Residents Shape Up Triangle : Dilapidated Lincoln Triangle area of Pasadena is transformed into a quiet neighborhood

Images of old homes, old money and Old Town often come to mind at the mention of Pasadena.

In sharp contrast to these familiar images, a harsher reality once existed in a pocket of northwest Pasadena known as the Lincoln Triangle, where crime, drugs and dilapidated homes dominated the neighborhood.

However, three years ago, Lincoln Triangle residents teamed with the city of Pasadena, nonprofit groups and local businesses to revitalize their neighborhood.

“It’s clean now,” said Rosalva Estrada, a 37-year resident who has seen the area transformed from a “noisy place with drug dealers down the street” to a “quiet neighborhood.”

Estrada, her husband, Manuel, a retired aluminum worker, and their 33- year-old son, Eddie, now feel safe in their neighborhood. “I can leave my granddaughter’s bicycle in the front yard and know it won’t be stolen,” she said.

The most visible changes over the last four years, since the implementation of community-based policing, have been the elimination of drug houses and public drinking in the streets, Pasadena Police Lt. Richard Law said.

The Lincoln Triangle, bounded by Orange Grove and Lincoln boulevards to the north, Maple Street to the south, Fair Oaks Avenue to the east and the 210 Freeway to the west, began to develop around the time of the city’s incorporation in 1886.

Pasadena’s first house was built there and, by 1905, most of the lots in the Lincoln Triangle had been developed. Only 20 homes were built in the neighborhood between 1906 and 1928.

According to the 1990 census, some 660 residents lived in 270 units, primarily single-family homes. The majority of those houses, 65%, are rental properties.

At its founding and in its early years, the Lincoln Triangle was a working-class, ethnically diverse neighborhood. Over the decades, the population became predominantly African American. However, during the past 10 years, the demographics shifted once again, and the area is now 60% Latino, 30% African American and 10% “other.”

A large portion of the “other” category are second-generation Japanese Americans, or Nisei.

“After the World War II relocation (to internment camps), Japanese Americans were only accepted in certain areas. Northwest Pasadena was one of those areas,” said Bryan Takeda, president of the Japanese Cultural Institute of Pasadena.

The institute, located in the Lincoln Triangle since 1961, provides support to and cultural activities for Japanese-American families, and it attempts to educate the entire community about Japanese culture. The institute is also the home of a local Head Start preschool program and an office of the NAACP.

In the 1970s, developers came close to converting much of the historic Triangle area into an auto emporium. To avoid such attempts in the future, community activists are working to preserve the history and vintage-type homes in the Lincoln Triangle area.

Typical of the area’s historic homes is the Estradas’ two-story Victorian farmhouse with Queen Anne detailing, located on a street lined with towering oak trees. Built in 1889, it is one of 10 homes on the block built before 1900 and is one of 56 homes in the Lincoln Triangle Historic District, an area that meets requirements for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.

Last year, the Estradas’ home was painted a daffodil yellow, as a part of a project by “Christmas in April,” a nonprofit group of local volunteers who donate time and materials. In cooperation with residents, the “Christmas in April” volunteers painted and repaired 22 Lincoln Triangle homes in 1994.

The city of Pasadena, as part of a $650,000 public works project, widened Lincoln Boulevard and repaved several streets. In addition, the city helped to rehab 13 homes, preserve three historic homes and develop five commercial projects.

The city also installed gas lamp-style street lights, which reflect the turn-of-the-century look of the Lincoln Triangle.

“It looks like downtown Pasadena now” with the street lights, said Nick Platter, an 83-year-old resident who has lived in his 1918 one-story bungalow for more than four decades. His home also received a fresh coat of paint from “Christmas in April” volunteers.

The community also gained two new homes last year, built by the San Gabriel Valley chapter of Habitat for Humanity, a housing ministry that uses volunteer labor and materials to build affordable homes for low-income families.

And civic teamwork created another “new” home in the neighborhood--the Gilman House, a turn-of-the-century Pasadena landmark that was once occupied by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, an early feminist, speaker and writer.

The home, a victim of disrepair and deterioration, was donated to the city by Hugh and Helen Smith and was moved by the city of Pasadena to a vacant lot. The home was completely rehabbed by the Pasadena Heritage preservation group with the help of local businesses and then made available as affordable housing for $123,000. The Gilman House’s new owner, Barbara Roberts, had been on a waiting list for affordable housing since 1988. She describes living in the 1,500-square-foot Victorian home, which she shares with her 9-year-old daughter, Nydia, as “more than an honor.”

