Loading Dot

This might be the cleanest loading dock I've ever seen. It faces the alley behind Cook Books and The Archives Bookstore on Washington Blvd. at Hill. (The mind-boggling Cook Books store will be featured here Monday.)

I think this is an early 20th century building, say, before about 1940. It's easy to make such a guess, as Pasadena was incorporated in 1886.

The "dots" on the upper part of the building are washers or plates that anchor reinforcing bolts, or tie rods, to protect the building from bowing. Some plates are even designed to prevent bolt heads from pulling through the brick. You can tell by the relatively random pattern that the tie rods were added later and not part of the original design. You'll see a lot of these around Pasadena in older buildings, because tie rods are popular (if sometimes futile) in earthquake zones.

Pasadena has a lot of these old brick buildings, well-preserved and put to good use. They feel Midwestern to me, and since I grew up in Illinois, it's one reason I feel so at home here. You can't beat it—a bit of Midwest, with California weather.