Regal Edwards Renaissance Theater, a Multiplex Movie Theater in Alhambra, California (Before it Opened)

This is an old photo from my collection. I took this around 2002, in Alhambra, California. This was the then-new Edwards Theater, not yet opened. The palm trees were still tied up. In 2003, I joined a group that had a peace demonstration at this corner, every week on Friday night. Those were some solid days, and I met a lot of friends through that protest.

After Pasadena, Alhambra was the "big deal" city in the West San Gabriel Valley. It was an old suburb that had a sleepy "downtown" area that closed up by 6pm, and was totally closed on Sundays. I'm serious. You wouldn't believe it today, because it's a popular night crawl, with some drinking places and restaurants, but back in the 90s, it was still quiet and boring.

Alhambra has an inferiority complex about Pasadena. As Old Pasadena took off and became a night spot, the people in Alhambra wanted the same. They really wanted it to be like Pasadena, so at the turn of the century, they changed the downtown, and made it a wannabe Pasadena.

In the 80s and 90s, though, the place was quiet and calm

People think of LA as a 24 hours city, but in the 1990s, outside of specific areas, like the Sunset Strip, it definitely was not. Businesses open past 10pm were rare. The exceptions were 24 hour family restaurants like Carrow's. Even in Hollywood, the late night operations were relatively few, and the night-owls leaving the clubs went to Denny's, IHOP, Tommy's Burgers or maybe Ben Frank's.

Alhambra's neighbor Monterey Park was the first city in the area to get a "night life" because all these people from Hong Kong, and then Taipei, moved into the area. The 1980s Chinese immigrants were into eating out, a lot, and staying out until 1am.

It wasn't just the kids, but the parents, too. They came from big cities that never slept, and suburban LA was still a place where people went to bed at a decent hour on Saturday night so they could get to church on time on Sunday morning.

The Chinese restaurants started opening up majorly in the 1980s, and they served a whole new kind of Chinese food I hadn't had before. It was called Hong Kong style, and was delicious.

They opened up along Garvey near Atlantic, and also by Garvey and Garfield. Then, later, they spread east toward Rosemead, and north to Valley and Garfield (near The Hat), and really ran both ways down Valley and to points east. It was fun going out at 10pm to get some "dinner".

Here's another photo I took that night. It's a store that either just opened, or had cleaned up its fish tank. The tanks were stocked with live fish. I don't remember if it was a restaurant, or a fish store.

This is my entry into the #mycalifornia and #socalsteemit contest.

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