PASADENA HAS A WEALTH OF HOUSES
to admire, from Hillcrest Avenue mansions designed
by superstar architects Wallace Neff and George
Washington Smith to the “Bungalow Heaven” district
with its 800 craftsman cottages from the early 1900s.
But where, I wondered, do residents buy things to
furnish them?
There’s the venerable Pasadena Antique Center on
Fair Oaks Avenue, packing 33,000 square feet with
items from 130 dealers. But early one Sunday morning, I
headed for the center ring of shopping – the Rose Bowl
Flea Market, which showcases more than 2,000 vendors.
This granddaddy of all swap meets fills the stadium’s
sprawling parking lot. In the antiques area, I thought
I must be hallucinating. I’d stepped into a whirling
kaleidoscope, a swirling spectacle of
stuff
thrown off
by American culture: a 1940s Boy Scouts handbook, a
1960s Jimi Hendrix poster, rusty old license plates, a TV
script from
The Simpsons
, every conceivable model of
Zippo lighter, a huge metal mailbox turned on end and
planted with ferns, a painted carousel horse, and the front
radiator and headlights of a 1939 truck, just perfect for
that wall in your man cave.
Around me, people enjoyed the age-old game
of bargaining. A man picked up a 1970s pink dial
telephone and examined it. “I really hate this!!” he
exclaimed. “How much?”
Actress-model types and their boyfriends looked at
vintage clothing and cool furnishings for their apartments.
(Trending: mid-century modern furniture.) One vendor
offered “upcycled” lamps made from antique steam
gauges and other vintage gizmos fitted with Thomas
Edison-style filament bulbs. I also saw a hideous brown
abstract painting going out the gate under a guy’s arm
and hoped he hadn’t paid much.
Well, one man’s trash...
PASADENA
48
summer
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fall
