From Seedy to Trendy : Redevelopment: A once blighted area is now a hip entertainment mecca. But merchants fear success will bring Westwood-style woes.

It is a crisp Friday night in Old Pasadena and you are strolling along Colorado Boulevard, one soul among hundreds out on the town, destined for a trendy restaurant (probably Italian), a little shopping, maybe a movie.

Perhaps you’re heading for the X-rated sex shop. Whatever.

The atmosphere is festive, but even before the holidays, this was true. Musicians and magicians perform on the sidewalk. A sad-sack clown unrolls some toilet paper, carefully folds it and-- voila!-- it’s a rose. He adds a stem, tints the petals pink and yellow and baptizes it with a drop of sweet fragrance. You accept the flower and give him a dollar.

Across the way, in front of an art gallery and a few doors from the porno shop, 2 1/2-year-old Tracy McNulty moves to the curbside jazz rhythms of the Jimmie Owens Trio. “She heard the music and she wanted to dance,” says her mother, Chris. The McNultys, San Dimas residents, had friends in from out of town. What better place to go than Old Pasadena?

And to think, just six or seven years ago, these bustling streets were better known for their dive bars, thrift shops and vagrants--”the Skid Row of Pasadena,” as restaurateur Chipper Pastron remembers it.

In a megalopolis racked by crime and urban unrest, at a time when one out of every 10 Californians is out of work, Old Pasadena is an urban renewal success story, an entertainment mecca that draws visitors from throughout the region to its attractions--more than 60 restaurants, two cineplexes, a couple of pool halls, dozens of stores--all packed into an area that is blessed by historical architecture and easy freeway access.

Old Pasadena is so popular, in fact, that it is making people such as Pastron a little nervous. He is one of many business people here who admit to a nagging feeling that Old Pasadena’s good fortunes may be something of an illusion, that it could all prove to be too much of a good thing.

They sum up their worries in a single word: Westwood.

“Our fear is what happened in Westwood could happen here. It’s a reality of the times,” says Pastron, who with a partner owns the Rose City Diner, the Market City Caffe, Jake’s restaurant and Jake’s Billiards.

“It’s a little scary,” says Billy (Blu) Campisciano, proprietor of Art Blu, which sells “funky essentials” such as leather jackets of Billy Blu’s own design. “People are calling it ‘Eastwood’. . . . They fear it will blow out and go downhill.”

You remember Westwood, but you don’t get over there as much anymore, do you? In the late 1970s and early ‘80s, it was the place to be. But then, gradually, you saw it: The Invasion of the Teeny-Boppers. As the crowd got younger, Westwood got old.

Westwood’s worst-case scenario became reality in 1988. The gang gunfire that had become all too common in South-Central and the Eastside erupted amid Westwood’s crowds. A stray bullet struck a young woman named Karen Toshima in the head, killing her. A couple of years later came news of youths on a rampage because they could not get in to see the premiere of a movie about a Harlem drug lord. Although police statistics show Westwood Village as among the city’s safer locales, the image of danger still lurks.

So the trick for city officials and the business community is to make sure Old Pasadena does not unravel like a toilet paper rose. That is why the Pasadena Police Department has expanded its weekend foot patrol from two officers to six. Parking meters are being installed to raise funds for improved street lighting and other safety measures.

But those are relatively simple matters compared to the daunting task of trying to coordinate the competing interests of the many landlords and business interests. Unlike a mall with a single landlord who seeks a mix of complementary business, Old Pasadena is a laboratory of free enterprise where all sorts of entrepreneurs are trying to make a buck.

Up and down Colorado Boulevard, along cross streets such as Fair Oaks and Raymond avenues, merchants and restaurateurs see a potential for trouble.

“Too many kids on Rollerblades,” mutters Adrian Kalvinskas, owner of Distant Lands, a travel bookstore on Raymond. He says it self-consciously--just 27 years old and sounding like an old fuddy-duddy.

Like several business people here, Kalvinskas bemoans the fact that two fast-food outlets, a Subway and a Green Burrito, will soon occupy the ground floor of a handsome old bank building. Some pointedly note that Subway franchise just happens to be owned by the wife of a Pasadena city councilman.

