Reimagining Mariposa Junction as Southern California's most vibrant, walkable district.

My name is Joey Galloway. I'm a resident of Pasadena, CA, and I was raised in Altadena, CA, until the age of 14. My father was a real estate investor, and while living in Altadena he purchased a commercial block, which our family still owns today. The property sits on the corner of Lake Avenue and Mariposa Street, an area that holds much of our local commerce and is often referred to as downtown Altadena. The block consists of two brick buildings built over 100 years ago: one is 12,000 sq ft and houses seven retail stores, and the other is 8,000 sq ft and houses six.

Besides housing 13 retail stores, the property has a private alley that is used for several community events throughout the year. We call this corridor Mariposa Junction to brand the block. In conjunction with the Altadena Chamber of Commerce, we host our annual Sip n Shop in December, and during the summer months we host a Night Market in conjunction with the Altadena Neighborhood Farmers Market. These events give local home-based businesses a space to sell their goods and wares, and they bring our community together as a whole. Unfortunately, both events have been put on hold for now.

Due to the devastation of the Eaton Fire, the 12,000 sq ft building was a total loss, and the smaller building suffered severe smoke and roof damage from flying embers. This property has been in our family for 42 years, but the hardest part was that on January 8th at 8:30 a.m., I drove up to Altadena and watched our building burn to the ground. It is an image I still cannot get out of my head!

Fortunately, we were able to get the six businesses in our smaller building up and running within a matter of months, but the larger building has been nothing but an uphill battle. We have started working on architectural plans to rebuild, but we are still going back and forth with our insurance company over construction costs. We are staying positive that we will receive the necessary funds, but there is no guarantee. If we do not, we are desperately hoping for outside support, whether State or Federal funding, to help us and our neighbors get back to a sense of normalcy.

This has obviously been very hard on our family, but at the end of the day, we are determined to rebuild and bring much-needed commerce and community events back to Altadena.

My name is Liliana Martínez, but people know me as Maestra Lili. In 2015, we started a Spanish Immersion Preschool in 850 E Mariposa Street with only five children. Before us, the space had been a storage room for gardening tools, and we turned it into a beautiful garden of children. Within a year we were at full capacity, and soon we began looking for a new location to expand. We opened Rayuela Dos on Garfield Avenue in 2018. Rayuela quickly became the feeder for all the dual-language public programs in the area, and our waiting list kept growing. We also started partnerships with PUSD and some private schools, helping with their enrichment and internship programs.

Before the fires, young families were moving to Altadena and buying homes so their children could attend our school. Our families were regulars at Café de Leche, Amara's Kitchen, Altadena Hardware, and the other corners of what smelled like an organic community: the soup at Happy Days, and even the liquor store.

Everything changed on the night of January 7th. That day we closed early because we were afraid of losing power. We went home and barely slept as trees fell on houses in our complex in Pasadena. The next morning we woke up early to water our second campus in Altadena, but we had to turn back when my son got sick on the way, and going to Mariposa was completely out of the question.

Later we went back out, despite the evacuation alerts on our phones. It was too dangerous to stay and water Rayuela, so we returned home to our children's faces full of disbelief. They cried out as soon as we walked in: “Rayuela is gone, Mom!” It felt unreal. I couldn't believe it, even though my phone was exploding with texts and messages. My head was spinning until the next news segment came on and my boy screamed, “That's El Molino and Mariposa, Mom!” I looked at the apocalyptic image on the TV, and it became my new reality.

More than ten years of hard work, a whole community building a “fábrica de almas bilingües,” that turned to ashes in a few minutes. I cried like a baby. Our business, our mission, and our hopes were gone. But my children, who grew up in Rayuela, kept saying with tears in their eyes, “Rayuela can't die.” So, in the days that followed, we kept taking care of our second location, which was still standing among the debris, smoke, and ash.

We spent days, weeks, and months cleaning, trying to bring our families back together, until we realized it was not safe for young children. Then the landlord decided not to remediate and asked us to leave. We were fortunate to have a community that believed in our cause. One father, who had lost both his home and his school and could not sleep, came to us with an idea: an empty school in Highland Park.

We are grateful to have found a new neighborhood that is embracing us, but our hearts are still in Altadena, where our families are starting to return. We are still searching for a way to come back and be together again, because community is how we have survived for more than a decade. We believe that building it together will make us better and stronger.

Because, as my children say, Rayuela can't die.

