena in the first
place. In 1958, approximately 1,400 residents
attended a presentation by state highway officials
at Pasadena City College on the proposed
Foothill Freeway . Many residents wanted to
know “Will the freeway go through my house?”
and expressed concerns about the freeway’s
impact to property value, quality of life, and local
businesses .68
Numerous groups were formed in opposition
to the freeway in Pasadena and surrounding
communities. Eventually, the question as to
whether a freeway would be constructed
through Pasadena was settled as a given. One Los
Angeles Times article noted “it is impractical and
impossible to stop it .”69 Once it became clear that
the construction of the freeway was inevitable,
and it was only a matter of what route would
be chosen, each group had a different agenda.
Hearings were held throughout the 1960s to
address the issue .
67 Loukaitou-Sideris et al., 90.
68 Lloyd, 11.
69 “Freeway Inevitable,” Los Angeles Times, 1964.
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 56 The group held numerous meetings and signed
petitions in support of the Green route.76 Everett
B. Clary, a White member of the committee’s
board of directors, said that the Fair Oaks Avenue
route would “save a ‘choice residential area’
and school and churches .”77 The Blue Route
would affect “many showplace homes on both
banks of the Arroyo” while the Red Route would
eliminate “dozens of large and well-kept homes”
between Orange Grove Boulevard and Pasadena
Avenue .78 Clary declared: “The Fair Oaks Avenue
area, where the so-called Green route is placed is
the only area which would actually benefit from
proximity of the freeway .”79 The group held a rally
at Singer Park in support of the Fair Oaks Route .80
Independent, April 23, 1964, 82.
76 Jack Birkinshaw, “Hearings Slated on Paths for Two Valley Freeways,” Los Angeles Times, April 9, 1964.
77 Jack Birkinshaw, “Hearings Slated on Paths for Two Valley Freeways,” Los Angeles Times, April 9, 1964.
78 Dave Swaim, “200 Assail Red, Blue Routes,” Pasadena
Independent, April 23, 1964, 82.
79 Dave Swaim, “200 Assail Red, Blue Routes,” Pasadena
Independent, April 23, 1964, 82.
80 Dirk Werkman, “Freeway Meetings Jam Week’s
of what is now the 134 Freeway, while the Red
Route traveled along Pasadena Avenue south of
the 134 Freeway . The Blue Route was located
farther west through the Arroyo Seco . In March
1964, two basic alternatives (the Blue Route
and the Green Route) were decided upon . It
was reported that right-of-way would have
to be acquired on 1,647 living units on the
Blue Route, while the Green Route would be
required right-of-way from 2,653 to 2,696 living
units .73 At public hearings, “both routes, slicing
through established residential communities,
were attacked as destructive, unnecessary and
unwanted .”74
The Pasadena Citizens Freeway Committee,
formed in April 1964, opposed the construction
of a freeway at all, but if a freeway was inevitable,
it supported the Green Route along Fair Oaks
Avenue “or an easterly modification of it.”
75 73 “Seven Routes Outlined for Freeway Extension,” Los Angeles Times, March 18, 1964, A1.
74 Ray Hebert, “2 Disputed Freeway Routes in Pasadena
Area Adopted: New Bursts of Protests Expected,” Los
Angeles Times, November 19, 1964, A1.
75 Dave Swaim, “200 Assail Red, Blue Routes,” Pasadena
The Blue and Green Routes outlined for the Long Beach Freeway, Los Angeles Times, March 18, 1964 (Courtesy of Los Angeles Public Library).
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 57 In November 1964, the State Highway
Commission adopted the Long Beach Freeway
extension through Pasadena and the Foothill
Freeway from Pasadena/South Pasadena to La
Canada .85 The route for the Long Beach Freeway
ran along Pasadena Avenue north to the Colorado
Freeway interchange, and the Foothill Freeway
would then run northwest towards Devil’s
Gate Dam .86 The Times reported that the Long
Beach Freeway extension would result in the
demolition of 2,400 living units in Pasadena and
South Pasadena between Valley Boulevard and
Devil’s Gate Dam .87 Initial estimates for the Long
Beach Freeway extension were totaled at nearly
$100 million for right-of-way acquisition and
construction.
88 Even after the State Highway Commission
decided upon the route along Pasadena
Avenue, the Board of City Directors remained
in opposition and had “not given up the fight”
to have the Fair Oaks Avenue route selected
instead .89 The mayor declared “At no time did we
agree to the Pasadena Avenue route .”90 Without
the city’s approval, freeway construction could
not move forward .
85 Ray Hebert, “2 Disputed Freeway Routes in Pasadena
Area Adopted: New Bursts of Protests Expected,” Los
Angeles Times, November 19, 1964, A1.
86 Ray Hebert, “2 Disputed Freeway Routes in Pasadena
Area Adopted: New Bursts of Protests Expected,” Los
Angeles Times, November 19, 1964, A1.
87 Ray Hebert, “2 Disputed Freeway Routes in Pasadena
Area Adopted: New Bursts of Protests Expected,” Los
Angeles Times, November 19, 1964, A1.
88 “2 Freeway Routes Set Tentatively,” Los Angeles Times, July 30, 1964, A1.
89 “Opposition to L.B. Freeway Path Affirmed,” Los Angeles Times, February 18, 1965, SG1.
90 “Opposition to L.B. Freeway Path Affirmed,” Los Angeles Times, February 18, 1965, SG1.
The Board of City Directors endorsed the eastern
(Green) alternative along Fair Oaks Avenue at
that time.81 The Green Route was depicted in
the City’s 1962 General Plan, where it is the only
one depicted, despite the City not yet having
decided upon one at the time.
82 Using circular
logic, city officials then argued that the Green
Route conformed with the City’s General Plan
and therefore should be adopted . It was also
reported that the Green Route would boost
property values in the Fair Oaks industrial and
commercial area .83 This route, however, affected
the highest number of homes and destroyed
more neighborhoods of color in the most densely
populated areas of the city than the Blue Route
would have . While Pasadena favored the Green
Route, South Pasadena pushed for the Blue
Route, as it would have avoided their city.
Ultimately the Green Route with the Red Route
alternative to the south was chosen. As the
“Implications of Freeway Siting in California”
report notes:
“Despite the fact that the Blue route
that would have had the least impact
on already established neighborhoods,
would have removed the fewest number
of housing units, and would have
received South Pasadena’s support
as well, ultimately, the Green route
(with the Red cut-off) was chosen in
1964 . The city put its weight behind
a more expensive route that affected
more homes and disrupted primarily
neighborhoods of color .”84
Activities,” Independent Star-News, May 3, 1964, 3.
81 “East Freeway Route Favored in Pasadena,” Los Angeles Times, May 6, 1964, A8.
82 Loukaitou-Sideris et al., 95.
83 “Pasadena Area Girds for Battle of Freeway: Extension Route Stirs Differences,” Los Angeles Times, May 4, 1964, A1 .
84 Loukaitou-Sideris et al., 110.
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 58 The Foothill Freeway route was decided, and
right-of-way commenced for the adopted portion
of the I-210 Freeway.91 Debate over the route
selection of the Long Beach Freeway, however,
continued into the end of 1965. South Pasadena
continued to lobby for changes that would result
in a route along Fair Oaks Avenue . In November
of that year, the State Highway Commission
ultimately chose the previously adopted route
along Pasadena Avenue . The Commission stated
that “modification of the route to approximately
30 feet [is] acceptable but the basic route [can]
not be altered .”92
By 1966, right-of-way acquisitions for the Foothill
Freeway were reportedly 36 percent complete .93
This included the acquisition of the northern
end of Besse Park via eminent domain in 1967,
which split the park in half. Separately, the
state also acquired the Boys’ Club’s Besser Park
branch, immediately north of the park.
94 Despite
land acquisition, construction was delayed by
budgeting issues. The State Division of Highways
confirmed that construction would likely not be
possible until the 1969-1970 fiscal year due to
funding and right of way acquisition plans.
95 Following the adoption of the freeway route,
the architecture firm Victor Gruen Associates
suggested revising the route to follow Fair
Oaks Avenue and to avoid Pasadena Avenue .
Though the suggested route would require the
91 “The Implications of Freeway Siting in California: Four Case Studies on the Effects of Freeways on Neighborhoods of Color,” 90.
92 Jerry Gillam, “Pasadena Beaten on L.B. Freeway Route,” Los Angeles Times, November 18, 1965, SG1.
93 “Periodic report on the Freeway,” Pasadena Independent, January 31, 1966.
94 Jack Birkinshaw, “Besse Park will be halved by freeway,” Los Angeles Times, September 1, 1967.
95 Wanda Tucker, “Board To Mull Letter,” Pasadena
Independent, October 23, 1967.
acquisition of the Neighborhood Church, it would
“have the least detrimental influence on the
Orange Grove Boulevard residential community...
and would have the least detrimental influence
on the redevelopment area and the community
as a whole of any of the possible alternatives.”
96 It also would have formed a barrier between
the existing industrial-commercial area to the
east and the residential area to the west. And
though the City had commissioned the report
by Victor Gruen Associates, it did not follow its
recommendations.
97 Public hearings continued through 1967
with protests from all sides. A resolution was
introduced to reopen hearings on the Long Beach
Freeway extension route and reevaluate the
route but was ultimately struck down. Officials
were afraid that this would set a dangerous
precedent in freeway planning .98 In 1967, the
City of Pasadena approved the Pasadena Avenue
alignment for the Long Beach Freeway extension,
which required taking the Neighborhood Church
and properties on the east side of Pasadena
Avenue between Bellefontaine and Columbia
streets that were not previously involved in
the potential routes. This portion of the route
corresponded with the Red Route alternative
proposed by the state .99 It became the basis for
the City’s Freeway Agreement with the state and
was known as the “Meridian Avenue Line .” The
Federal Highway Administration (FHA) approved
the state adopted route in June of that year .100
96 “Pasadena Studies New Freeway Path: Route East of
Proposed Long Beach Extension recommended,” Los
Angeles Times, April 14, 1966, SG1.
