Mystery History -- Solved

I stumped everybody again, although everybody was close in one way or another.

In the circa 1910 photo above, Hanhichi Wakiji, front right, poses with staff at the Nippon Nursery at 1505 E. Orange Grove, which he founded in 1905.

Born in 1876 in Japan, he set sail in 1895 for San Francisco where he worked as a houseboy before coming to Pasadena. He was only the second Pasadena pioneer born in Japan (Toichiro Kawai was the first).

With so many hotels and mansions being built by and for wealthy captains of industry from the east coast, Hanhichi saw a need and capitalized on it.

After learning the trade from the owner of Rust Nursery Company in South Pasadena, he founded his Nippon Nursery Company with two partners who soon after moved back to Japan, after which he bought them out and became sole proprietor.

Nippon Nursery provided palms, ferns, roses, evergreens and ornamental trees to hotels and middle- to upper-class residential properties throughout Pasadena and Altadena. It became a thriving enterprise and Hanhichi a prominent businessman.

La Pintoresca Hotel at the northeast corner of Fair Oaks and Washington was one of his many clients:


Hanhichi and his wife Taeno raised six children at 1485 E. Orange Grove, near the nursery, and were one of only three Japanese families living east of Lake Avenue. At the time, most Japanese families lived in what was for many years known as Japantown in what is now Pasadena's Central District.

Here's the family circa 1922:


And a formal family portrait about 10 years later:


The children -- Masa born 1912, James Hajime born 1914, Kaoru born 1916, Takeko born 1919, Mari born 1922 and George Minoru born 1929 -- attended Thomas Jefferson Elementary School and John Marshall Junior High School. Five of the six attended Pasadena High School and Pasadena Junior College; Masa was educated in Japan during her high school years.

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, the Wakiji family was among many that were evacuated from the west coast of the mainland to internment camps farther inland. The Wakijis went through the processing center at Santa Anita Racetrack and were sent to the Gila River Relocation Camp.


By the time they returned to Pasadena in 1945, Nippon Nursery had fallen into a state of neglect so Hanhichi enlisted help in putting it back into shape quickly and rebuilding the business. He experienced discriminatory post-war comments about the name Nippon (the native name for Japan) so he changed the name to Wakiji Nursery.

Here's the extended family in the 1950s with Hanhichi and Taeno sitting in front:


Hanhichi retired in the mid-1950s. Two of his children continued to operate the business for another decade until they closed shop after he died in 1966.

Hanhichi and Taeno Wakiji are buried at the Mountain View Cemetery in Altadena.


Many thanks to the Wakiji family, the Japanese American National Museum and the National Archives.

Through a Glass Wetly

I shot this on Monday at about 11:15 a.m. using a zoom through through the window of my office in the southwest wing on the second floor of City Hall.

There was a lull in the rain at that moment.

The Pasadena Robinson Memorial, seen through the branches of a magnolia tree, is highlighted with a splash of pink. The peach trees, in full blossom, commemorate the state of the Robinsons' birth: Georgia.

The bronze sculptures by Ralph Helmick, John Outterbridge and Stuart Schechter commemorate the lives of Jackie and Mack Robinson. If you've never taken a closer look, stop by sometime because the entire public art installation is extraordinary.

John Outterbridge is one of America’s most prominent African American artists who has another piece of public art in Pasadena: "Window with Ball." Ralph Helmick and Stuart Schechter are well-known artists from the east coast with commissions across the country.

Mystery History

Where are we? And who are these people?

The first person to guess correctly will win a fabulous prize!

I'll have the full scoop on Thursday.

First-ever Pasadena Collegiate Field Tournament

Today at the first-ever Pasadena Collegiate Field Tournament at the Rose Bowl Stadium, we proved that we're a college town extraordinaire when teams from Art Center College of Design, Caltech, Fuller Theological Seminary, Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts, Pacific Oaks College and Pasadena City College competed for the top prize in a series of goofball challenges.

In the photo above, PCC President Lisa Sugimoto presents a platter of burgers to the judges during the Cheeseburger Challenge.

During this challenge, teams of two from each college had to assemble a grill and prepare cheeseburgers to wow the palates of judges (seated left to right below) restaurateur Jack Huang, City Councilwoman Jacque Robinson and Honda Design Center Director Dave Marek.


Here's the Art Center team creatively assembling their grill.


And a member of the Fuller team faithfully biding her time while the meat marinades, a technique they prayed would get them high marks.


The judges may have needed some Alka Seltzer by the time this competition was over!



The team from Le Cordon Bleu won the challenge.

A fun little irony was that the food cooked in the Cheeseburger Challenge was for the judges; when noon rolled around and people got hungry, Robin's was there with cheeseburgers, hot dogs and lemonade to the save the day. (That's Fuller PR Director Fred Messick waving.)


But wait -- I'm getting ahead of myself.

It all started with the National Anthem sung by a chorus made up of one member of each college team plus a referee.


John Rabe of KPCC Radio's "Off-Ramp" served as master of ceremonies.


During each challenge, teams racked up points, with some shaved off if necessary for penalties, and the team with the highest score at the end of the tournament won the grand prize.

In the Monster Croquet challenge, teams had to use a monster-size mallet to push a monster-size ball through monster-size wickets. Here's the Cordon Bleu team:


The Art Center team (with a Cordon Bleu interloper):


Then it was the Frisbee Toss. Teams had to catch Frisbees tossed from downfield in the time allotted. Here's PCC:


And Le Cordon Bleu:


For the meteor toss, each team was provided with a bag in which there were pieces of fabric and some duct tape. They had to create what they thought would be the perfect catching implement for a series of "meteors" that were lobbed at them. This may have been the most important challenge of all because each team was charged with saving the world from certain destruction!