On the night of the Eaton Fire, we left our foothill home for our office, believing we would be safer in the center of town. We were wrong.

At about 5:30 a.m., friends warned us that the fire had reached us. We needed to escape—but the power was out, and our gate would not open. For those terrifying moments, we were trapped. We had to break the gate to flee for our lives.

We returned home, desperate for somewhere safe, still waiting for an announcement to tell us what to do. Then we watched the entire hillside above our house erupt in flames. Once again, we had to run, not knowing what would be left when we returned.

The fire devastated Giant Steps Training Programs, located at 2401 Lake Avenue in Altadena, where we serve adults with disabilities. Our building remained standing, but we could no longer safely occupy it. Its systems, furniture, and supplies were destroyed. Our vans were trapped in the fire zone. The services our clients depended on were disrupted, while we faced lost income, repeated failed lead tests, and exhausting insurance battles.

After a year, we were cleared to return—but returning has not meant recovering. Places our clients love are gone or relocated. Neighbors who supported our thrift store lost everything.

Still, we are staying. We have opened our doors to displaced organizations, including Meals on Wheels, and helped others find a place to gather and rebuild.

We are lifelong Altadena residents, now in our seventies. Retirement is on hold. We are tired, and we are grieving. But this is our home, and we hope we have enough years ahead to see our whole community again.

Café de Leche's Altadena café was so much more than a business to us. For Anya and Matt, it was our second home and a gathering place for a community we've loved and served since opening in 2016. As a family-owned, Latina-founded business, we've always believed that what we do is about so much more than coffee; it's about connection, belonging, and bringing people together.

When the Eaton Fire destroyed our café in January 2025, we lost a place filled with years of memories, friendships, and so much love. Like so many others affected by the fire, we faced the heartbreaking reality of starting over, and we were surprised to discover that we were severely underinsured, making the road to rebuilding much more challenging than we ever imagined.

Through it all, the love and support of our community have reminded us why Altadena has always been such a special place for us. We miss our neighbors, our regulars, and the everyday moments that made our café feel like home. We can't wait to come back, open our doors again, and continue serving the wonderful community that has given us so much.

Who we are: I'm Greta Dockum, running our small business Dockum Research Lab since 1985. It was founded by my father back in 1955. We have been operating in the Mariposa Junction since 1966. Our business is a manufacturing company for the dental industry.

The day everything changed: Around 7:30 pm January 7th 2025, I evacuated my home in northern Altadena and fled to our business on Mariposa Street, hoping to find safety. I met my business manager there, and together we began preparing to shelter for the night, believing the building would offer refuge. That sense of safety ended abruptly with a deafening noise sounding as if the roof were being violently torn away which forced us to look outside. The fire had reached us, with smoke so dense it blinded the road, flying embers, and small fires on both sides of the road. Realizing we had to evacuate a second time, our immediate focus turned to our neighbors on Mariposa, who are also two wonderful employees. We moved quickly to escape safely. In the aftermath, the full weight of the tragedy set in: outside of a couple business computers, my dog, and the business manager's dogs, I lost everything—my home, my business, and a lifetime of personal belongings.

The road since: Starting over has been an uphill battle. Managing unpredictable funding and tight finances while navigating shifting community and county rebuilding requirements has made budgeting almost impossible. On top of rebuilding, we are running our business across multiple temporary locations outside Altadena—which required restructuring our operations and staffing in ways we never would have had to otherwise. Between the production limitations of these temporary sites and the ongoing wait for permits and approvals, the rebuilding process has been exhausting, but we are pushing forward.

What keeps us going is our team. Most of our original 10+ employees are near or past retirement age, and finding other employment was especially difficult for them. And, 5 of us had our homes burned down. We realized early on that keeping this business alive wasn't just about us—it was about protecting their livelihoods. At the same time, we've seen how vital our work is to the dental industry. That reinforces why we have to keep pushing forward despite every obstacle. And though we lost our original distributor due to the fire, a wonderful new team has stepped in and has worked miracles for us.

The Mariposa Junction we dream of. We aren't asking for anything extraordinary—we just want to restore Mariposa Junction to the beautiful community hub it was before the fire. We need a simpler, more efficient process from local agencies so we can secure basic utilities, proper plumbing, power, and parking. Restoring what we had pre-fire is the only way we can resume full production and finally step out from under the dark cloud this disaster has cast over our lives for the past two years.