Throat-Clearing

Just south of yesterday's photo is this empty building. I had stopped to take pictures of the Bellefontaine Nursery building when this one gave a sharp whistle and said, "Hey! Take my picture, too."

I think this is the structure a friend of mine meant when she commented on Facebook about yesterday's picture of the Bellefontaine building. "I love the brick building next to it. I've been after the owner for years to rent it to me. It's empty and doing nothing. It would make a cute sandwich shop."

You know, it would. And right there amid the Huntington Hospital complex, somebody could make some money.

I'm aware some people are going to look at this and see a tear-down but I like every detail, from the dry, cracked wood at the bottom of the green door to the tattered curtains in the windows. Imagine the musty smell inside. What's in there, do you suppose? What did this place used to be? Do traces of its former purpose linger? Dishes? Old wires? A printing press?

I've never studied architecture and I was a lukewarm student of history. Now, though, perhaps because I'm getting older (as old as some charismatic architecture), buildings are beginning to tell me stories. Some are louder and more articulate than others but all of them talk, and the older they get the more they have to say.

Bellefontaine Nursery

This is one of those times when I find a picture of something I like and I figure I'll post it, no big deal. Then I find out it's got a story behind it. In this case, 72 years of Pasadena history.

One of my favorite buildings in Pasadena houses the Bellefontaine Nursery at 838 S. Fair Oaks. I can't help but notice the building because it's so much older (circa 1900?) than the new, beige, high-gloss Huntington Hospital complex that stands poised to trample it without so much as a glance over its nondescript shoulder.

Let's hope that doesn't happen. I don't know what lived here prior to 1939, but since then it's been home to the Bellefontaine Nursery, founded and owned by successive generations of the Uchida family since the beginning.

Current partner Alan J. Uchida has written an absorbing history of his family's business, complete with black & white photos. He glosses over the bizarre World War II period during which Japanese Americans, including the Uchidas, were sent to internment camps: "Fortunately, with the help of watchful friends, the Uchida family was able to retain their nursery which was closed from 1942 to 1945." What a gentle, generous way to say what happened to his family.

How must it have felt, that day in 1945, to have shaken the hand of your loyal (Caucasian?) friend and accepted your keys from him or her, then to open the door of the nursery? Did the outer door stick, just a bit? Did the screen door whisper a familiar screech? The sun would have streamed in the east windows, giving even the dust a welcoming gleam. The air would have been stuffy but in it you would sense a hint of your own past presence--your future, too--still there, if barely, needing nothing more than everything you could give.