Old Pasadena

This guide to Old Pasadena in Los Angeles opens on Colorado Boulevard in the nineteen seventies, when empty upper floors sat above pawn shops, porn theaters and tattoo parlors and locals called the street skid row. It follows a fight between the city and local merchants over an unlikely proposal, parking meters, and what changed their minds about them. Listen for the ornate brick and terra cotta cornices still visible above the modern shopfronts.