97 Loukaitou-Sideris et al., 111.
98 Don Snyder, “Further Hearing Urged on Freeway
Extension Route,” Los Angeles Times, June 9, 1967, B7.
99 “City Directors Face Freeway Choices,” Independent Star- News, January 15, 1967, 3.
100 “Interstate 710,” California Highways, accessed May 30, 2024, https://cahighways.org/ROUTE710.html .
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 59 Right-of-way acquisition for the Long Beach
Freeway through Pasadena began in 1968 .101
Acquisition for the Foothill Freeway was largely
complete and construction underway by 1971.102
Some of the land acquired for the construction
of the Foothill Freeway was identified as leftover
and rezoned for heavy commercial use . It was
originally zoned as commercial and single-family
residential development.103
Construction of the Foothill Freeway was
initially delayed after part of a bridge for the
Foothill Freeway collapsed over the Arroyo Seco
below Devil’s Gate Reservoir in 1972, killing
three workers on site .104 It opened in segments
between 1973 and 1976. The northern portion
was completed in 1973 and 1974, while the
southern stub completed in 1975 and the
eastern spur completed in 1976 .105 The final
portion of the Foothill Freeway, which consisted
of the eastbound lanes between the Pasadena
interchange and Madre Street, opened in March
1976 .106
The existing SR-710 Freeway in Pasadena was
largely completed in 1974 and connected with
the Foothill Freeway the following year . An
injunction filed by the City of South Pasadena
delayed the last part of its construction, but in
1976, a federal judge ruled that the section of
101 Don Snyder, “State Clearing Way For Freeway,” Los
Angeles Times, June 24, 1968.
102 Loukaitou-Sideris et al., 91.
103 “Zone change backed for service facility,” Los Angeles Times, January 1, 1973, 23.
104 “Freeway bridge falls; 3 dead,” Independent, October 18, 1972 .
105 “The Implications of Freeway Siting in California: Four Case Studies on the Effects of Freeways on Neighborhoods of Color,” 89 and 92.
106 Bert Mann, “Freeway Opens Friday (Well, Most of it),” Los Angeles Times, March 18, 1976.
Depiction of the “Meridian Avenue line” (Red
Route) that was selected and approved by the
FHA in 1967 .
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 60 most well-known local anti-freeway movement.
Opposition was first expressed in 1960, when
South Pasadena leaders objected to a route
through their community proposed by the City of
Pasadena, arguing that it had not been consulted
on the proposal . The director of the Community
Redevelopment Agency in South Pasadena said,
“It is not the prerogative of the City of Pasadena
to tell the City of South Pasadena what to do .”113
As soon as the official alignment was adopted in
1964, the majority-White City of South Pasadena
requested reconsideration of the adopted route.
Many South Pasadena residents “refuse[d] to
accept the fate of a ribbon of concrete slicing
through their city .”114 The Times reported that
“South Pasadena is deeply concerned . Small
and almost totally residential, the city fears
the wrong route would cut it in half and cause
economic havoc .”115 The only segment that was
ever constructed ran between the Interstate 10
north to Valley Boulevard, completed in 1965.
Three years later, “the city of South Pasadena
still refuses to accept the location of the route as
adopted by the California Highway Commission .
A state freeway agreement with South Pasadena
remains unsigned .”116 Approximately 7,000 of the
city’s 11,000 registered voters signed petitions
against the route, and the city presented a
detailed version of an alternative alignment that
would cut along the city’s western boundary
rather than one closer to the center of the
background and contrast to the occurrences in Pasadena . 113 “SoPas Stews Over New Freeway Plan,” Pasadena
Independent, December 7, 1960, 4.
114 “Freeway Issue Is Not Dead, Residents Continue to
Battle,” South Pasadena Review, November 30, 1964, 1.
115 “Pasadena Area Girds for Battle of Freeway: Extension Route Stirs Differences,” Los Angeles Times, May 4, 1964, A1 .
116 Don Snyder, “State Clearing Way For Freeway,” Los
Angeles Times, June 24, 1968.
the SR-710 Freeway between the I-210 Freeway
interchange and California Street could open .107
Construction of the “wishbone,” a one-way
couplet between Pasadena Avenue and St .
John’s Avenue, was finished at this time.108
Due to opposition from groups in neighboring
cities, discussed below, the SR-710 Freeway’s
construction further south through Pasadena and
South Pasadena was halted .
Opposition in Neighboring Cities
Multiple groups formed in opposition to the
freeways through Pasadena and neighboring
cities, including La Cañada-Flintridge, South
Pasadena, and El Sereno.
109
In La Cañada to the northwest of Pasadena,
opposition first coalesced in 1964. More than
1,000 mostly White residents from La Cañada-
Flintridge protested the construction of the
Foothill Freeway at a meeting of the California
Highway Commission in September of that
year, and opposition continued for a year and
a half .110 Some of La Cañada’s public officials
threatened to refuse to sign the necessary street
closure agreements that were required for
construction.
111
Opposition to the SR-710 Freeway in South
Pasadena was fervent and ongoing
112 and was the
107 Bert Mann, “L.B. Freeway Must Clear Legal Hurdles,” Los Angeles Times, July 24, 1975, 16; “Judge Rules Freeway Segment May Open,” South Pasadena Review, January 1,
1976 .
108 “Interstate 710,” California Highways, accessed May 30, 2024, https://cahighways.org/ROUTE710.html .
109 Other municipalities, such as Alhambra, supported it. 110 Lloyd, 12.
111 Loukaitou-Sideris et al., 94.
112 Due to the extended nature of the fight against the SR-710 from South Pasadena, this accounting is not
comprehensive . It is a broad overview meant to provide Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 61 been officially adopted, causing pushback and
fears about what setting such a precedent could
mean. By this time, the Division of Highways had
begun purchasing homes in El Sereno for the
construction of the 710 Freeway.
In 1969, the cities of Alhambra, Pasadena, and
Los Angeles agreed to a feasibility study of the
new route through the Monterey Hills . The study
found that while it was technically feasible,
“many factors weighed against it, not the least
of which were higher costs, poor soil conditions
and the need to violate a section of the Arroyo
Seco Park .”123 As a result, the state Highway
Commission decided to stick with the Meridian
Avenue route previously adopted .
South Pasadena continued to fight. In 1972,
South Pasadena residents voted on an initiative
that prohibited City Council from closing off
any streets that would allow construction of
the freeway along the Meridian Route .124 South
Pasadena resolved to recommend the “Westerly
Route” for the Long Beach Freeway extension .
After appealing to officials in Sacramento and
failing to obtain a solution it was happy with, City
Council formed a Freeway Study Commission to
continue the fight. Soon after, the Commission
came close to a vote allowing the freeway (8 to
6), but the fight against the freeway went on.
Local groups opposed to the freeway included
the Citizens United to Save South Pasadena,
the No 710 Action Committee, the Committee
for Civic Action, the Citizens Committee for the
Westerly Route, and the South Pasadena Arroyo
Seco Parkway Association. These groups lobbied
politicians, filed lawsuits, reviewed environmental
documentation, hosted marches and meetings,
and solicited media coverage for their fight.
125
123 Bert Mann, “S. Pasadena Freeway Fight Becomes a
Siege,” Los Angeles Times, August 12, 1973, SG1.
124 Berkley Hudson, “Strategies Set for Hearing on 710
Freeway,” Los Angeles Times, Sept. 26, 1993.
125 “710 Freeway Fighters Leave Lasting Legacy,” The South city .117 Similar situations would play out in other
Southern California communities such as Beverly
Hills, which was successful in stopping the
construction of a freeway through the city, and in
other cities nationwide.
In El Sereno, south of South Pasadena, officials
initially signed a freeway agreement, but
opposition in the community was strong. The
El Sereno Chamber of Commerce was among
one of the many organizations that requested a
delay, new study, or abandonment of the freeway
proposal in the mid-1960s.
118 The El Sereno Star
reported, “To our knowledge, not one resolution
has been passed asking ‘for’ a freeway .”119 They
added: “Granted, there is manifest selfishness
in many of these resolutions, an attitude of
‘don’t take my home, take his,’ but there is,
nevertheless, real honesty in a resolve to call the
whole thing off.”
120
By the late 1960s, an alternate route was
being proposed which would run west of the
Monterey Hills through Lincoln Heights before
intersecting with the existing Arroyo Seco
Freeway .121 However, that route would have
still cut through El Sereno, and the community
vowed to oppose the freeway route in front of
the state Senate in Sacramento .122 This alternate
route was presented after the Green Route had
117 “710 Freeway Fighters Leave Lasting Legacy,” The South Pasadenan, accessed June 4, 2024, https://southpasadenan. com/710-freeway-fighters-leave-lasting-legacy/ .
118 “Long Beach Freeway: No one wants it but the
engineers,” El Sereno Star, May 7, 1964, 23.
119 “Long Beach Freeway: No one wants it but the
engineers,” El Sereno Star, May 7, 1964, 23.
120 “Long Beach Freeway: No one wants it but the
engineers,” El Sereno Star, May 7, 1964, 23.
121 “Proposed Route Change of Long Beach Freeway,” El
Sereno Star, April 27, 1967, 1.
122 Bert Mann, “L.A. and El Sereno to Team Against Route of Freeway,” Los Angeles Times, May 16, 1967, B7.
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 62 The proposed route through El Sereno that would bypass South Pasadena, Los Angeles Times , April 27, 1967 (Courtesy of Los Angeles Public Library) .
