Dorian's Sierra Madre Page

Updated 9/6/11

Inchoate intimations of immortality!


A work in progress. One of my three pages dedicated to Sierra Madre. Check out the Hotel Shirley Page and Stay tuned for my Pinney House piece.
Works in progress.

1. Juicerator window display.

What I remember.

 I don't know what ultimate form this piece will take. With some old photos as kindling, I proceed with memory and imagination.  Compared to any surrounding city; Sierra Madre has largely been spared the hyper-development that engulfed much of the Los Angeles area. Superficially at least, it resembles the town I first encountered decades ago. Yet, virtually every downtown business in existence when I moved away in late 1984 has vanished. 

A while back, I returned to help a friend move. I strolled downtown in the evening and found a lively scene: eateries open  Al fresco dining; a lot of foot traffic. When I lived there it was dead by 8:00 PM  with the exception of liquor stores and bars.  I felt as if I were vacationing in a charming town for the first time.  Then I  passed  The Hotel Shirley and was stricken with a visceral feeling -- that I could climb the stairs, enter my apartment and it would be exactly as it was when I had lived there so many years ago.  Strange.

 In the early 1970's my junior high school buddy Jim P. and I would bike up from Arcadia to Porgy and Mudheads a smoothie bar named after two Firesign Theater characters.  It was a tiny place in the small arcade on Sierra Madre blvd. west of Baldwin.  In retrospect it had the sort of  bogus "hippie" ambiance that crept into suburbia when the sixties were finished. 


The town was full of stories. Those upstairs apartments above that little arcade where Porgy and Mudheads once was were nicknamed "Heart Break Hotel"; men exiled by wives or girlfriends ended up there. That's what I heard anyway.  I had several friends who lived there whose circumstances weren't congruent with the myth. Yet those  tiny studios were dim and stuffy; definitely fit  for a guy who got his ass kicked out of the house.

"I don't do cheese cake." The wholesome polka king
once said. However, he did do juicers. Lucky for us,
because we can enjoy some good clean advertising.
Wait a minute, "Taste Thrill?" Maybe he did do cheese cake.

I also recall a sandwich shop called Brunos on Baldwin that was a sort of corollary to the movie-themed Stottlemeyers  in Pasadena. However  Brunos' sandwiches were named after actors and actresses. Alas, I can't recall any of the names or corresponding ingredients of any of the sandwhiches. When I lived in the Hotel Shirley it had become The Sandwich Stop -- or was it  The Sandwich Spot ? Casa Del Rey now occupies the space. 


Next door to the south was the unforgettably named; P.S. Gotta Dance , a studio full of frenetic,  spandex - clad women. This was during the Great Aerobics Era of the 1980's. 


 When I first moved to Baldwin Ave. Garduno's Taco King, was still around, (It later became Lozano's). Garduno's was a pretty basic Mexican take out as I recall --and  it stayed open until 10:00 pm; unique to S.M. eateries in those days. I always arrived just before closing. They were always mopping up and not particularly happy too see me. It always smelled like grease -- and bleach.

I don't remember the name of this shop -- Sierra Madre's version
of Victoria's Secret -- I'm pretty sure it was on Sierra Madre Blvd.

 The Headliner, was a newspaper- themed coffee shop. I remember it being bright orange. Around 1980 it morphed into the yuppified The Only Place In Town, but I still felt the pride of being a local, receiving a congenial nod from the owner as he walked by. It endures to this day, when virtually every other establishment that comes to my mind has vanished.


The Raven and The Rose near the southeast corner of Sierra Madre Blvd. and Lima, was a bar that was also referred to as  The Craven' of the Hose. It was small with a low ceiling -- very smoky and claustrophobic. It featured live music. The band Sumner played there regularly. They got a record deal,  released an album then vanished into oblivion. The sole time I saw Sumner was at the Troubadour in Hollywood, when my friend's band The Trend opened for them. The club scene was lively back then. A local band getting signed by a major label -- that's the stuff of legend now... The Raven became The Sunset, a respectable looking place that I never set foot in.


I noted without regret, the recent demise of the KFC.  It lingered for decades on the west end of town like a mangy dog. I stepped in once, when I really needed coffee. I pointed out a prominent ring of mold in the glass coffee urn . "Oh", the counter girl replied and gave it a cursory rinse, before brewing a new batch. The embodiment of corporate mediocrity. If the wind was northerly, the smell excreted by the fryers followed me as I walked up Lima St.

The Sierra Madre Kentucky Fried Chicken
 Christmas circa 1981, before acronyms replaced actual words.

She was atoning for something -- that's what I was told. The woman had the indeterminate weather- beaten face of  an old homeless person, though I don't know if she was actually homeless or "old". Her body was always wrapped in plastic and she was always carrying bags that appeared to be full of something heavy -- rocks perhaps. These days she would scarcely draw notice in many cities, but thirty years ago she was a striking sight, trudging along Sierra Madre Blvd.  Strange, scary and  heartbreaking.  Every time I encountered her she was always on Sierra Madre Boulevard; a penitent  swathed in plastic sheets,  struggling with her heavy parcels in the summer sun.  A real person and I don't even know her name --  just her unsettling image  --as she suddenly springs into my consciousness again after many years.

The transfiguration of KFC 2011.

 Does anyone remember these places, people or remember them differently?