“What’s next?” Kalvinskas asks. “Burger King and McDonald’s? I hope not.”

First come the teen-agers, then the fast food. That, some business people note, is precisely what happened in Westwood.

Another symptom is crime. “It’s a cumulative effect,” said Armen Shirvanian, a partner in Mi Piace, a trendy Italian restaurant with a sleek Westside-ish look. “Over at Rose City, kids dine and dash. There’s all these kids on skateboards and Rollerblades. We’ve all had our horror stories.”

Store owners tell of scattered thefts. And a few weeks ago, during the brunch hour on a weekend morning, another store was robbed at gunpoint.

Some business people complain about the 35er. It’s an old dive bar that was renovated to capitalize on the new foot traffic. In Old Pasadena--where Barney’s Ltd. serves as a hangout for locals, Q’s has a dress code, and The Mecca Room serves expensive umbrella drinks--the 35er has the reputation of a party-animal saloon, complete with the occasional fistfight.

So you ask manager Jeannine Terzo if it’s really true.

Terzo sighs and shrugs. “We get blamed for everything that happens on this corner.”

But it’s also true that few places bridge Old Pasadena’s past and present quite like the 35er, a place named for the days when it served well drinks for 35 cents. It’s been in the Terzo family for 30 years, and before it was remodeled, Jeannine says, “this was a dump.”

Her tone is nostalgic, with a pride and affection that belies her words.

“You’d sit in a booth and you’d sort of sink. Your feet would stick to the floor it was so filthy. . . . The ceiling was yellow from all the smoke.”

They remodeled it, raising the ceiling and adding extra pool tables and video games in the basement. They hired security--”they’re not bouncers”--to check IDs and watch out for trouble. But in the most fundamental way, the 35er stayed true to itself. It still serves beer in cans, Terzo says, and “we still have the well stuff, what everybody calls ‘rotgut.’ ”

This business formula helped earn the certificates pinned to a wall in Terzo’s cluttered office, honoring the 35er as both best bar and best dive in the 1992 readers’ poll by the Pasadena Weekly. And it is also why some business neighbors believe that the 35er isn’t classy enough to fit in.

“The last thing I heard was our drinks are too cheap,” Terzo says. “I think they complain about us more than the dirty bookstore.”

As a matter of fact, they do. But then, Old Pasadena’s unusual mix of businesses raises many questions. Self-interest typically shapes the opinions.

Consider the reaction to Old Pasadena’s most recent major addition--the One Colorado project. After being boarded up for years, the historical block at Fair Oaks and Colorado has been rehabilitated and reopened. The Gap and Banana Republic have been introduced to a district that previously was a haven for small merchants. And there is yet another Italian restaurant, Il Fornaio, as well as a Johnny Rockets.

Merchants and restaurateurs say it’s not only the competition that concerns them, but the feeling that chain operations will erode Old Pasadena’s character. A furniture dealer who caters to the affluent sadly tells you that Ralph Lauren, once rumored to be opening a store in One Colorado, will never come here now. And Marc Boatwright, the owner of Birdie’s restaurant on Raymond, worries that people who visit One Colorado will not explore the side streets.

Boatwright, who opened his restaurant in 1984, is something of a pioneer in Old Pasadena’s revival. He was a vocal advocate of an unsuccessful measure two years ago to place a moratorium on new restaurant construction. Today, some restaurateurs who opposed the proposal now think it’s an idea worth reviving.

Outside Birdie’s dining room windows is Mercantile Alley, a walkway linking Fair Oaks and Raymond. Here, Boatwright says, is an ideal location for a European-style outdoor market.

You leave a tip for the waitress. Just one more stop to make. You wonder what impact Old Pasadena is having on the porno business, which also predates the area’s revitalization. Business is good, the clerk reports. The place is open 24 hours and the busiest time is between 1:30 a.m. and 2:30 a.m.

You wonder why.

“Because the guys come out of the bars,” the security guard explains, “and there’s nothing else to do.”