State Theatre

The old Pasadena is gone. All the original movie theaters that once lined Colorado Blvd are now long gone! That includes The UA, the Esquire, the Colorado and the State. Even the UA Marketplace in Old Town Pasadena is gone. The only theaters that are left on Colorado are the Laemelle Playhouse 7 and the ghost of the once lovely Academy Theater – now living out the last years of her life as a 6 theater multi-plex. A real shame. The Pacific Hastings theater at Foothill and Rosemead is now closed. I used to go to the State when it was a revival house and pass the time before the showtimes at the old Bungalow News which stocked every newspaper and magazine you can imagine and did not care if you stayed there and read for a few minutes or a few hours. Used to love the smell of that place; the smell of newsprint like a bookstore is supposed to smell. Now closed – a victim of the soaring rents in Pasadena and the so-called “Playhouse District.” If all this is not bad enough, the City of Pasasdena has begun a policy of cutting down all the beautiful ficus trees that line the boulevard including the ones in front of Vroman’s Bookstore and Cliff’s Books. Rumor has it that the owner of Vroman’s is behind it and if that is the case I will not be giving them another penny of my money and am encouraging people to boycott the store. I used to support Vroman’s but cannot anymore. Colorado Blvd. is now nothing but an ugly and over priced retail district with ugly and over-priced condos. The trees gave shade and beauty and used to make it nice. No more.

Here is a 1984 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/coc9pv

One remaining holdout of a bygone era is Canterbury Records, just up the street. They are struggling to hold on but you can still find many rare items there you never see anywhere else.

I took a walk around the building today:
http://tinyurl.com/qy5a3m
http://tinyurl.com/p6k7ct

Here’s a photo I shot back in 2000 of the marquee before it closed down:

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