It’s often said that Los Angeles is a city without history — that LA’s story began just a century ago, the first time someone picked up a film camera. The truth is, historic gems are scattered far and wide across LA County, you just have to be willing to look off the beaten path. Ryan Coleman reports on a piece of living history from the Eastern edge of LA County.
As you travel East out of Los Angeles, the urban gives way to the suburban, the homes get smaller and further apart, and all that chrome and glass are replaced by empty lots and rolling hills. This is the San Gabriel Valley, stretching from Pasadena in the West, to the subject of today’s story in the East—Pomona. You might never imagine that this sleepy, working class suburb, 30 miles outside the city center is home to some of the richest history in all of LA County.
DEBORAH CLIFFORD: Downtown Pomona has had a long and varied history.
That’s Deborah Clifford, President of the Historical Society of Pomona Valley.
CLIFFORD: When the town came into being in 1888, the downtown area was a mixture of people’s homes and businesses, dusty streets and uneven sidewalks. As the city developed, it became a really thriving downtown. And so out here in the Pomona Valley, Pomona was known as the Queen.
The same year Pomona was founded, a Methodist congregation traveled west from Riverside and built the Pomona Holy Church. This monument of Southern California history still presides over downtown Pomona, and though it’s not on any registry of historic sites, it’s revered by locals as a symbol of the city itself.
CLIFFORD: When they built it, it was still a thriving downtown. We’re still in that Pomona Queen of the Valley stage, so that people are coming from all over to go to church to eat and fine restaurants to stay in nice hotels. All of that was there when the church first began. But that church has lived beyond that, and so has sort of been a witness to the decline. And at this point, to the resurgence of the whole area.
When freeways and shopping malls came in after WWII, people moved east to Ontario, where there was more land, and west to LA, where there was more city. Pomona, and the Holy Church, went into a state of decline that lasted decades. But a growing group of artists, business owners, and civic advocates are trying to restore Pomona to its former magnificence. At the forefront is Andrew Hwang, who bought the Holy Church in 2017 with Pastor Johnson Yang. Before they could reopen it for services, the church needed a major renovation.
ANDREW HWANG: It was a very tough job. We spent almost two years. Johnson at that time stayed in the church. Lived in the church full-time. Tried to fix everything.
I was having a hard time wrapping my head around what it takes to fix up a 133-year-old church that had been sitting empty for years, and Hwang noticed.
HWANG: “Do you wanna take a look? Maybe it’s easier to explain everything.”
So, we got to walking.
*Ambient sound*
The exterior was hit hardest by neglect. The 1000s of shingles which cover the facade and go all the way up the 77-foot-tall bell tower, needed to be completely redone.
HWANG: It’s difficult to fix. It’s too high, we hired a professional company … this is the most difficult part, to fix the shingles.
The Holy Church doesn’t look too big from the outside, but inside it’s a sprawling, 21,000 square foot maze. There are the usual sanctuaries and prayer rooms, but also dining rooms, an industrial-sized kitchen, and dozens of bedrooms for lodgers upstairs. It was definitely designed in the 19th century, so it’s easy to get lost.
RYAN COLEMAN: It really just keeps going
Some things were so old I couldn’t even comprehend them—like a set of stairs that leads down into a strange, glass tank built into the wall of the nave.
HWANG: People can go down, into the water.
COLEMAN: Oh like for baptism
HWANG: For baptism, yes.
COLEMAN: Do you guys do that here?
HWANG: No because you’d need a lot of water.
The renovations are complete, but thanks to COVID, no one can congregate. So Hwang and Pastor Yang have been trying to think up ways they can utilize all that empty space for good. One idea is allowing homeless Pomonans to board in those upstairs lodgings. County regulations pose a challenge, but Hwang and Yang see it as a duty.
HWANG: In the United States there are more than 10,000 churches. If one church can help 25 homeless people, we can solve the bhomeless issue.
The church and the city have helped each other out since their mutual founding over 100 years ago. Hopefully, 100 years from now, they’ll both be standing strong.