The Pacific Oaks team had their strategy for assembly...


...and Art Center had theirs:


All of the teams were fearless against the hurtling meteors -- from tennis balls to potatoes -- hurled via slingshot by Eric Duyshart, the city's economic development manager:


Here's Caltech saving planet earth:



In the Blind Faith Challenge, each team had one blindfolded member who had to take a series of pennants from the field, guided only by the voices of teammates. Here's the PCC team:


Next it was the Giant Puzzle Race. In this competition, teams had to run to the far side of the field to get individual puzzle pieces color-coded for their specific colleges, then run back and assemble them.


Once the puzzles were assembled, they revealed a map of sorts showing the various college locations and then some.


The Art Center team couldn't help themselves -- after this competition was over they created a sculpture with the puzzle pieces!



Before I forget, each team had a station complete with a bench and a round throw. Here's the Pacific Oaks station, which they appropriately adorned with children's pinwheels:


And here's Jered Gold, Art Center's director of public relations and communications, on the college's iconic orange dot:


While I make you wait in suspense about which college took the grand prize, here's Tony Bondi, president of Le Cordon Bleu:


The teams also earned points for their uniforms. Art Center's uniforms were an homage to the college's founder, Edward "Tink" Adams.

And Caltech students donned Albert Einstein wigs, although they took them off during physical competitions.


Many people from the community stopped by to watch the action, including Phoebe and Larry Wilson:


And now, without further ado, the college with the highest number of points overall: Caltech!


Mayor Bill Bogaard presented the trophy to the team leader...


...then all of the teammates shared in the thrill of victory.

By the time everyone was leaving the stadium, the trophy was entrusted to Caltech President Jean-Lou Chameau for safe-keeping.


Final team scores (along with their team colors), provided by Eric Duyshart:

Caltech 194
PCC 162
Fuller 160
Le Cordon Bleu 145
Art Center 143
Pacific Oaks 139

The entire event was shown live on the stadium's big screens. I'm told it was also recorded, so whenever I get a DVD I'll do some editing and run it on KPAS.



Gigantic kudos to Eric Duyshart, Ariel Penn and others in the Planning and Development Department who made this event happen, and thanks so much to all the colleges for participating!

Mystery History -- Solved (Really)

Bellis wins for her 2:34 p.m. Wednesday guess "Fire at the Orban Lumber Yard at the corner of Green Street and Pasadena Avenue on the 23 March 1958. Sad to see so much wood go up in smoke."

Sure enough, in the photo above, the place went up in a blaze of glory after 54 years of business.

This was no small incident, as evidenced in these photos:



The fire was in the pre-dawn hours of March 23, 1958.

Established in 1904, Orban Lumber was a fixture in town until the fateful night of the devastating fire. It was founded by Peter Orban, who became a prominent Pasadena businessman active in the Chamber of Commerce. Orban Lumber expanded into Whittier in 1913 and the Inland Empire soon after.

Pasadena was incorporated as a city in 1886 and the Pasadena Fire Department was established the following year with a whopping budget of $1,000.

It took a little time to get the ball rolling. The event that started it all was in 1885 when some boys threw a stone into a building that was being used by Chinese immigrants as a laundry. The stone tipped over a kerosene lamp, starting a fire that burned the building to the ground.

Here's a photo circa 1910 of a horse-drawn fire wagon in Central Park.



Pasadena's very first fire station was on Dayton Street between Fair Oaks and De Lacey. The building still stands today at 37 W. Dayton St.



The Pasadena Fire Museum is at Station 31, 135 S. Fair Oaks Ave. right across the street from Central Park and around the corner from that first station. Stop by sometime and take a look at the historic photos and other memorabilia.


And be sure to say hello and thanks to the firefighters while you're there!

Mystery History -- Solved

Kevin Brechner wins with his 11:47 a.m. Wednesday guess "It is a shot of a city council meeting discussion between Issac Richards and Rick Cole."

In the photo above, a raging fire on May 26, 1992, in Centennial Square in front of Pasadena City Hall is reduced to white smoke by the quick thinking of three Pasadena Fire Department engine companies, which also provided paramedic services during the unfortunate event.

During the Pasadena City Council meeting that evening, Councilman Isaac Richard...


...and Mayor Rick Cole...


...had a disagreement over which of the two was more compassionate toward code-violating constituents in their districts (1 and 2 respectively).

The regaled each other and the audience with example after example of their righteousness.

Isaac insisted he was more compassionate, having looked the other way when a herd of cats used their matted whiskers to dial 9-1-1 so they could be rescued from their owner, a serious hoarder who had lost her sense of smell, not to mention her hair.



Unwilling to accept defeat, Rick tearfully told how he completely ignored one neighbor's complaints about another neighbor's high fence in Bungalow Heaven. Rick insisted he ignored it in the public interest: After all, the house wasn't even a Craftsman.



The one-upsmanship continued for hours.

Isaac and Rick kept their composure as long as they could but finally the heat of their anger filled the council chamber with thick smoke.

First the fire marshal cleared the room...


...then the sergeant at arms ordered everyone down to the street.


Everybody chose sides and the fists began to fly.


This behavior proved too much for Katie Nack, the only female on the council, whose delicate sensibilities could take no more.


So she transformed into her alter ego and ended the chaos for good by body-slamming Isaac Richard and cold-cocking Rick Cole.


I was there that night, people. I was forever changed.


OK, fine -- April Fools!!! I'll have the true Mystery History reveal tomorrow.

Many thanks to Larry Wilson for the photo of Isaac Richard.