INTRODUCTION TO ALTADENA


When people hear the disyllabic sounds, “alta” and “dena,” I would wager that most of them think of the well-known City of Industry-based Alta Dena Dairy, which was started by the three, Missouri-born Stueve Brothers in Monrovia, California in 1945. Oddly, more than five minutes of internet research haven’t helped me figure out why they named their dairy after a fellow San Gabriel Mountains community located some miles west of their hometown. Nonetheless, I based my map's "typeface" on their logo.



For a community that's never bothered incorporating, Altadena seems to have a very strong sense of pride, place and community. The first time I think I visited Altadena involved walking there from my workplace in Pasadena. Although my journey involved little more than crossing a freeway, once I arrived I felt as if, proverbially speaking, I was no longer in Kansas.


CHARACTER AND CHARACTERIZATION OF ALTADENA

INTRODUCTION TO PASADENA


Well, I can now admit (now that I'm finally done with it) that I honestly waited and prayed that another neighborhood or community would pass Pasadena in the polls. 

At the time of writing, Bunker Hill (in Downtown Los Angeles), El Monte (in the San Gabriel Valley), Lincoln Heights (in The Eastside) and Mt. Washington (in Northeast LA) are all tied for second place. All of those places seem comparatively way more manageable. Pasadena, I worried, is just too big to summarize in a single blog entry. True, I've tackled the larger (population-wise) Glendale as well as Long Beach (the second largest city in LA County -- after Los Angeles, of course). But even at ninth largest in population (also exceeded by the populations of Santa Clarita in Northwest County, Lancaster and Palmdale in the Antelope Valley, Pomona in the Pomona Valley and Torrance in the South Bay) but Pasadena is big in other ways -- almost too stuffed with culture and history to address in this format.  Alas, however, the people have spoken, so this entry is indeed about Pasadena. Now that I'm finally done, I hope it approaches adequate.

THE VERDUGOS

 

The Verdugos region of LA County lies between the San Gabriel Mountains, the Verdugo Mountains (or Verdugo Hills) and the San Rafael Hills. The residents mostly live in the Crescenta Valley and the less-developed ranges that surround it. It includes the communities of (parts of) Glendale, La Cañada-Flintridge, La Crescenta-Montrose, La Tuna Canyon, (parts of) Pasadena, Sunland and Tujunga. It's surrounded by the San Fernando Valley to the west, the San Gabriel Valley to the east, Northeast LA to the south, the Mideast Side to the southwest and the Angeles Forest to the north. The inhabitants of the region are approximately 50% white, 23% Latino, 13% Asian and 8% black.