Behind Pasadena’s Rose-Colored Glasses, a City of Diversity : Parade: Colorful floats and spirited bands will take a tour of the city’s high and low points.

There is a popular theory that views the Tournament of Roses as a prime reason-- the prime reason--for the population explosion in Southern California.

Every year on New Year’s Day, millions of shivering Easterners and Midwesterners tune their television sets to the festivities in Pasadena. What they see is a compelling small-screen vision of balmy revelry, complete with suntanned princesses, football players in short sleeves, swirls of flowers and sun-dappled mountains. Then, migrating like lemmings, dazzled television viewers join the westward march.

So goes the theory.

For a century, Pasadenans have treasured that vision of their city as a place where dreams come true and the weather’s fine any time of year.

But behind the image of civilized hoopla is a complicated city of 132,000, struggling fitfully to reconcile its diverse elements. These days, the once-idyllic community--which seems to stretch across the map of the western San Gabriel Valley like a child’s bib--has gangs, drugs, smog and a running debate on development. But it also can boast of visionary entrepreneurship, socially concerned city leaders, impressive arts and educational institutions and--especially during the holiday season--a spirit of optimism.

“The Tournament focuses international attention on the city,” said Pasadena Mayor William Thomson, “but it’s also a time of celebration within the city. We tend to put aside our troubles and differences and focus on the good things in our lives.”

The Rose Parade, which began 101 years ago as a horse-and-buggy romp through wrestern Pasadena, now cuts through the geographical and economic heart of the city. For discerning Pasadenans, the 5.5-mile parade route represents a brief tour of the city’s high points and low points.

It begins, fittingly, on Orange Grove Boulevard, where the city itself began in the late 19th Century. The parade starts out from the heart of well-to-do Pasadena, in a palmy section south of the Rose Bowl called “Millionaire’s Row.”

By 8:10 a.m. today, when the Riverside Community College Marching Tigers Band leads the parade down the boulevard, the neighborhood will be crammed with floats and marchers.

For well-heeled residents, this is something between a nuisance and a blessing. “You sort of can’t live with it and you can’t live without it,” said Ken Grobecker, who grumbles good-naturedly about the parade goers who jam the west Pasadena neighborhood each year.

The parade moves out slowly, passing the sprawling Norton Simon Museum of Art, then moving into Old Pasadena, the city’s commercial district.

Old Pasadena is where city planners like to tout their city’s spirit of creativity. In less than 10 years, the area has gone from Skid Row to “Westwood East.” Buildings that once moldered in disuse now house a Cajun restaurant, a fitness club, an espresso bar and a disco. More than 120 new businesses have opened there since 1980.

Doug Brignole was one of the pioneers. He bought an 80-year-old DeLacey Avenue stable in 1985 and turned it into a prosperous health club.

Not everyone is overjoyed about the crowds of young urban professionals surging from shop to shop.

“It has a shiny new coat of paint, but, yeah, it’s lost something,” said Paul Elliott, a former Art Center College of Design student.

“My favorite place was a bar called Hazel’s,” he said, “where the old-timers used to sit at the bar and drink straight shots of whiskey. . . . Now I see they’ve built a Benetton’s where the Salvation Army used to be. That’s the end of any neighborhood.”

His is a minority view. Cassandra Einstein, a San Marino artist who sips cafe au lait at a Colorado Boulevard cafe, likes it just fine.

“Everybody who lives in Hollywood thinks this is the slow lane out here,” said Einstein, a recent Los Angeles transplant. “But this is a charming little place to get yourself together in the morning.”

A mile or so to the north of the parade route, Carolyn Stonestreet sits on a bench at a Fair Oaks Avenue bus stop, talking about her troubled life in northwest Pasadena.

“I’m basically homeless now,” she said. “I’m staying with my sister and her boyfriend. I took my kids to their grandmother.”

Stonestreet’s problems began when, after a long custody fight for her children--now 5 and 9--she was dismissed by the pharmaceutical firm where she had worked for 14 years.

“Welfare sent me to a shelter in downtown Los Angeles,” she said, sobbing quietly. “I was terrified. I came back to Pasadena and told the social worker it was unbelievable. I’d rather sleep on the streets over here than go back over there.”

This is the neighborhood where the underclass of Pasadena lives. Predominantly black, northwest Pasadena had about 102 drive-by shootings in 1989. Six people were killed and 69 injured--many of them innocent bystanders--in shooting incidents, police say.

The neighborhood also has many hard-working homeowners and apartment dwellers, sometimes overwhelmed by the crime around them. “The attitude by the authorities seems to be, as long as it’s not blown out of proportion, let it go,” one resident said.

