Ahead of Jackie Robinson biopic, Pasadena gets $6-million HUD loan for upgrades to namesake park

As a film celebrating the life of civil rights icon Jackie Robinson opens in theaters nationwide, officials in his hometown of Pasadena are gearing up for extensive improvements to the park named in honor of the baseball great and his Olympian brother.

The city received approval last month for a $6-million loan from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to renovate and expand the aging community center at Robinson Park.

Plans include replacing the 18,900 square-foot building’s small gym with a modern fitness center and constructing a more than 10,000-square-foot addition that will extend to the corner of Fair Oaks Avenue and Hammond Street, said Loren Pluth, a city public works project manager.

A reconfigured floor plan would maximize space for city recreation and education programming in what amounts to a “substantially new” community center, Pluth said.

Delano Robinson, the widow of Jackie Robinson’s older brother, Matthew “Mack” Robinson, said the effort builds on her late husband’s lifelong mission to make healthy activities more accessible to Northwest Pasadena youth.

Mack Robinson was six when he left Georgia for Pasadena in 1920 with baby brother Jackie, three other siblings and their single mother, Mallie, who struggled to support the family. The brothers set athletic records at John Muir High School and Pasadena Junior College (now Pasadena City College), and Mack finished a split second behind Jesse Owens in the 200-meter dash at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin.

Pasadena was in many ways a segregated city while the Robinsons were growing up. Until 1940, black, Latino and Asian children were barred from using the city’s public pool except for one afternoon a week, after which the pool was drained and refilled, former Pasadena spokeswoman Ann Erdman said.

Jackie left the family home on Pepper Street, blocks away from the future Robinson Park, in 1947 after signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers and becoming the first black man to play Major League baseball, wearing the number 42 on his uniform.

The new film biography of Jackie Robinson, “42,” opened in theaters on Friday.

L.A. Times Review: Pleasing ‘42’ has Jackie Robinson’s number

Mack married Delano in 1955 and lived with her on MacDonald Street until his death in 2000. He worked for the city of Los Angeles and later as a truancy officer at John Muir, all the while fighting Pasadena City Hall for better youth programs and facilities.

“Mack used to go to meetings morning, noon and night trying to get these young men off the street and give them something to do,” Delano Robinson, 79, said. “I think this park has done a lot so far, and now it’s going to do more as time goes on.

“[The Robinson family is] really proud of that because years back, black kids could only use the swimming pool one day a week.”

In addition the $6-million federal loan, officials have committed $1 million in city funds to Robinson Park and plan to spend about $1 million more, Pluth said.

Officials expect to break ground on construction by 2016, he said.

Plans for improving Robinson Park date back to 2002, but work got underway in 2008 when the city demolished a defunct plastics factory to install a new synthetic-turf field, parking area and restrooms.

Ishmael Trone, who chaired a city committee that oversaw previous work, said the next phase of upgrades and its benefits for low-income youth will be a fitting nod to the Robinson legacy.

“Robinson Park is going to be one of the marquee parks in the city and a visitor destination point. What a way to memorialize Jackie and Mack Robinson,” Trone said.

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