Founded in 1992 by Tom Rogers, Book Alley began in an alleyway space in Old Pasadena before relocating eastward along Colorado Boulevard. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, it operated at 611 E. Colorado Blvd in the Playhouse District—supplemented briefly by an auxiliary annex, Book Alley Too, at 696 E. Colorado Blvd—before establishing its permanent home at 1252 E. Colorado Blvd. Spanning more than three decades in Pasadena, it has grown into one of the largest used, rare, and out-of-print bookshops in Southern California, maintaining over 50,000 volumes with a strong emphasis on art, architecture, graphic design, cinema, and literature.