“It’s a population that’s basically a labor population” but “there’s not a single smokestack in Pasadena,” said Ibrahim Naeem, director of the Pasadena-Foothill Branch of the Los Angeles Urban League.

The result is a vast gap between haves and have-nots. A city commission on youth and families recently compared income levels in a census tract in northwest Pasadena with one in wealthy west Pasadena. They found a $68,170 difference in median family income.

Often, that gap translates into a black Pasadena and a white Pasadena, black leaders contend. “The city’s attitude in the past can be called neglect at best,” Naeem said.

The Board of City Directors (Pasadena’s city council) has tried recently to assuage the restive black community, which constitutes about 25% of the city. Last month, after months of criticism, the board authorized a $100,000 audit of city personnel practices to determine whether city policies have been racist or sexist over the past five years.

When the parade reaches the corner of Marengo Avenue, it is in developer territory, say slow-growth activists.

The construction of the two-block Plaza Pasadena mall, between Marengo and Los Robles avenues, was one of the first signs that the city was on a no-holds-barred growth track, said Mike Salazar, co-chairman of Pasadenan Residents In Defense of our Environment (PRIDE).

After 1977, when the Community Redevelopment Agency demolished such older structures as the Pasadena Athletic Club to make way for the mall, slow-growth resistance started to build. There were early battles, like a 1980 petition drive that ultimately stopped a plan for twin office towers in the middle of town. But boxy office towers continued to spring up, particularly along traffic-clogged Lake and Los Robles avenues.

City planners say 156 office buildings have been built in the city since 1980, almost doubling office space to about 9.7 million square feet. At the same time, condominium projects popped up like toadstools.

“People would go to the city and complain that it wasn’t fair to their neighborhoods, which had been single-family homes for years,” said Claire Bogaard, executive director of the preservation group Pasadena Heritage. “But generally the developers got their way.”

The scene was set for a battle at the polls. Last March, PRIDE won, as 57% of the voters approved a measure to restrict new housing and large commercial projects.

City leaders worry that the measure will stifle the entrepreneurial spirit that brought Pasadena out of economic doldrums. “It’s already causing a housing scarcity and driving up prices,” Mayor Thomson said.

William Podley, president of the Pasadena-based real estate firm of Podley Caughey Associates, says prices are indeed skyrocketing.

“Properties we handled last year for $190,000 or $195,000 are going for $240,000, maybe even $250,000.” he said.

The parade passes Hill Avenue, a main thoroughfare for Pasadena City College and, a few blocks to the south, Caltech. A mile north of the route, on Washington Boulevard, Mary Donikian doles out baklava for a customer at the American Armenian Grocery.

It is a fragrant place, full of the dried fruits, nuts and cheeses that Armenians serve during the holidays.

Armenians used to celebrate Christmas on Jan. 6, commemorating the arrival of the three kings on the Day of Epiphany. “But we’re getting used to American ways,” said Donikian, who came to the United States from Lebanon 10 years ago.

Getting used to those ways has been tough going for many of Pasadena’s 15,000 Armenians. Refugees from discrimination in the Middle East and repression in the Soviet Union, most arrive with little knowledge of English and few job skills.

Yet Pasadena has accepted them with extraordinary generosity, Armenian leaders say.

In 1985, the Board of Directors gave Armenians a special protected status in awarding city contracts and recruiting for city jobs. Now, a polling firm is conducting the first-ever Armenian census to implement an affirmative action program.

It has not been easy sledding, said Serge Samoniantz, whose firm is doing the census.

“Those who have had experience with local government in the Soviet Union are extremely distrustful of anything that smacks of government,” Samoniantz said.

A hard right onto Sierra Madre Boulevard, and the parade comes to rest in Victory Park, where the colorful floats are then put on display.

It’s an appropriate resting place. Eastern Pasadena is the middle-income, home-owning bedrock of the city. The residents here are civil servants, contractors, small-business owners.

A few blocks east of Victory Park is Upper Hastings Ranch, a hillside neighborhood of winding streets and slanted roofs.

The holiday season is their neighborhood’s time to shine.

For the past 34 years, residents have lit up the night with a torrent of Christmas lights. So extravagant is the display that tour buses and long lines of cars edge through narrow streets.

Committees impose unifying themes on each block--Cartwright Street has the 12 Days of Christmas--and a panel of judges awards prizes for the best use of lights and the best humorous display.

The Upper Hastings Ranch “light-up,” as residents call it, is brilliant but, in the end, ephemeral. From her front lawn, Dottie Csik, whose evergreen bushes are seeded with tiny white lights, takes in the short-lived illumination.

“After New Year’s, it’s like a morgue around here,” she said.

