Santa Cruz Changes - 2: 265 Water Street

After going back a few years for the first post in this series, I realized that the chronological order should be reversed. So many changes are happening this year that it makes more sense to start with current events. Otherwise, the posts may never catch up to the calendar! Just a few days ago, a nighttime fire damaged much of a house at 265 Water Street. Like its neighbor at #271, the wood-frame building dated from approx. the 1870s. At that time, the future Water Street was a dirt track approaching the first Water Street bridge, built in 1868. A more flood-resistant design replaced it in 1882. Following the big flood of December 22-23, 1955, Santa Cruz County acquired the large parcel of land where today's courthouse and government center buildings stand. The land across Water Street may have been part of that, or acquired at the same time, or acquired later. In 1981, the current jail was built, on land that included the two old houses at 265 and 271 Water Street. Since then, the two buildings have housed various county programs, but both have been boarded up for some time. The first picture at right shows #265 when it was still in use.

The second photo is from the morning of the 16th, after the fire. The north side of Water Street and sidewalk were closed, so the fire damage is seen through the trees to the west (left in the top photo). It's a good thing I took the pic that morning. By today (Friday the 18th), the building was demolished, as shown in the third photo.

Locations in the Santa Cruz Changes blog can be found on this Google Map.

Santa Cruz Changes - 1: 555 Pacific Avenue

Now that most of the local history content has migrated over to the Santa Cruz County History wiki,  this blog can be home to another sort of local history project. In 2016, I began to notice that the pace of new development in Santa Cruz was picking up as we climbed out of the 2008 recession. Realizing how easy it is to forget what came before when something completely new replaces it, I decided to start documenting those changes with before-during-after photos.

One of the first changes to attract my attention happened at 555 Pacific Avenue, on a parcel that had held only a pile of broken concrete rubble for at least fifteen years. The long, narrow strip facing Pacific Avenue was what remained of the former Prolo Chevrolet dealership property after the larger rear portion was split off and developed as the Sycamore Street Commons apartments in the late 1990s. I'm still looking for a photo of the Prolo Chevy establishment, and will add it here when found, but in my memory it's always been a vacant lot. That may demonstrate how easy it is to forget what used to be, plus the fact that I didn't often get to this part of town before starting to hang out at the Firefly Coffee House (shout out!) in 2011. The Google satellite view at left from March 2016 shows the dogleg-shaped empty lot, with the green-roofed apartment buildings to the left. 

The first development proposal for this property was presented to the city in 1999, but failed to advance. Various other ideas came and went, until the current Barry Swenson (who else?) project finally broke ground in 2016. The photo at right was taken in November, 2016, from a position just off the bottom of the photo above.

The 2020 photo at left shows the completed project from about the same position.

Locations in the Santa Cruz Changes blog can be found on this Google Map.

President Hayes is a hero in Paraguay

In the History Page titled "Remembering (some of) the presidents", Rutherford B. Hayes is mentioned as one of the less-remembered holders of that office. I was surprised to learn that he's a national hero, however, in Paraguay. Thanks to Atlas Obscura for posting this story, and giving me a new tidbit for the "Remembering..." page.

Ch-changes

The History Pages and other content have migrated over to the Santa Cruz County History wiki. Those pages continue to expand with additional information, now extensively interlinked on a wiki platform.