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 63 clout and professional expertise (including
legal advisors) that the residents of northwest
Pasadena and the South Vernon neighborhood
did not have . Plans to construct the Long Beach
Freeway through El Sereno and South Pasadena
were ultimately cancelled in 1977 by the
Department of Transportation.
130 The Long Beach
Freeway extension was never built north of Valley
Boulevard .
Opposition Among Pasadena’s
Communities of Color
Reactions among Pasadena’s residents of color
to the construction of the 710 Freeway ran
the gamut . Evidence suggests that some felt
powerless to stop it, while others actively lobbied
against it . An interview with one resident whose
home lay in the path of Pasadena’s freeways
pointed to this feeling of helplessness . When
he was asked what he and other residents did
to fight the freeway, he responded, “Well, you
know what happened at Chavez Ravine? See?
The government . The city . Money . We couldn’t
do nothing. We couldn’t fight city hall.”131 As
evidenced by this comment, the displacement
of residents in Bunker Hill, Chavez Ravine, and
other areas for the construction of housing
and freeways (such as Interstate 5 in East Los
Angeles) would have been fresh in the minds of
residents in northwest and southwest Pasadena .
In addition, redevelopment projects like the
Pepper Project were occurring in Pasadena at
the same time. The city’s communities of color
faced this issue wherever they looked . Hearings
related to the Long Beach Freeway extension
and redevelopment projects in Pasadena
and elsewhere were often “one of the many
concerted steps that transportation planners took
to ignore or suppress the concerns of residents of
130 “El Sereno, 1977 – The Year in Review,” El Sereno Star, December 28, 1977, D2.
131 Lloyd, 13.
With the passage of the National Environmental
Protection Act (NEPA) and the California
Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) in 1970, the
City of South Pasadena gained a new tool in its
arsenal. The new regulations worked in the City’s
favor. In 1973, the City of South Pasadena sued to
halt construction, pending compliance with NEPA
and CEQA. An injunction was issued, prohibiting
construction until an Environmental Impact
Report (EIR) was completed . The Federal Highway
Administration (FHA) and Caltrans started the
Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) process .126
Caltrans released the Draft Environmental Impact
Statement (DEIS) in December 1974 .127 The EIS
was rejected by the FHA . Caltrans would resubmit
the EIS three more times over the course of the
next two decades; it was rejected each time.128
By this time, the issue was even more polarizing,
and more people were skeptical of the benefits
of freeway construction. In speaking of the
changes in attitudes about freeway construction
since the opening of the Arroyo Seco Parkway
in the 1940s, the Los Angeles Times said, “No
one then, least of all the state, could see beyond
the need to provide a transportation network
for the burgeoning population of motorists. But
now the heyday of freeways is past, more and
more people having come to feel that freeway
benefits are increasingly outweighed by the
detriments, notably air pollution.”
129 Residents in
South Pasadena continued to use every weapon
in their arsenal to fight, with a type of political
Pasadenan, accessed June 4, 2024, https://southpasadenan. com/710-freeway-fighters-leave-lasting-legacy/ .
126 “Interstate 710,” California Highways, accessed May 30, 2024, https://cahighways.org/ROUTE710.html .
127 “Interstate 710,” California Highways, accessed May 30, 2024, https://cahighways.org/ROUTE710.html .
128 City of South Pasadena, “State Route 710: General
Development Timeline,” accessed June 4, 2024,
129 Bert Mann, “S. Pasadena Freeway Fight Becomes a
Siege,” Los Angeles Times, August 12, 1973, SG1.
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 64 the most economical routes for highway
construction…To use a military term, Negro
home owners are expendable . . . . There’s
no question about that the displacement
of Negroes and other non-whites works
a greater hardship than is worked when
whites are roaded out of their homes . The
white residents can find someplace else
to live without undue hardship . The Negro
is put into a bad position. He can’t go out
to the new suburban areas and buy a new
home simply because he has the money
and the desire....After it is all over, the
Negro victim of freeway construction will
wind up, more often than not, in another
restricted area where he will have to pay
through the nose for a second-hand home
in a community a cut below that in which he
formerly lived. Freeways benefit an entire
city, and it seems to me the social, as well as
financial, cost ought to be borne by all who
benefit…. I don’t think it’s fair to require the
condemned man to pay for the hangman’s
rope .133
A local African American writer added to this,
“If some people had their way, we would be
bulldozed right out of the city .”134 The seemingly-
fruitless fight against the freeways wore on
Pasadena’s communities of color.” A few years
later, in an article titled “Pasadena Blacks Say
Little Done to End Their Plight,” the Los Angeles
Times observed, “It would be difficult to convince
many blacks that the freeway is not part of a
plot to cut them off from the surrounding white
communities. Yes, that kind of belief accompanies
a profound sense of political and economic
impotence that pervades the city’s northwest
area .”135
133 Miller, 1961, 4 qtd. in Loukaitou-Sideris et al., 109-110. 134 Nicolaides, The New Suburbia, 176.
135 Bert Mann, “Pasadena Blacks Say Little Done to End Their Plight,” Los Angeles Times, May 28, 1972, GD1.
color, while listening to those in other areas when
they objected .”132
Lawyer and owner of the African American
newspaper the California Eagle, Loren Miller,
summed up the treatment of African Americans
in urban environments:
Take me to a strange city where I’ve never
been before and point out the areas in
which Negroes live, and I will lay you some
neat odds that I can point out the route
of the city’s next freeway . There’s nothing
magic about it . I don’t know whether it is a
required subject in engineering schools or
not, but I do know that one of the cardinal
articles of faith among highway engineers
is that the areas of Negro residence
offer the best, the most feasible, and
132 Loukaitou-Sideris et al., 93.
Plans for a public housing project in Chavez Ravine in the early 1950s called for the removal of the area’s existing residents, drawing widespread opposition. Though the
housing project was never constructed, the site was chosen as the location of Dodger Stadium, resulting in the removal of residents later that decade . (Photo courtesy of Los Angeles Public Library) .
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 65 from cutting through Washington Boulevard
in northwest Pasadena .140 Documentation
shows that they did not necessarily come to a
consensus on the proposed freeway routes . Of
those that fought against the freeway, various
groups opposed different routes. The Northwest
Pasadena Association of Property Owners and
Residents, which drew membership from the
property owners and residents in the northwest
Arroyo section of Pasadena, stated that it
was formed “primarily for the neighborhood
protection and benefit of this portion of
Pasadena .”141 It backed the Green (most easterly)
Route. In a statement, the Association said, “If
we must have a north-south freeway through
Pasadena, we believe the Green route offers
less removal of prime residential property
with attendant dislocation of long-time, stable
residents, and more elimination of undesirable
neighborhood factors than the alternate Blue
route (most westerly) proposal .”142 In the
statement, the Association said, “We feel the
desirable residential flavor of the neighborhoods
affected by the Blue route should be preserved
and maintained. This nearly 100 percent owner-
occupied area presents plus factors contributing
to progress and growth in Pasadena than most
other neighborhoods in the northwest portion
of this city. Further, its residents and property
owners offer a high degree of constructive
activity and assistance in the civic and cultural life
of Pasadena .”143 The Association continued:
140 “Alma Stokes oral history conducted by Becky Nicolaides, June 28, 2024, Pasadena, California.”
141 “Freeway Route Preference Told,” Pasadena Independent, April 23, 1964, 5.
142 “Freeway Route Preference Told,” Pasadena
Independent, April 23, 1964, 5.
143 “Freeway Route Preference Told,” Pasadena
Independent, April 23, 1964, 5.
That is not to say that residents did not fight
back . One group to oppose the freeway was
FACTS (Freeway Action Committee for Thorough
Study), which was a multi-racial group that
included Ruth Washington, the publisher of the
Los Angeles Sentinel. In 1964, FACTS gathered
20,000 protest signatures in Pasadena and
surrounding areas, but the petition had no effect
on the city’s decision .136 FACTS was also active as
a group in South Pasadena (it does not appear to
have been affiliated with Pasadena’s group). In
at least one instance, community groups posted
guards in front of a residence on Bancroft Way
that housed three low-income families who
were to be evicted and the residence razed for
the Foothill Freeway. The NAACP , Emergency
Housing Commission, and Commission on Human
Need and Opportunity in Pasadena pressured
the Division of Highways to delay the eviction
and find relocation funds for the families.
137
During talks to find a solution for the families,
a group of thirty women and children from
the Pasadena branch of the National Welfare
Rights Organization marched on City Hall with
demands that the City find housing for the
low-income residents who would be displaced
by the freeway .138 They sought to not only
demand justice for the families in the Bancroft
Way residence but also to highlight the need for
housing for low-income residents in Pasadena
more generally .139
Pasadena’s communities of color also weighed
in on the route debates that raged at the time
or opposed the freeway altogether . Long-time
Pasadena resident Alma Stokes was part of a
group successfully prevented the 210 Freeway
136 Nicolaides, The New Suburbia, 176.
137 Hall Leiren, “State Relents, Pasadena Families Facing Eviction Get Brief Reprieve,” Los Angeles Times , March 19, 1970, SG1.
138 Nicolaides, The New Suburbia, 176.
139 Hall Leiren, “Marchers at Pasadena City Hall Demand Homes for Poor,” Los Angeles Times, March 26, 1970, SG1.
Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 66 also documented battling “to keep the freeway
out of the Arroyo Seco and away from Pasadena
Avenue .”146 It held meetings and signed petitions
backing the Green (Fair Oaks) route .147
Later that year, however, Mickle spoke out against
the freeway route through northwest Pasadena .
At a City Council meeting urging Pasadena
residents to act against the proposed freeways,
he noted that “750 families would be displaced
by the north-south extension of the Long Beach
freeway when it cuts through the northwest
area of Pasadena. Five hundred of these, he said,
are Negro ‘and the facilities where they can be
relocated in this area are very limited .’”148
Mickle was also chairman of the Pasadena Civic
Participation League. The organization formed
in 1963; among other issues, it focused on racial
unity and worked against school segregation.