“When I first saw the Gilman House, I never dreamed that it would be mine,” Roberts said. “I watched it from start to finish. It’s miraculous to think that this place was once dilapidated.”

Moreover, Roberts, who moved from another part of Pasadena, is impressed with the area. “It’s very quiet and very low key,” she said. “And the neighbors are nice and accommodating. Someone offered to mow my lawn for me on the first day that I moved in.”

In hopes of duplicating the success of the Gilman House, the city recently moved a historic, 1906 Dutch Colonial-style home to a vacant lot on Peoria Street. After rehabbing, the 3,000-square-foot house, previously owned by Caltech, will be sold as affordable housing to a low-income family.

“These projects help reduce the number of vacant lots and increase the number of affordable, owner-occupied houses in the area,” said Stella Lucero, program coordinator for Pasadena’s Housing and Development Department.

In spite of improvements in the Lincoln Triangle, there is no realty activity in the area, realtors say. Except for Habitat homes and the Gilman House, no houses have sold in the Lincoln Triangle in the past year.

Wendy Cobleigh, a realtor for Podley, Caughey and Doan and chairman of Pasadena’s Community Development Committee, attributes inactivity in the Triangle to a “wait-and-see attitude” among longtime residents, landlords and potential buyers.

“I expect that there will soon be more (real estate) activity,” Cobleigh said. “Everyone’s been waiting for a long time for the area to improve, and the time has come.”

As for listings in the area, Asterid Ellersieck, a realtor for Jim Dickson Realty, has a 1,900-square-foot Victorian farmhouse “fixer-upper” priced at $175,000. Also for sale in the area are a two-bedroom, one-bath cottage priced at $129,000 and a three-bedroom, one-bath with a guest house priced at $189,000.

In contrast to the turn-of-the-century homes in the historic part of the Lincoln Triangle is the newly completed Cypress Grove Villas, a 29-unit townhouse complex on 3 1/2 acres between Cypress Avenue and the 210 Freeway.

The project sold out before the last unit was completed in December, 1993. The townhouses ranged in price from $160,000 for a two-bedroom unit to $250,000 for a custom unit. Included in the complex are nine units listed as “affordable” for low- and moderate-income families.

Cypress Grove developer Jim Morris showed his personal commitment to the Lincoln Triangle area by moving with his wife and infant daughter from an affluent Pasadena neighborhood to a unit in Cypress Grove.

“My commitment for my community is that they receive the same treatment as the people in my old neighborhood,” he said.

Unlike the rest of Lincoln Triangle, where residents are of low to moderate income, many of the Cypress Grove residents are middle- and upper-middle income professionals.

Gwendolyn Lytle, assistant director of human resources at Caltech, is typical of the new wave of residents in the Lincoln Triangle. She considered the Chapman Woods area of Pasadena initially, but decided on a 2,300-square-foot, three-bedroom, three-bath unit in Cypress Grove Villas.

Lytle was surprised when she discovered Cypress Grove Villas because she “hadn’t realized what was going on in the way of development and restoration in the Lincoln Triangle.”

She described the gated community as “large and well planned and surprisingly quiet, even though it’s close to the freeway.” The location, two miles from her job at Caltech and 1 1/2 miles from Old Town Pasadena, is ideal, she said.

She also likes the ethnic, economic and age diversity in the community. Forty percent of Cypress Grove residents are African American, 30% are white and 30% are Latino, developer Morris said.

Also new in the area is the New Horizon School, which opened its doors to pre-kindergarten through 7th grade in September, 1992, to an almost full enrollment. The school, associated with the Islamic Center of Southern California, teaches Islamic studies and Koran, as well as traditional academic subjects, to a predominantly Muslim student body.

Currently under redevelopment is the Fair Grove Shopping Center, on the corner of Fair Oaks Avenue and Orange Grove Boulevard. In September, the city signed a lease with the Vons Supermarket chain to be the anchor tenant. Half of the remaining retail space will be reserved for local, minority businesses at favorable lease terms, according to city Councilman Chris Holden.

Lincoln Triangle residents have chalked up many victories in their fight to improve the neighborhood, but the real challenge lies ahead, said Jaylene Moseley, a commercial real estate developer and president of the Lincoln Cypress Community Group, the neighborhood association for the area.

“We must maintain what we’ve accomplished and keep up the partnerships we’ve developed,” she said. “This is just the beginning.”

Carrier is a San Gabriel free-lance writer.