Rose Parade Starts at 8:10 A.M.

The 101st Tournament of Roses Parade begins at 8:10 a.m. at Orange Grove and Del Mar boulevards, proceeds east along Colorado Boulevard to Sierra Madre Boulevard and ends at Paloma Street about two hours later. Post-parade viewing opens at 1:30 p.m. For more information, the parade hot line is (818) 584-5983.

THE ORDER OF MARCH 1. Riverside Community College Band 2. Quarter Horse Assn. Equestrian Group 3. American Honda Motor Co. Float 4. Bashkir Curly Registry Equestrian Group 5. Slice Float 6. Spirit of America Foundation Float 7. U.S. Marine Corps Color Guard Equestrian Group 8. Grand Marshal 9. U.S. Marine Corps Marching Band 10. BC&T; Workers Union Float 11. Cal Poly Float 12. Montie Montana Group (Equestrian) 13. ARCO Float 14. Zurich Police Band 15. Glendale Float 16. Carnation Float 17. T of R Royal Court Float 18. PCC Honor Band 19. Duarte/City of Hope Float 20. George Putnam Group (Equestrian) 21. K Mart Float 22. Wee Wheelers Miniature Group (Equestrian) 23. Burbank Float 24. Tournament President 25. Alexis I. duPont Marching Band 26. Sea World Float 27. Richard Saukko White Group (Equestrian) 28. Los Angeles Float 29. Valley Hunt Club Equestrian Group 30. Pacific-10 Conference Float 31. Pacific-10 Conference Band 32. Casablanca Fans Float 33. Belles & Beaus of 1800s Equestrian Group 34. Mississippi Float 35. Mayor of Pasadena 36. Arcadia Float 37. Bill Stack Arabian Group (Equestrian) 38. Odd Fellows & Rebekahs Float 39. Castle Park High School Marchers 40. La Canada Flintridge Float 41. Big Ten Conference Float 42. Big Ten Conference Band 43. Dr. Pepper Float 44. Palos Verdes Peruvian Pasos Equestrian Group 45. First Interstate Bank Float 46. International Andalusians Equestrian Group 47. FTD Float 48. Security Pacific Bank Float 49. The Salvation Army Band 50. Baskin Robbins Ice Cream Float 51. I.H.O.P. Float 52. Medieval Times Horse Group 53. Golden State Foods Float 54. Moanaloa High School Band 55. Portland Rose Festival Float 56. Ebony Horsewomen Equestrian Group 57. Torrance Float 58. American Riding Club/Handicapped Equestrian Group 59. Puerto Rico Float 60. Jefferson High School Band 61. Bank of America Float 62. St. Louis Float 63. Long Beach Mounted Police Group 64. Elks Float 65. Cicero High School Band 66. Transamerica Life Float 67. Indian Group (Iron Eyes Cody) (Equestrian) 68. Rand McNally Float 69. Ft. Hauchuca B Troop Equestrian Group 70. Cooper High School Band 71. Kiwanis International Float 72. General Motors / UAW Float 73. Western Group (Equestrian) 74. La-Z-Boy Float 75. South Pasadena Float 76. East Carteret High School Band 77. Galloping Gossips Equestrian Group 78. Eastman Kodak Float 79. UNOCAL Float 80. L.A. All-City High School Band 81. Better Homes & Gardens Float 82. Morgan Horse Assn. Equestrian Group 83. Republic of Indonesia Float 84. Sampoerna (Indonesia) Band 85. Farmers Insurance Float 86. Donkey & Mule Society Equestrian Group 87. Lawry’s Float 88. China Airlines Float 89. Grove City High School Band 90. Sierra Madre Float 91. Sheraton Corporation Float 92. Arabian Group Freddie Miller (Equestrian) 93. Malaysia Float 94. Tenri-Kiyo High School Band 95. Century 21 Float 96. Al Malaikah Silver Patrol Equestrian Group 97. Alhambra/Mobile Float 98. Golden Spike Riders Equestrian Group 99. Epson America Float 100. Missoula High School Band 101. Long Beach Float 102. Camarillo White Horse Group (Equestrian) 103. Rotary International Float 104. Martinez Horse Family Group (Equestrian) 105. California Federation of Women’s Clubs Float 106. Merced High School Band 107. Huntington Hotel Float 108. Sacramento Sheriff’s Posse Equestrian Group 109. Downey Float 110. Santa Ana Winds Youth Band 111. Lutheran Hour Float 112. Swirling Sands Drill Team Equestrian Group 113. Carson Float 114. One More Time Around Again Band 115. L.A. County Sheriff’s Patrol Equestrian Group