No statements were found directly from the
Pasadena Civic Participation League regarding
their stance on the freeway routes. However,
the League was on record as being opposed
to the actions of the Pasadena Community
Redevelopment Agency (CRA) . Mickle accused
the CRA of creating blight in the “entire racial
minority residential area of [Pasadena]” in
order to push redevelopment .149 The League
opposed the CRA’s policy of easing the housing
code in the city’s redevelopment areas, which it
1964, 13.
146 Dave Swaim, “Green Route Backed by Northwest Group:
Line Seen Least Disruptive,” Pasadena Independent, May 5, 1964, 13.
147 Dave Swaim, “Green Route Backed by Northwest Group:
Line Seen Least Disruptive,” Pasadena Independent, May 5, 1964, 13.
148 “City Urged to Back Freeway Ban Action,” Pasadena
Independent, August 19, 1964, 71; “Freeway,” Los Angeles Times, August 20, 1964, 142.
149 “CURAC’s Code Program,” Pasadena Independent, March 31, 1964, 11.
We believe the adoption of the Green
(easterly) route, north of the proposed
interchange [vicinity of Orange Grove
Boulevard and Pasadena Avenue] will:
1 . Eliminate more deteriorating,
unsightly and sub-standard
structures from the area .
2 . Eliminate more factors contributive
to neighborhood blight [loss of value
to adjacent property, a railroad track
to ‘Nowhere,’ noise, fumes, dust, etc.
3 . Preserve and maintain the
atmosphere necessary for
undistracted and more complete
enjoyment of the Rose Bowl,
Municipal Golf Course, bridle trails
and other Arroyo Seco facilities for
recreation.
4 . Facilitate General Plan
implementation (proposed
Washington-Lincoln shopping center,
etc .)
5 . Preserve unification of a substantial,
robust and thriving residential
neighborhood .144
Emmett Mickle, African American chairman of
the Association, stated in 1964, “We are bound
to suffer some loss no matter which way this
freeway goes – if we are to have a freeway at all –
but through these meetings we are endeavoring
to minimize the loss . We don’t like the Green
line either, but it is the one that will hurt fewer
people . We are choosing the route which will
disrupt the community the least .”145 The group is
144 “Freeway Route Preference Told,” Pasadena
Independent, April 23, 1964, 5.
145 Dave Swaim, “Green Route Backed by Northwest Group:
Line Seen Least Disruptive,” Pasadena Independent, May 5, Part I: Historical Background and Setting
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 67 said “would create blight and thus perpetuate
development work here .”150 Areas designated
for redevelopment included the Pepper
Redevelopment Project Area and Redevelopment
Area II in the southwest downtown district . The
League also opposed a civic improvement bond
measure because it “neglect[ed] the northwest
portion of the city.”151
The Los Angeles branch of the NAACP was
opposed to the construction of freeways in the
region . In speaking of a lawsuit brought against
the construction of the Century Freeway in Los
Angeles, the president of the Los Angeles branch,
Elbert T . Hudson, said the Black community
“can no longer sit idly by and watch freeways
push through ghetto areas … The NAACP does
not challenge the right of government to build
freeways … But we do demand that the taking
of private land and the disruption of families be
accomplished by strict adherence to the law .”152
As will be discussed in Part II, the construction of
freeways in Pasadena would have profound and
lasting impacts on the city’s communities of color.
150 “Agency Head Fires Back at Code Critics,” Los Angeles Times, March 26, 1964, 123.
151 “13 Civic Projects Hang in Balance,” Independent Star- News,” October 11, 1964, 3.
152 Ray Herbert, “Class Action Lawsuit Lodged Against
Century Freeway,” Los Angeles Times, February 18, 1972, E1 .
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Part II
Historical Data
Opposite: Aerial view of the completed I-710 Freeway, circa 1975 (Courtesy of Pasadena Public Library) Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 71 Part II: Historical Data
Overview
Part II of this report outlines the specific effects
of the construction of the 710 Freeway, including
a breakdown of the individuals, businesses,
and institutions displaced by the 710 freeway
in the study area . It also examines some of
the economic, built environment, and social
effects freeway construction had on the city’s
communities.
The Property Acquisition Process
As shown in the ROW maps for the study area
(Appendix A), a combination of different types
of property acquisition were used for the
construction of the 710 Freeway in Pasadena.
These included typical right-of-way purchasing,
hardship acquisition, and eminent domain. This
section includes an overview of the different
types of property acquisition. The various types of
property acquisition are presented in the order in
which they would occur during a transportation
project. Hardship acquisition occurs early in the
process, while right-of-way occurs after a route is
selected. Condemnation proceedings, including
eminent domain, happen if a sale cannot be
resolved through typical right-of-way acquisition.
Types of Property Acquisition
Hardship acquisition is a type of property
acquisition that occurs early in a project. Early
acquisition involves the purchase of property
before the completion of the environmental
review process for a proposed transportation
project and may be used for a project involving
“corridor preservation, access management, or
other purposes .”153 There is no indication that
153 Caltrans Right of Way Manual Chapter 5, 5.01.02.00; Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Title 23 Section §710.501, National Archives, accessed June 21, 2024, https://www. ecfr.gov/current/title-23/chapter-I/subchapter-H/part-710/ particular types of transportation projects used
early acquisition beyond these above stated
circumstances .
Hardship is defined as “a situation where
unusual personal circumstances of an owner are
aggravated by a proposed transportation facility
and cannot be solved by the owner without
acquisition by the State. There are two types
of hardships: those which occur in advance of
the regular right of way acquisition process;
those which occur when the requirements for
commencing the regular right of way acquisition
process have been met, but funding and activity
on the project have been deferred .”154
The Caltrans Right of Way Manual states, “The
following minimal requirements must be met and
documented if a hardship request is approved:
• Owner demonstrates need to dispose of
property .
• Owner is unable to dispose of property at
fair market value because of transportation
facility plans .
• Owner cannot reasonably alleviate the
hardship in the absence of the State’s
purchase .
• State’s purchase will either partially or totally
alleviate the hardship .”155
There are a variety of reasons that owners can
subpart-E/section-710.501 .
154 Caltrans Right of Way Manual Chapter 5, 5.03.01.00. 155 Caltrans Right of Way Manual Chapter 5, 5.03.04.01.
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 72 Part II: Historical Data
via sale, the state can use condemnation
proceedings to obtain property if a property
owner and Caltrans cannot agree on the terms
of a sale . If a property owner fails to go through
the initial acquisition process, and the hardship
acquisition process, the proceedings will then
move into the eminent domain process which is
now considered a legal proceeding .158
158 California Department of Transportation, https://dot. ca.gov/programs/right-of-way/acquisition-condemnation . request immediate sale, including medical and
financial reasons as well as monetary loss from
the proposed project .156 Owners must submit
an application requesting hardship acquisition.
Today, property owners applying for hardship
acquisition are still eligible for “appropriate
relocation assistance and sufficient time to
consider the State’s offer .”
157 Since the usage of
hardship acquisition occurred prior to routine
right-of-way purchasing and was owner initiated,
it would not have been recorded on the right-of-
way maps .
While property transactions are typically settled
156 Caltrans Right of Way Manual Chapter 5, 5.03.04.02. 157 Caltrans Right of Way Manual Chapter 5, 5.03.01.00.
One of the right-of-way maps for the study area (Source: California Department of Transportation).
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 73 Part II: Historical Data
Table with property acquisition data from a right-of-way map for the 710 study area.
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 74 Part II: Historical Data
• Ownership disputes: Such as a surviving
seller who hasn’t probated the estate of a
deceased owner .
A quitclaim deed conveys any interest a grantor
may have had and “transfers only the interest
the grantor has at the time the conveyance is
executed . The grantor is not promising anything
other than that they are giving up their own
rights, if any. […] This type of deed guarantees
nothing and there is no expressed or implied
warranty that grantor owns the property or any
interest in it. […] A quitclaim deed effectively
says, ‘I am conveying all the title that I have in
the property described in this quitclaim - if I have,
in fact, any title.’”
163 In the study area, quitclaim
deeds were typically used for properties owned
by the Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railway Company
and – in one observed case – land owned by the
City of Pasadena . This process was not used for
the acquisition of residential properties.164
An easement deed “is used to acquire rights over
real property” for a variety of purposes ranging
from access rights to utilities.165 Construction
easements were not a purchase of property;
rather the Division of Highways paid the grantor
to use the land for a specified period of time
for the purposes of construction. The land
remained in the ownership of the grantor .166 Both
easements and temporary easements are seen
in the ROW maps as “eas .” and “t emp eas .” in
163 California State Board of Equalization, “Property
Ownership and Deed Recording,” accessed April 23, 2024, https://www.boe.ca.gov/proptaxes/pdf/Ownership_
DeedRecording .p df .
164 California State Board of Equalization, “Property
Ownership and Deed Recording,” accessed April 23, 2024, https://www.boe.ca.gov/proptaxes/pdf/Ownership_
DeedRecording .p df .
165 Caltrans Right of Way Manual Chapter 6, 6.09.02.02. 166 Communication with Fatima Choudhury, Caltrans staff, July 26, 2024.
Other types of acquisition, and shown on the
right-of-way (ROW) maps for the study area,
include:
Fee acquisition, a type of routine right-of-
way purchasing, was the most common type
indicated on the ROW maps for the study area .
Fee acquisition involves the usage of grant deeds,
which is the most common type of deed used
in the purchase of property and “are primarily
used to transfer real property in fee (all rights,
title, and interest of the property).” A grant deed
may be used for the full or partial acquisition of
a property and is used when a person transfers
ownership or adds a new owner .159 Upon
purchase by the Division of Highways, the state
becomes the owner .
