Los Angeles Relocation Guide - Antevia

The popularity of the region drew numbers from across country and Pasadena eventuallybecame a key stop along the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, which led to anexplosion in its growth. From the real estate boom of the 1880's until the GreatDepression, as great tourists hotels were developed in the city, Pasadena became a winterresort for wealthy easterners. The first of the great hotels to be established in Pasadenawas the Raymond (1886) which sat atop Bacon Hill, renamed Raymond Hill afterconstruction. The original Mansard Victorian 200-room facility burned down on EasterSunday morning of 1895 and was not rebuilt until 1903. It was lost during the GreatDepression and torn down to make way for residential development. The Maryland Hotelexisted from the early 1900's and was also lost during the Depression in 1934.Two hotel structures have survived to the present day. The Green Hotel and the Vista DelArroyo.Hotel GreenThe Hotel Green started construction on South Raymond Avenue at Kansas Street in1887 by Mr. E.C. Webster who was unable to finish it. Colonel George Gill Green, awealthy patent medicine distributor from New Jersey, finished the six-story edifice in1888. In 1898 he finished construction on a second grand edifice on the other side ofRaymond and connected the two buildings, the first now called an annex, with a bridgeand a tunnel. The magnate patrons and their families would arrive by train at the stationadjacent the annex. They would proceed to the second floor where they were trammedacross the newer section and go directly to their suites. The luggage was ferried acrossthrough the tunnel. In 1902 the hotel was extended to the P.G. Wooster building at thecorner of Fair Oaks Avenue and Green Street. In 1924 the hotel became a privateresidence. The annex was razed to its first story and sold away as private property, todayknown as Stat's Floral Supply. In 1970 the two wings of the hotel were closed off to eachother creating two separate buildings. The 1898 section remained the private residencenow called the Castle Green. The 1902 portion was taken over by the government's HUDprogram for senior residents and mentally impaired, and is called the Green Hotel. In1929 Kansas Street was widened and renamed Green Street.Vista del ArroyoThe Vista Del Arroyo Hotel on Grand Avenue, which the Navy commandeered for use asa hospital during World War II, now houses the United States Court of Appeals for theNinth Circuit.Pasadena's role as a regional hub was cemented by numerous other events, among themthe Tournament of Roses Parade which began in 1889, the construction and opening ofthe Colorado Street Bridge, also known as "Suicide Bridge" from the period of the GreatDepression, the Arroyo Parkway, now Pasadena Freeway, opened as the first freeway in