Location of NASA's JPL is a bit of a curiosity

If we can land a rover on Mars, surely we can identify the city where NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is located. Right?

When it came to The Times' recent coverage of Mars rover Curiosity, reader Sabrina Peck of Pasadena wasn't so sure.

"My husband has been a JPL engineer in Pasadena since 1979. Yes, Pasadena: Zip 91109," she wrote in an email. "Why do your writers assert that JPL is in La Cañada Flintridge?"

The short answer: Because it is.

But it wasn't always, and that's where the confusion comes in.

The story starts in 1936 with three scientists experimenting with rockets. That led to the establishment of a center for rocket science on the Caltech campus, in Pasadena. In 1940, when the explosions became a bit too loud and dangerous for the middle of the city, a facility was built in the foothills above Pasadena. And in 1943, the site was dubbed the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

From 1943 forward, JPL was, for all intents and purposes, in Pasadena, and it had a Pasadena mailing address.

Then in 1976, residents of JPL's neighboring community voted to incorporate and became La Cañada Flintridge. The city limits included JPL's campus.

But  JPL kept its Pasadena mailing address -- which suits the La Cañada post office just fine. The Pasadena post office, which serves a city of 140,000 residents, is better equipped to manage the facility's mail than La Cañada, which serves a city of 20,000.

(In 2010, a postal carrier wrote and implored The Times to stop reporting that JPL was in La Cañada because it resulted in a flood to the city's lone post office.)

JPL's website notes the dichotomy. The mailing address is listed as 4800 Oak Grove Drive,
Pasadena, CA 91109. But this is what it says under "Directions": Street address for use in online map searches: 4800 Oak Grove Drive, La Cañada Flintridge, CA 91011

The issue seems to come up each time JPL makes national news. A 1997 article by Times staff writer Bob Pool carries the wonderful headline, "We've Found Mars, but Where is JPL?"

Presumably, the mailing address is what guides national media, which have focused attention on JPL amid Curiosity's mission to Mars. A headline Wednesday declared: "Curiosity's Martian Playground is Technically Located in Pasadena"

No. Technically, it's in La Cañada Flintridge.

-- Deirdre Edgar

Photo: JPL's campus. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Comments

[gerry bell]

What an amazing accomplishment. Congratulations to all!

[Barzia Tehrani]

Just looking at google map, it seems like a portion of JPL in the the city of the Pasadena that includes the east gate, portion of Aroyo and Mesa, while the large majority of it falls within the borders of La Canada. Being located between two cities, JPL can choose to use either address as its official address. Since JPL has stayed with the Pasadena in its official address, I think it should reported as such and otherwise is an incorrect statement.

Sabrina Peck +1
Deirdre Edgar -1

[Barzia Tehrani]

Also, the Curiosity's Martian Playground located on the east side of JPL is if-fact technically located in the city of Pasadena.

If JPL is located in La Canada or Pasadena might be questionable since the vast majority of the JPL is within the borders of La Canada, but that does not include the Curiosity's Martian Playground, which is clearly within the Pasadena borders.

[larry wilson]

Thanks for the discussion. A lot of red herrings here, but the bottom line is that the JPL campus is located in the city of La Canada Flintridge, so ... the LCF dateline is the only correct one.

But folks should know something about the ZIP code of the mailing -- not geographical -- address the lab uses. 91109 is not a geographical ZIP -- no neighborhood of Pasadena is in it. It's a special post office ZIP, for P.O. boxes and for large companies like Parsons (and some Pasadena City Hall mail).

Cheers, Larry Wilson, public editor, San Gabriel Valley Newspapers

[Dave Wehlage]

Earth. It's on Earth, which is the only address JPL's target audience needs to know.

[Terrils]

Any community that voluntarily gives itself a huge pretentious name like La Canada-Flintridge doesn't deserve JPL.

And that's about as serious a comment as a silly "We were right, nyah nyah nyah" story like this actually deserves.

[George Alexander]

As both the former LA Times Science Writer and Public Affairs Manager of JPL, I'm more than a little familiar with the debate over the Laboratory's location. When I first began covering JPL's missions for the Times, back in the early 1970s, I accepted the Lab's designation of Pasadena as home, sweet home. But when I asked about its large footprint in LaCanada-Flintridge, I was told that JPL -- as a division of Caltech -- could legitimately use the Pasadena mail-drop and Pasadena was a much better-known city, worldwide, than LC-F. (I was also told the LC-F post office wanted absolutely nothing to do with the tonnage of in-coming and out-going mail for the Lab, as another reader pointed out).

But it drove the editor of the LC-F Sun newspaper bonkers every time my LAT stories identified the Lab as being in Pasadena. Upon learning this, I started having some fun with him and the issue: I'd write "....JPL, near Pasadena,..."

One day, my JPL predecessor, Frank Colella (who just passed away last week) met with the LC-F editor who crowed "at least we've gotten Alexander to stop writing that the Lab is in Pasadena. Now he writes that it's 'near Pasadena'." Frank erupted in laughter. "Don't you see?" he asked the LC-F editor. "He's never going to put the Lab in LaCanada. He's going to put it near Pasadena until he dies."

Well, I aint dead yet and I'm long since gone from both the Times and JPL, but the Lab is and always will be (for me) in, near, adjacent to, close by or alongside ...are you ready for this?....Pasadena!

George Alexander

[Ben Greenhagen]

Well, "technically" JPL is on federal land. So it's not subject to the ordinances of either La Canada Flintridge or Pasadena.