A quitclaim deed (indicated as Q .C . on the maps)
is used to purchase properties when the title to
a property may not be valid due to a cloud on
the title or other encumbrances.
160161 A cloud on
the title is defined as “a claim, encumbrance or
condition which impairs the title to real property
until disproved or eliminated as for example
through a quitclaim deed or a quiet title legal
action.”
162 It may be caused by a number of
issues, including:
• Unpaid debts: Such as mortgages, liens, or
property taxes
• Errors in public records: Such as a misspelled
address or an improperly recorded deed
159 Caltrans Right of Way Manual chapter 6, 6.09.02.01; California State Board of Equalization, “Property Ownership and Deed Recording,” accessed April 23, 2024, https://www. boe.ca.gov/proptaxes/pdf/Ownership_DeedRecording.pdf . 160 Cloud on a property title means a property has an
outstanding lien or unresolved issue that makes it possible for the property to be confiscated in place of payment. 161 Caltrans Right of Way Manual chapter 6, 6.09.02.03. 162 Source: California Department of Real State, “Reference Book: A Real Estate Guide,” Glossary of Terms, 567.
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 75 Part II: Historical Data
frame (at the time, it was sixty days initially then
a follow up letter would be sent, after which
property owners had thirty days to respond) .170
Just compensation is the price an agency must
pay to acquire real property; it is also its fair
market value . Fair market value is defined as
“the highest price on the date of valuation that
would be agreed to by a seller, being willing to
sell but under no particular or urgent necessity
for so doing, nor obliged to sell, and a buyer,
being ready, willing and able to buy but under
no particular necessity for so doing, each dealing
with the other with full knowledge of all the
uses and purposes for which the property is
reasonably adaptable and available .”171 It refers
to the market value of a property that has been
adjusted to reflect constitutional and other legal
requirements for public acquisition.
A sample table from one of the right-of-way
(ROW) maps from which this information was
obtained can be seen above . The types of
property acquisition used for each parcel is
included in the column labeled “INST .” Other
terms listed on the ROW maps include:
• Et . Ux: an abbreviation for “et uxor.” It means
“and wife”
• Excess area/land: real property acquired
by the state that is no longer necessary for
highway purposes, rights of way or other
operational purposes of the Department of
Transportation
172
170 Communication with Fatima Choudhury, Caltrans staff, July 26, 2024.
171 California Department of Transportation, “Your Property, Your Transportation Project,” accessed April 24, 2024,
https://dot.ca.gov/-/media/dot-media/programs/right-of- way/documents/acquisition-condemnation/your-property-
your-transportation-project-digital-view-english-2020-a11y. pdf
.
172 Caltrans Right of Way Manual Chapter 6, 6.16.03.00, the study area . Easements were used primarily
for railroad right-of-way, land owned by power
companies, and flood control channels.
Relinquishment refers to “the statutory
conveyance of all rights, title, interests,
liability, and maintenance responsibilities of a
State highway, or portion thereof, to another
government entity.”
167 Relinquishment is seen in
one instance of City-owned property.
A Director’s Deed, abbreviated as “D.D.,” are
used when the state sells a property; the sale
has to be approved by the Director of Caltrans .168
Director’s Deeds were used in only a small
number of cases in the study area; transactions
were with both private individuals and for land
located on a street leading to Ambassador
College .
Eminent domain, a type of condemnation
proceeding, is the act of taking private
property for public use upon payment of just
compensation.
169 While property transactions
are typically settled via sale, the state can use
condemnation proceedings to obtain property if
a property owner and Caltrans cannot agree on
the terms of a sale. The usage of condemnation
is shown as “cond .” on the R OW maps . This
type of acquisition would have been used if the
Division of Highways did not receive a response
to its notification letters within a specified time
167 Caltrans Project Development Procedures Manual,
Chapter 25, accessed April 30, 2024, https://dot.ca.gov/-/ media/dot-media/programs/design/documents/pdpm-
chapter25-a11y.pdf .
168 Caltrans Right of Way Manual Chapter 6, 6.15.01.00. 169 California Department of Transportation, “Your Property, Your Transportation Project,” accessed April 24, 2024,
https://dot.ca.gov/-/media/dot-media/programs/right-of- way/documents/acquisition-condemnation/your-property-
your-transportation-project-digital-view-english-2020-a11y. pdf
.
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 76 Part II: Historical Data
Aid Highway Act required the Department of
Transportation to study the advance acquisition
process for right-of-way purchasing for the
purpose of Federal-aid highway construction.
Particular emphasis was placed on studying the
relocation of individuals, businesses, etc., and
the removal of improvements on such land .
The study, completed in 1967, recommended
that states be required to provide a program
to assist individuals, businesses, and non-
profit organizations with displacement and
relocation.
177
A review of this report reveals that by the time
it was completed in 1966-1967, many states
had an advance acquisition process of some
type in place, though many only planned one to
five years in advance. California was one of the
few states that planned more than five years in
advance and one of two states that planned up
to ten years in advance .178 California’s advance
acquisition process dated to 1952, when the
state enacted legislation that set up an advance
right-of-way acquisition fund to allow for the
acquisition of property where there was a
probability of development . It was intended
to prevent higher acquisition costs later if a
development went forward .179 It allowed for
the acquisition of properties that were part of
the state’s long-range transportation planning
program and allowed the state to purchase
right-of-way up to ten years in advance of
scheduled construction.
180 The report noted
177 U.S. Department of Transportation, “Advance Acquisition of Highway Rights-of-way Study: A Study Transmitted by
the Secretary of the Department of Transportation to the Congress,” Washington, D.C., July 1967, 10.
178 “Advance Acquisition of Highway Rights-of-way Study,” 6 -7.
179 “Advance Acquisition of Highway Rights-of-way Study,” 71 .
180 “Advance Acquisition of Highway Rights-of-way Study,” 73-74.
• Grantee: a person to whom a grant is made
• Grantor: a person who transfers his or her
interest in property to another by grant173
The Property Acquisition Process for
the 710 Freeway
Research indicates that the Division of Highways
used a combination of property acquisition
types for the purchase of properties for the
construction of the 710 freeway. A Los Angeles
Times article notes from 1968, “routine right-of-
way purchasing is under way in Pasadena from
California Blvd . north to the interchange . About
200 parcels have been acquired in this area
adjacent to and paralleling Pasadena Ave .”174
Communication with Caltrans staff indicates that
the notification process has remained largely the
same since the 1960s . The Division of Highways
notified property owners by mail once a route
had been selected . Property owners then had
sixty days to contact the state regarding the sale
of their property .175 If they did not contact the
state, the Division of Highways would send a
follow up notification letter, after which property
owners had thirty days to contact the state . If the
state still did not get a response from property
owners, condemnation proceedings were
initiated.176
During the 1960s, when highway construction
was in full swing around the country, legislation
was passed to smooth the acquisition process
and aid property owners. In 1966, the Federal-
6 .1 7 . 02 . 00 .
173 As defined in California Department of Real Estate, “Reference Book: A Real Estate Guide,” Glossary of Terms. 174 Don Snyder, “State Clearing Way For Freeway,” Los
Angeles Times, June 24, 1968.
175 The notification time frame has changed.
176 Communication with Fatima Choudhury, Caltrans staff, July 26, 2024.
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 77 Part II: Historical Data
in the preparation of this report. Articles were
found indicating that the legislation was used as
leverage against urban redevelopment projects
at the time, including the Pepper Project in
Pasadena and the Flood Ranch redevelopment
project in Santa Fe Springs (though in both
cases, the suits were unsuccessful).
183 Now,
usage of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act is explicitly discussed in the Caltrans Right of Way Manual .
Both routine and early acquisition have to be
conducted in such a way that complies with Title
VI and, acquisition “shall be conducted in such
as a way and manner as to assure that no person
shall, on the grounds of race, color, sex, national
origin, or disability, be denied the benefits to
which the person is entitled, or be otherwise
subjected to discrimination, in compliance with
Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and related
statutes .”184 Chapter 5 of the Right of Way
Manual states that “property interests will be
acquired through negotiation, without the threat
of, or use of, condemnation; and is in compliance
with the Uniform Act and Title VI of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 .”185
Other legislation that helps protect property
owners includes the Uniform Relocation
Assistance and Real Property Acquisition Policies
Act, passed in 1970. Also known as the Uniform
Act, the law was passed by Congress to ensure
that property owners and tenants affected by the
acquisition of private property are treated fairly
and equitably and receive relocation assistance.
186
183 “Complaint Filed in Try to Reverse Ordinance Against Pepper Project,” Pasadena Independent, January 15, 1965, A5; Keith Takahashi, “Project Changes Houses, Hearts,”
Los Angeles Times, May 30, 1971, L2. For more on Flood
Ranch, see Jerry Gonzalez, In Search of the Mexican Beverly Hills: Latino Suburbanization in Postwar Los Angeles (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2017).
184 Caltrans Right of Way Manual Chapter 6, 8.01.03.00. 185 Caltrans Right of Way Manual Chapter 5, 5.01.01.00. 186 Federal Highway Administration, “Uniform Act,”
that in California, in 1965-1966, “approximately
3,600 families and business owners were offered
relocation assistance” as part of a “sincere
and effective program.”
181 State assistance was
needed for only ten of these relocations, while
the vast majority made their own arrangements
due to advance notice. The report did not
indicate which projects or in which parts of the
state these relocations occurred.
Today, federal legislation helps protect property
owners from racial discrimination in such
projects . It requires that when federal funding is
used, land acquisition and relocation assistance
must comply with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act
of 1964 and the Uniform Act . These laws protect
property owners during the environmental
review and property acquisition processes. These
were largely enacted after the displacement for
the 710 Freeway in Pasadena occurred . They
include Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
which prohibits discrimination on the basis of
race, color, and national origin in programs and
activities receiving federal financial assistance.
