A Love Song to My Community
When we moved away in 2013, so that I could take a job at UC Berkeley, I wanted to write a children’s story of our time in Altadena. Our time there felt idyllic, and none of us wanted to leave it. I thought every child should know a place like Altadena existed, a place that felt sheltering and embracing, a community-centered and easily navigable town tucked comfortably in the arms of the beautiful mountains.
For us, Altadena was a magical place. We lived in the eastern corner of Altadena, in the shadow of Eaton Canyon. From our front door, the San Gabriel Mountains stood tall and majestic. We could see them from our living room and from the kids’ gorgeous arched bedroom window. We also lived four blocks from the greatest bakery cafe, Patticakes. Mira and Sam were three years old and five months old, respectively, when we moved from a townhouse on Holliston and Walnut to the neighborhood nestled north of New York, bordering Allen and the public golf course. The street was called La Paz Road.
How do I capture our street, and the sense of connectedness we lost when we moved away?
Though high up in the foothills, the street was level and stretched one long block; few cars passed through, allowing kids to play ball in the street and neighbors to be outside and present. This was most evident before the 4th of July, when the Altadena Country Club held its fireworks display on the golf course, and all our neighbors set up chairs and blankets in their front yards and driveways to watch.
La Paz was an amazing microcosm of the diversity of Altadena – its artistic creativity, its haven for Black families, its religious communities. We had artists, actors, and musicians, nurses and educators, and at least one engineer (my husband). On La Paz, we lived five minutes from the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center (PJTC) on Altadena Drive, and from Weizmann Day School on its premises, where Mira and Sam later attended school.
Our Catholic neighbors lived close to St. Elizabeth of Hungary Catholic Church and St. Elizabeth Parish School on Lake Avenue. The neighbors two doors down sent their kids to St. Mark’s School, due north on Altadena Drive. Both PJTC and St Mark’s burned down in the Eaton Fire. It looks like St. Elizabeth Church and School miraculously survived.
Neighbors toward the Sinaloa end of the street had a high school daughter who frequently babysat our kids. The mom two doors down coached her daughter’s little league t-ball team that our son joined. When another neighbor directly across the street took her morning walk, she brought our newspaper up the walkway to our front door. She and her husband, a legendary jazz drummer, bonded with us over politics, especially when we put an Obama sign in our front yard before the 2008 elections. Yet another neighbor hosted the yearly Halloween party, gathering all the kids in the neighborhood to trick or treat together down our street. Our neighbor closest to Allen was the kids’ favorite nurse at their pediatrician’s office; her politics could not have been more opposite to ours.
The most remarkable example of community came when I received a phone call from a neighbor (two doors down the other way) as I was driving home from work. He saw bees swarming above our chimney. Before I got back to the house, he and his friend rescued our caregiver Desiree and our children, barefoot, from the house, then vacuumed and sealed up the fireplace. Hours later, after the bee swarm had been removed from our chimney by fumigators, we were allowed to return.
Unfortunately, Mira made a beeline toward the wreckage in our living room, stepping on a bee with her bare feet, but that one sting made me think how much worse it could have been if our neighbor had not rescued our kids. That same neighbor was a wonderful musician, whose studio (a converted garage) opened onto his backyard. One night he had a musical birthday party for his wife; we listened to that concert in our pjs, sitting on our back porch, grinning at our luck.
How do I capture our neighborhood?
Beyond La Paz, I loved walking the four blocks down Allen to Patticakes. It wasn’t just that they had the best croissants, muffins, and cakes, and they did. It was also the local neighborhood that showed up at Patticakes—the retired contingent that loved to argue with owner Mike over politics, the families with young children, folks on their way to and from work. Patticakes captured a slice of everyday Altadena, including its political, social, and economic diversity. I met Jim Morgan there, a retired Caltech environmental scientist who had been Dean of students and recipient of the Stockholm Water Prize. He lived at the top of Allen, close to the mountain. Despite his prestige, he was warm and down to earth, and I always looked for him and enjoyed his company.
Later, when we were moving away, I bought an amazing black and white photo of Fort Point from another retired regular, a hobby photographer. It hangs on our wall, alongside Ansel Adams photos of Yosemite. I often carried some work with me, reading or grading, and spent a few hours at Patticakes, on the days I did not commute to Pepperdine. Some days were more productive, some days more social.