President John F. Kennedy observed in 1963,
“Simple justice requires that public funds, to
which all taxpayers of all races [colors, and
national origins] contribute, not be spent in
any fashion which encourages, entrenches,
subsidizes or results in racial [color or national
origin] discrimination.”
182 The Act prohibits
discrimination in federally funded programs and
activities.
Though the Civil Rights Act was made into law by
the time the 710 Freeway route was selected and
property purchasing was underway, no mention
of it was found in relation to the freeway project
181 “Advance Acquisition of Highway Rights-of-way Study,” 77 .
182 Civil Rights Division, U.S. Department of Justice, “Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” accessed June 17, 2024, https://www.justice.gov/crt/fcs/TitleVI .
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 78 Part II: Historical Data
It provides protections and assistance for people
affected by federally funded projects. However,
this law was passed after most of the property
acquisition for the 710 freeway in Pasadena had
occurred. The right-of-way maps indicate that the
majority of properties were purchased between
1966 and about 1970; while some were acquired
as late as 1975, the majority had been purchased
by 1969-1970. In addition, property acquisition
for the majority of the properties in the study
area occurred prior to the passage of the
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the
California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) in
1970, which property owners in South Pasadena
would be able to utilize to halt proceedings
related to the 710 Freeway in their city. Today,
environmental compliance pursuant to the
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) must be
completed for any property acquired by the state
before any cost incurred by the state is approved
for federal participation.187
accessed April 23, 2024, https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/real_ estate/uniform_act/ .
187 23 U.S.C. Title 23 §108 (b).
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 79 Part II: Historical Data
Existing Communities in the Path of the
Freeway
Neighborhoods occupied by people of color
existed in Pasadena since the turn of the
twentieth century. These areas would be in the
path of the city’s redevelopment and freeway
initiatives in the 1960s. An examination of city
directories indicates the South Vernon Avenue
area was a well-established community with
residential pockets along California Boulevard,
Havendale Drive, and Palmetto Drive. Aerial
photographs, seen on the following pages, show
a longstanding neighborhood with residential
streets, as well as businesses and industrial
uses along major thoroughfares . The northern
portion of the study area was heavily residential
(along Kensington Place, Holly Street, and Mary
Street, for example). While some streets such as
Pasadena and Vernon Avenues were mixed use
in nature, this was not characteristic of the entire
district. In addition, while multi-family residential
buildings are present, they are not the majority
of residential buildings that existed. Single-family
residences made up most of the area’s housing .
Aerial photographs show neighborhoods with
street trees and front lawns between Grove
Street and California Boulevard . Northwest
Pasadena was also an established neighborhood
with a range of economic strata represented .
Some of the businesses and institutions in the
study area can be seen below .
Effects of Displacement and
Freeway Construction in Pasadena
Freeway construction had innumerable and far-
reaching consequences for the city’s communities
of color . This document provides an introductory
overview of this topic and offers evidence of
these impacts .188 Extensive scholarship exists
on the effects of freeway construction on urban
communities of color around the country. A
partial list of work that covers these topics is
provided in the “For Further Reading” section
below .
In addition to the evident physical effects on the
landscape, much of the time in neighborhoods
occupied by people of color and the working
class, freeway construction had social and
economic impacts .189 There is also a personal and
emotional impact on individuals that cannot be
comprehensively quantified. Some of the effects
that will be discussed in this section include:
• physical effects: impacts on the built
environment and overall landscape; the
destruction of housing and an established
community
• social effects: the prevention of access and
limiting access to housing, loss of community
and neighborhood unity, loss of a sense of
community and neighborhood pride
• economic effects: decline in property
values as a result of freeway planning, loss
of generational wealth, loss of established
businesses
188 Extensive scholarship exists on the effects of freeway construction on urban communities of color around the
country. A partial list of work that covers these topics is provided in the “For Further Reading” section below.
189 Since this report focuses primarily on the effects
of displacement and its intersection with freeway
construction, the environmental effects of freeways, which area felt by neighborhoods in the vicinity of freeways, will not be discussed at length .
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 80 Part II: Historical Data
The northern portion of the study area between Walnut Street and Colorado Bouelvard (Base image courtesy of University of California Santa Barbara Frame Finder, annotations by ARG).
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 81 Part II: Historical Data
The study area between Colorado Bouelvard and Bellevue Drive (Base image courtesy of University of California Santa Barbara Frame Finder, annotations by ARG).
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 82 Part II: Historical Data
services, and larger income than in the northwest
where unemployment is variously estimated
at from 25% to more than 30%, and much of
the housing, as one black woman put it, is ‘last
century’s beautiful.’”
191 The article notes that
“the northwest has its share of wealthy residents
and middle class, well-kept neighborhoods too,
but poverty is pervasive .”192
Instead of acknowledging the role of decades of
land use policy, segregation, and discrimination in
creating and then perpetuating poverty in these
neighborhoods – and acknowledging the nuances
in their make up – city officials disregarded them
and removed them via redevelopment and
freeway construction.
The Process of Displacement
According to communication with California
Department of Transportation staff, once
a route was decided upon, the Division of
Highways notified property owners by mail
about acquisition of their property. Once owners
were notified, they had sixty days to respond.
If property owners did not contact the state
regarding the sale of property, the Division sent
a follow up letter, after which owners had thirty
days to respond. If that time period passed with
no word from property owners, the Division
started condemnation proceedings, which
essentially forced the sale of property to the
state. Right-of-way agents would have been sent
to the area to record the sale of property .193
The announcement of planned freeway
construction often resulted in the drop of
191 Bert Mann, “Pasadena Blacks Say Little Done to End Their Plight,” Los Angeles Times, May 28, 1972, GD1.
192 Bert Mann, “Pasadena Blacks Say Little Done to End Their Plight,” Los Angeles Times, May 28, 1972, GD1.
193 Communication with Fatima Choudhury, Caltrans staff, July 26, 2024.
Decades of racist land use policy made
communities of color vulnerable to
redevelopment, displacement, and erasure
in the post-World War II period. As discussed
in Part I, these communities had often been
redlined earlier by the Home Owners’ Loan
Corporation (HOLC). This was certainly the case
for the northwest and South Vernon Avenue
neighborhoods in Pasadena, which had been
redlined in 1939 . They had been among the areas
characterized as showing “evidences of blight,”
with “many old frame structures in fair to poor
condition” in northwest Pasadena, while the
housing stock around South Vernon Avenue west
of the railroad tracks was “most large homes in
good to fair condition.” Redlining discouraged
further investment by the federal government
and private banks, resulting in declines in
homeownership, property values, and rents.
In addition, the HOLC identified many of these
communities as “ideal” locations for freeway
development or redevelopment in the late 1930s .
The HOLC sheet for Area D9 in Pasadena noted
“this area is thoroughly blighted and a slum
clearance project is under discussion .”190
Communities of color thus faced decline and
disinvestment long before they were targeted for
freeway development and urban renewal efforts
in the postwar period . A Los Angeles Times article
from 1972 hints at the impacts that decades of
disinvestment had on northwest Pasadena, for
example. It speaks of the “emotional pressures
from isolation and alienation from the larger
nonblack part of the city and the surrounding
almost totally white cities of Arcadia, Glendale,
South Pasadena, San Marino, and Sierra Madre.
The residents of these areas are generally better
fed, have better homes, better cars, better
190 Pasadena Area D9, University of Richmond, “Mapping
Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America,” accessed June 10, 2024, https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/
map/CA/LosAngeles/area_descriptions .
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 83 Part II: Historical Data
Housing demolition was viewed as a consequence
or byproduct of freeway building, but federal
and state highway agencies did not examine any
outcomes beyond demolition. No provisions
were made to replace this lost housing, and
the federal government rejected policies and
legislation related to relocating residents and
replacing housing .198 By the late 1960s, freeway
construction in the United States had resulted
in the demolition of approximately 62,000 unit
of housing every year, and no mechanism was
provided to relocate residents or construct
replacement housing .199
In northwest Pasadena, those who could afford
to move did so, while those who could not were
forced to stay in the bisected area left behind. As
scholar Becky Nicolaides puts it, “redevelopment
stimulated the dispersal of middle-class Blacks
into formerly all-white neighborhoods at the
same time that it concentrated the poorest
people of color in a small area of northwest
Pasadena. Pasadena, in effect, helped loosen
the color line while simultaneously forging new
geographies of class segregation.”
200 The city also
appears to have lost population, if enrollment
in its school district is any indication. In 1970,
student enrollment dropped by nearly 1,500
students in one year across public, private,
and parochial schools in Pasadena. Then-
Superintendent Ralph Hornbeck considered
freeway construction to be a contributing
factor in the enrollment drop . It was said that
approximately 300 to 400 families were displaced
due to the freeway, and it was unknown whether
they relocated within Pasadena or left entirely.
201
Race Research Action Council, 2002, 3.
198 Loukaitou-Sideris et al., 15.
199 Weber, 2011, in Loukaitou-Sideris et al., 15.
200 Nicolaides, 174.
201 “Student Enrollment Drop Poses Mystery,” Los Angeles Times, December 8, 1970.
property values and the depreciation of real
estate in areas slated for freeway development .
Previous scholarship has shown that property
values in African American neighborhoods
were affected the most negatively by such
future work .194 David Karas points out that
in some cases, “time would elapse even
between condemnation orders and actual
demolition, leaving ‘demoralized homeowners
and businessmen [who] lost all incentive to
make repairs’ to their properties – leading to
even worse general neighborhood conditions
and contributing to further difficulties among
remaining property owners to sell their homes
or businesses and flee their soon-to-be former
community .”195 Thus, even though property
owners were supposedly reimbursed with the
fair market value of their property, this value
would likely have been less than an equivalent
property in another part of Pasadena due to both
earlier redlining and declines in property values
following the announcement of freeway work .196
Scholars including Raymond Mohl have pointed
out that state highway departments focused on
the construction of freeways and not any of the
consequences of their actions. The construction
of freeways in the country caused a nationwide
housing problem, for example, and the brunt
of this was borne by communities of color.
197
194 Roger Biles, Raymond Mohl, and Mark H. Rose,
“Revisiting the Urban Interstates: Politics, Policy, and Culture since World War II,” Journal of Urban History, 40 (5); Jeffrey P. Cohen, Nicholas Lownes, and Bo Zhang, “1960s Interstate Highways and Homeowner Wealth Distribution,” Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review, 2022.
195 Roger Biles, Raymond Mohl, and Mark H. Rose,
“Revisiting the Urban Interstates: Politics, Policy, and Culture since World War II,” Journal of Urban History, 40 (5), 850 qtd. in Karas, 12-13.
196 Pasadena Star News, 1964 in Loukaitou-Sideris et al., 115 .
197 Raymond A. Mohl, “The Interstates and the Cities:
Highways, Housing, and the Freeway Revolt,” Poverty and Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 84 Part II: Historical Data
The Aftermath of Displacement and Its
Impacts on Pasadena
Communities around the country faced
displacement because of freeway construction.
Between 1957 and 1969, approximately 330,000
units of housing were demolished in American
cities for freeway construction.203 All told, it is
estimated that more than one million people
were displaced in the United States for freeways
beginning in the 1950s, some of which were
never constructed .204 Approximately 21,000
people in East Los Angeles were displaced for
freeway construction in what was likely the
largest per capita displacement in California
history .205 It is estimated that 13,000 people in
Pasadena were displaced for the construction of
the freeways, both built and unbuilt.206
In some cases, highways were deliberately
sited to create physical barriers between
neighborhoods of color and White
neighborhoods. Scholars of highway construction
have concluded that “the federal highway
program and its planners acted both with
deliberate discriminatory intentions and with
racially disparate effects” in cities around
the country .207 In Birmingham, Alabama, for
example, freeway planning and redevelopment
were completed so that they created physical
barriers White and Black neighborhoods, while
other freeway routes were curved to circumvent
White residential areas and run through Black
neighborhoods instead .208
203 Loukaitou-Sideris et al., 13.
204 Liam Dillon, “Even freeways that don’t get built leave a scar. How one Bay Area city is healing,” Los Angeles Times , February 21, 2022.
205 Gilbert Estrada and Jerry González, “Justice and the Interstates: The Racist Truth About Urban Highways,” April 19, 2023, accessed June 14, 2024, https://boomcalifornia. org/2023/04/19/justice-and-the-interstates-the-racist-
truth-about-urban-highways/
.
206 Nicolaides, 176.
207 Loukaitou-Sideris et al., 14.
208 Joe Weber, “‘America’s New Design for Living:’ The
Once residents were displaced, they had a more
difficult time finding comparable housing – or
housing at all – into which they could move .
They may have lost homes and businesses that
they owned and in which they had built equity .
Due to the depression of property values in
redlined neighborhoods, it is unlikely that the
cost they were paid for their properties would
have afforded them a similar property in another
neighborhood in Pasadena or elsewhere . Though
the city provided relocation assistance for some
redevelopment projects at this time, including
the Pepper Project, evidence has not yet been
found pointing to relocation assistance for
residents displaced for the construction of the
Long Beach Freeway .
In an example touched upon in Part I, Pasadena
members of the National Welfare Rights
Organization advocated for replacement
housing for low-income residents evicted from
a residence on Bancroft Way because of the
construction of the Foothill Freeway. The National
Welfare Rights Organization sought housing for
not only these families but for numerous low-
income residents expected to be affected by the
coming of the Foothill Freeway .202 Though some
city officials appear to have been receptive, it is
unclear whether the residents were successfully
relocated nor whether any assistance was given
to them. Even if state highway officials had
offered relocation assistance, displaced residents
still would have had a difficult time finding
housing in Pasadena due to the influence of
segregationist and discriminatory housing policies
that had existed for decades. Large portions of
the city remained off-limits to people of color as
result of these policies and practices. Discussions
with local historians and residents during the
research for this draft report suggest that former
area residents moved to other neighborhoods in
Pasadena or other cities.
202 Hall Leiren, “Marchers at Pasadena City Hall Demand Homes for Poor,” Los Angeles Times, March 26, 1970, SG1.
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 85 Part II: Historical Data
placed an economic burden on lower income
residents . Freeways allowed White residents to
move to further flung suburban neighborhoods
that were off-limits to people of color due to
accessibility and discriminatory housing practices.
As people moved away from the central city,
commercial and industrial development followed
to the suburbs as well, removing these significant
segments of the economy from city centers
and the communities that relied on them.
211
Areas that had been previously racially and
economically mixed transitioned to low-income
communities with a majority people of color.
212
These areas faced continued disinvestment
after commerce and industry relocated, as
“civic services started to neglect the remaining
residents due to a plummeting tax revenue
base .”213 In some cities, displaced populations
of color “relocated to working-class, White
neighborhoods and created ‘second ghettos’ on
the fringes of former Black ghettos.”
214 This in
turn set off “White flight,” further separating and
segregating communities in urban areas.
In Pasadena, the construction of the 710 and
210 Freeways decimated communities of color.
Northwest Pasadena was bisected and large
portions of it demolished, while the South Vernon
neighborhood was wiped out altogether . Homes
were demolished and well-established businesses
and community institutions were destroyed. The
construction of the 210 Freeway split Northwest
Pasadena down the middle through a primarily
residential area and brought with it noise, air
pollution, and a visual split.
215 What had been a
211 Loukaitou-Sideris et al., 16.
212 Loukaitou-Sideris et al., 26.
213 Loukaitou-Sideris et al., 26.
214 Hirsch, 1998 and Mohl, 2000 in Loukaitou-Sideris et al., 15 .
215 Sam Hall Kaplan, “Pasadena Planning Goals Stir
Community Distrust,” Los Angeles Times, November 12,
1982, I1; 1956 aerial photograph, northwest Pasadena,
As discussed previously, the location of the
710 Freeway was selected deliberately . The
1962 General Plan noted, “We advocate that
the North-South Freeway to Long Beach be
built as a dividing greenbelt to permanently
insulate the high-income residential areas from
the future research and development area .” 209
The “future research and development area”
that Plan referred to were northwest Pasadena
and the South Vernon Avenue neighborhood.
In the General Plan’s goals for revitalizing
downtown Pasadena, these neighborhoods
were envisioned as being turned into industrial
areas. The Plan goes on to say, “the proposed
north-south route would, for the most part,
take substandard residential, commercial and
industrial developments and would not disrupt
established neighborhoods,” completely ignoring
the fact that these were, in fact, established
neighborhoods .210 They were occupied by people
of color and therefore, apparently, not worth the
same consideration as so-called “established”
White neighborhoods .
The construction of the freeway had dramatic
economic, physical, and social effects. Despite
what state highway and city officials either
deliberately ignored or simply left out, freeways
did divide established communities, many of
them older, walkable neighborhoods near city
centers and accessible employment, forcing
people to move further from their places of
employment . The expansion of the highway
system undermined public transportation in
urban areas, which lower-income residents
more frequently relied upon than affluent
White residents, who could afford a car to drive
between their places of work and residence . This
Interstate Highway System and the Spatial Transformation of the U.S., in Engineering Earth, Brunn, S. (eds) Springer, Dordrecht, 2011 (553–567); Loukaitou-Sideris et al., 14. 209 City of Pasadena, General Plan, 1962, 35.
210 City of Pasadena, General Plan, 1962, 45.
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 86 Part II: Historical Data
If two commercial listings/tenants were listed in
the same address, these were counted as one
building . It is likely that this would have been
two businesses in one subdivided commercial
building .
Institutional buildings included any building
affiliated with an institution, including churches,
schools, and buildings associated with
Ambassador College .
Some properties were listed as vacant as far back
as the 1966 City Directory. In addition, there
were properties that were indicated on Sanborn
maps within the study area boundary but were
not listed in City Directories . These addresses are
included in “vacant/unknown.”
Buildings Counts in the Study Area
Building Type Numerical Count
Residential (Bldgs.) 117
Residential (Units) 168
Commercial 50
Institutional 10
Industrial 8
Vacant/Unknown 21
Total Buildings (known) 188
Total Buildings (incl. vacant/
unknown)
209
Residential buildings included both single- and
multi-family residences, a list of which can be
found in Appendix C .
Of the commercial buildings demolished were
Peerless Sheet Metal Works, Bill’s Beech Inn
Tavern, Gerhart Ray Inc. Building Contractors, the
Green Buck Restaurant, the Vroman’s California
School Book Depository, Jack Wall Chevrolet Auto
Dealership, Bill’s Coffee Shop and Restaurant, and
the offices of Lyons & Carnahan Publishers.
connected neighborhood is now interrupted by
an elevated freeway. The South Vernon area was
eliminated and is now bisected by the below-
grade freeway where a neighborhood used to be .
The redevelopment of the area to the east of the
710 Freeway further destroyed what had been an
established and close-knit neighborhood.
The section below lays out the concrete effects
of the construction of the 710 Freeway in
Pasadena, namely the displacement of individuals
and businesses as well as a tally of buildings
demolished in the area now occupied by the 710
Freeway .