Down the street on Allen, Armen Market was one of the many Armenian markets that dotted the Pasadena and Altadena landscape. The Armenian market introduced me to manti dumplings, basturma, and pizza-like lamajoun. Still in walking distance were other quaint aspects of Altadena. My kids loved to visit the goats that lived in the outdoor stalls beside a grand house on Holliston.
On one visit, Sam ran back to the parked stroller, and before we could catch him, climbed up on the seat, tipping the stroller backward and down a small incline to the road. We picked Sam up off the gravel, his face scraped and bloody. That walk/run back to our house felt endless, and Sam looked a mess for a few weeks. But he loved those goats.
How do I capture the Jewish community of Altadena and Pasadena?
It is so hard for me to write about the burning of the Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center. It holds so many memories and so many people who are dear to us. My kids grew up at PJTC, and we met our closest friends there, while our kids were babies and toddlers. We formed family friends, those who stay with you wherever you go. Mira and Sam attended B’nai Simcha Pre-School, while it was still housed at the synagogue in Arcadia.
Since relocated to the grounds of PJTC, its facilities burned down alongside the sanctuary. B’nai Simcha’s founding director Judy Callahan is an incredible Jewish educator, knowledgeable about early childhood education, Jewish education, how to create learning through play, and how to instill a love for Judaism.
At one point, Judy was both director of B’nai Simcha and president of PJTC, and she ran the Tot Shabbat program on Friday evenings that drew families with young kids to shul. She was our hook. Mira and Sam graduated from B’nai Simcha and Tot Shabbat to Weizmann Day School, spending every day on the grounds of PJTC, where the school was housed.
PJTC was their home away from home. They knew the administrators, the clergy, every nook and cranny, from their classrooms, to the playground, to Knell Chapel, to the main sanctuary where the Daniel Pearl World Music Days occurred annually. The Weizmann/PJTC playground was redesigned while my kids were at the school, spearheaded by a group of parents. It’s hard to believe all of that is gone.
During my first parent teacher conference at Weizmann, in the kindergarten classroom, I looked out the window to see a peacock peering down at us from atop the picnic tables. The peacocks ran wild in Eaton Canyon and frequently exceeded their borders. They were known to stop traffic on Altadena Drive. I wonder what happened to those peacocks. On another day, I drove onto the campus of PJTC, while Weizmann was in session, only to be hurried into the PJTC building by the then executive director.
The campus was in lockdown. A robbery had occurred in the neighborhood and the suspect was believed to be in the alleyway that ran along the perimeter of the synagogue and campus. The school and the synagogue worked in concert to manage the lockdown. These are moments I will never forget.
I was a board member of PJTC for the last four years of our residency in Altadena. I stepped off the board just before we moved away. I started as a member at large and then became VP of Membership, working with a close friend, who chaired the membership committee, to bring young families into the congregation.
In the warm summers, when Kabbalat Shabbat services took place on the back patio of the synagogue, we lured families with an ice cream social to complement the picnics taking place on the grass. At the point of our departure, I knew and had worked with so many congregants, spanning several generations.
We have settled in the Bay Area and our kids have thrived. We’ve been here almost 12 years, working at UC Berkeley, navigating SF for school, but we all left a piece of our heart in Altadena. I think now of what drew us to Altadena and what broke our hearts when we had to move away. Yes, it was looking at the majestic San Gabriels from our front door. Yes, it was a chance to live in a neighborhood full of historic 100+ year old homes, some grand and some tiny. Yes, I loved the Altadena institutions – the Altadena Country Club (where we were married), Zorthian Ranch, the McNally House, the Zane Grey Estate (it had goats too), Fox’s, the Elves Fair at the Waldorf School, the Balian House lit up at Christmas, Christmas Tree Lane, Farnsworth Park, my own special corner of Altadena with Patticakes as its hub.
Some of these places have already disappeared. Patticakes first changed hands when Mike and Phyllis retired and then shuttered its doors following the pandemic. The Balian House stopped lighting up at Christmas. Weizmann Day School closed. Jim Morgan passed away in 2020. Some friends moved away. I know places don’t stay the same; they are always changing. But Altadena has remained familiar and recognizable in the years since we moved. And when I really ask myself why my heart broke, I think of the people on La Paz, at PJTC, and in the community at large, who made me feel more at home than I have ever felt before or since.
Rebecca Golbert is a former community member who know lives in the San Francisco Bay Area