Details of Displacement: Building
Counts
Building counts for the study area were obtained
from the 1966, 1967, and 1968 Pasadena City
Directories . The 1968 City Directory was used
whenever possible in order to obtain listings
as close as possible to when properties would
have been acquired by the Division of Highways
(determined by the recording dates in the right-
of-way maps). If a property was listed as vacant in
the 1968 City Directory, then the 1966 and 1967
City Directories were consulted and that entry
was used . Sources are indicated in all cases . A
summary of the methodology used to establish
building counts is as follows:
Residential properties indicated with a ½ address
or as a rear unit were not counted as separate
residential buildings. These were assumed to
be smaller ancillary buildings or rear residential
buildings and were not counted as separate
buildings in the total count. However, they were
counted in the overall total of residential units
.
Listings of apartment buildings with multiple
units were counted as one building (all units were
counted towards the residential unit
total) .
Frame Finder, University of California Santa Barbara,
accessed July 2024, https://mil.library.ucsb.edu/ap_indexes/ FrameFinder/.
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 87 Part II: Historical Data
Institutional buildings demolished included
the First African Methodist Episcopal Church,
United Presbyterian Church, Neighborhood
Church of Pasadena/Sugar Tree Nursery School,
Ambassador College Circulation Annex, and
a student dormitory (potential affiliated with
Imperial Schools, which was located across the
street) .
Industrial buildings included Orbon Lumber
Company, Northside Metal Products, Screw
Machine Products, Croan Engineering Co. Plastic
Manufacturing, H.A. Jones Desert Stone, and
Orth Mayflower Van and Storage.
These totals do not include the areas adjacent
to the study area that were cleared as part of
redevelopment efforts during this time; this
includes addresses on the west side of Vernon
Avenue and the east side of Pasadena Avenue .
Buildings were demolished and residents
displaced in these areas as well; however, this
was outside the scope of this report . Previous
estimates show that nearly 300 families were
displaced by the 1960s by urban redevelopment
projects and freeway construction in Pasadena,
the majority of which were people of color .216 The
list of property owners obtained from the Division
of Highways’ ROW maps is included in Appendix
B. A full list of occupants (individuals, businesses,
and institutions) in the study area is included as
Appendix C of this report .
216 Loukaitou-Sideris et al., 88. The report indicates that 91 percent of these families were people of color .
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 88 Conclusion
For Further Reading
There are numerous scholarly works on the topics
covered in this report. This section provides
additional sources that can be consulted on these
topics . This is not a comprehensive list .
For more on the history of freeway construction:
• Ryan Reft et. al., eds. Justice and the
Interstates: The Racist Truth About Urban
Highways
• David Karas, “Highway to Inequity: The
Disparate Impact of the Interstate Highway
System on Poor and Minority Communities
in American Cities,” in New Visions for Public
Affairs Vol. 7 (April 2015)
• James Hanlon, “Unsightly Urban Menaces
and the Rescaling of Residential Segregation
in the United States .” Journal of Urban
History, 37 no 5. (2011): 732-756.
• Richard F. Weingroff, “Federal-Aid Highway
Act of 1956: Creating the Interstate System.”
Public Roads. 60, no. 1 (Summer 1996): 1-14.
• Richard F. Weingroff, “The Genie in the
Bottle: The Interstate Highway System and
Urban Problems, 1939-1957.” Public Roads .
64, no. 2 (September/October 2000): 1-13.
• Roger Biles, Raymond A. Mohl, and Mark
H. Rose, “Revisiting the Urban Interstates:
Politics, Policy, and Culture since World
War II .” Journal of Urban History, 40, no. 5
(September 2014): 827–830 .
• Gilbert Estrada and Jerry González, “Justice
and the Interstates: The Racist Truth
about Urban Highways,” Boom California,
April 19, 2023, https://boomcalifornia.
org/2023/04/19/justice-and-the-interstates-
the-racist-truth-about-urban-highways/ .
Conclusion
The 710 Displacement Historic Report lays out
the policy and planning decisions that influenced
the placement of the SR-710 and I-210 freeways
in Pasadena . Land use policy and freeway
construction in Pasadena was undoubtedly and
inextricably tied to race and class and were at
their heart, fundamentally inequitable. Decades
of policy and practices in Pasadena and cities
around the country, including redlining, restrictive
covenants, and zoning, systematically segregated
people of color and disregarded their needs and
voices. By the 1960s, segregation and racism were
imbedded in the very fabric of land use policy .
Decisions made regarding freeway placement
were a stark illustration of the political power
held by White residents not only in Pasadena
but in neighboring communities and the
lack thereof held by people of color . Despite
resident opposition to the freeways’ location,
city leaders proceeded without regard for the
well-established neighborhoods that existed in
the path of the freeways or the consequences
for their actions. The years-long fight over
the freeways’ location set in stark relief the
manner in which people of color were ignored
and the way that their neighborhoods were
viewed as substandard, despite evidence to the
contrary . Taken together with the erasure of
neighborhoods of color through redevelopment
during the same period, land use decisions
decimated these areas in the 1960s and 1970s .
The consequences of freeway construction in
Pasadena can be seen in both the broad effects
– social, economic, and physical – and the loss
of homes, businesses, and institutions in the
area now occupied by the SR-710 Freeway. The
construction of the 710 and 210 freeways has
had lasting impacts that are still felt today in
the physical landscape, the memories of former
residents and their descendants, and a profound
sense of loss for a neighborhood that is no longer
evident in Pasadena’s physical landscape .
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 89 Conclusion
• Eric Avila, “L.A.’s Invisible Freeway Revolt: The
Cultural Politics of Fighting Freeways.” Journal
of Urban History, 40, no. 5 (September 2014):
831–842 .
• Raymond A. Mohl, “Stop the Road: Freeway
Revolts in American Cities.” Journal of Urban
History, 30, no. 5 (July 2004): 674–706.
• Deborah N. Archer, “White Men’s
Roads Through Black Men’s Homes:
Advancing Racial Equity Through Highway
Reconstruction,” Vanderbilt Law Review 73,
no. 5 (October 2020): 1259-1330.
• Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law: A
Forgotten History of How Our Government
Segregated America (New York: Liveright
Publishing, 2017).
• Sally Bagshaw, Scott Bonjukian, and John
Feit, “Reconnecting What Freeways Severed:
Addressing the Historical Toll on Communities
Split By Highways,” Harvard University
Advance Leadership Initiative Social Impact
Review, https://www.sir .advancedleadership.
harvard.edu/articles/reconnecting-what-
freeways-severed-addressing-the-historical-
toll-on-communities-split-by-highways
.
For more on the end of the freeway era, see:
• Brian Taylor, “Why California Stopped Building
Freeways,” ACCESS Magazine (1993) .
• Brian Taylor, “Public Perceptions, Fiscal
Realities, and Freeway Planning: The
California Case,” Journal of the American
Planning Association
(Winter 1995) .
• Raymond A. Mohl, “Stop the Road: Freeway
Revolts in American Cities.” Journal of Urban
History, 30 no. 5 (2004): 674-706.
• Raymond A. Mohl, “The Interstates and the
Cities: The U.S. Department of Transportation
and the Freeway Revolt, 1966-1973.” The
Journal of Policy History, 20
no . 2 (2008):
193-226.
• Raymond A. Mohl, The Interstates and the
Cities: Highways, Housing, and the Freeway
Revolt. Poverty and Race Research Action
Council (2002) .
Architectural Resources Group | Historic Report on the 710 Displacement - Task 1 90 Bibliography
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Historic Report on the 710 Displacement, Task I
ARCHITECTURAL RESOURCES GROUP
Appendix A: Division of Highways Right of Way Maps
Historic Report on the 710 Displacement, Task I
ARCHITECTURAL RESOURCES GROUP
Appendix B: Right of Way Map Listings
710 Study Area Property Owners Source: Division of Highways Right-of-Way Maps Map No. Parcel No. Grantor/Grantee Recording Date Street Street Address Purchase Type F-1214-4 C5624 Nakamura 8/4/1967 Kensington Pl. Fee
F-1214-4 C5625 Kodama, et ux 3/20/1967 Kensington Pl. Fee F-1214-4 C5626 Yamashita, et ux 3/21/1967 Kensington Pl. Fee F-1214-4 C5627 Brand 6/22/1967 Kensington Pl. Fee
F-1214-4 C5628 Huber 4/11/1967 Kensington Pl. Fee
F-1214-4 C5629 Inovye 1/16/1968 Kensington Pl. Fee
F-1214-4 C5630-C5630-1 1st African Church 12/21/1966 Vernon Ave. Fee F-1214-4 C5634 Fletcher, et ux 3/3/1967
Kensington Pl. /
Millard Ave. Fee
F-1214-4 C5635 Carino 2/10/1967 Millard Ave. Fee
F-1214-4 C5636 Holtz, et ux 2/28/1967 Kensington Pl. Fee F-1214-4 C5638 Junius, et ux 2/10/1967 Kensington Pl. Fee F-1214-4 C5639 Ramirez 8/4/1967 Mary St. Fee
F-1214-4 C5640 Williams, et ux 4/3/1967 Kensington Pl. Fee F-1214-4 C5641 Castleton, et ux 2/28/1967 Kensington Pl. Fee F-1214-4 C5642 Cosmopolitan Realty 3/24/1967 Mary St. Fee F-1214-4 C5643 Koch, et ux 2/3/1967 Kensington Pl. Fee
F-1214-4 C5644 Taylor, et ux 5/15/1967 Kensington Pl. Fee F-1214-4 C5645 Lewis, et ux 2/28/1967 Kensington Pl. Fee F-1214-4 C5646 Yamaoka. et al 4/21/1967 Kensington Pl. Fee F-1214-4 C5647 Yamaoka. et al 4/25/1967 Mary St. Fee
F-1214-4 C5648 Pasadena Union Presbyterian Church 6/12/1967 Kensington Pl. Fee F-1214-4 C5650 Milton 2/14/1967
Vernon Ave. / Mary
S
t. Fee