Santa Cruz Changes - 28: Pacific Avenue 1000 block

 

Crossing Cathcart Street and continuing toward the beach, the 1000 block is a short one, extending only to where Elm Street dead-ends from the right. Not much has changed recently -  the mid-2000s mixed-use building at 1010 is the only thing on the left. On the right, the Old School Shoes mural (above) still decorates the long blank wall facing Cathcart.

Next door to O.S.S. on both sides is an odd L-shaped 2-story building with narrow frontage on both Pacific and Cathcart. A building permit has been issued to remodel the structure into several condos, but construction has not begun.

Mid-block is filled by The Catalyst, long-time icon of the Santa Cruz live music scene. Long closed because of COVID protocols, the venue reopened in mid-August. The photo at right is from 2019, when the marquee still advertised upcoming shows.

Also reopened in mid-August is The Starving Musician, which had recently moved from Ocean Street (see Changes #14) into the old Union Grove Music store when COVID hit. The fate of a musician supply store located next door to a live-music club would seem to depend on whether that club is open, so let's hope there are no further public-health-related closures.

Santa Cruz Changes locations can be found on this Google Map.

Santa Cruz Changes - 27: 1100 block Pacific Avenue

The 1100 bock of Pacific Avenue begins at the Soquel Ave. junction on the east, and at the Lincoln Street junction on the west. The block ends at Cathcart Street, in a return to east-west cross-street alignment. 

New Leaf Market remains at the Soquel corner, in the 1929 building originally home to the Bank of Italy, which grew into the Bank of America. The last vestige of the BofA presence departed a few years ago with the closing (2018?) of the sidewalk ATM. 

Next to the former ATM, long-time sustainable-material retailer EcoGoods closed, and that space remains empty. Out front, Cafe Campesino moved into the sidewalk kiosk.

A bit further on, plans to reopen the Del Mar theater remain on hold. The StreetView image at right shows what was playing in July, 2017. The theater's longtime sidekick, Cafe Delmarette, has reopened.

Beyond the Del Mar at 1122, Santa Cruz Jewelers & Gifts came and went since 2017, probably a victim of the COVID closures.

At the Lincoln Street corner, Bay Area franchise Nick the Greek replaced the Sitar Indian restaurant, in the 1937 building built by Morris Abrams for his clothing store.

Farther along is the site of a major loss for Santa Cruz readers and listeners. Logos Books and Records. Owner/builder John Livingston retired in 2019 from the location Logos has occupied since rebuilding after the 1989 earthquake.  

Announced plans to convert the Logos space into a brew pub have not materialized, and the street frontage remains empty.

This is a good time to mention one other change affecting all of Pacific Avenue from Locust Street to Lincoln street - the addition of informational signs pointing out along side streets to where various businesses can be found.  

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

Santa Cruz Changes - 26: 1200 block Pacific Avenue

The saddest recent change in the 1200s of Pacific Avenue (for us Irish, anyway) is also one of the least visible - because it was upstairs. Longtime resident Rosie McCann's Irish pub & restaurant did not survive the long COVID closure, perhaps in part because it was unable to set up an outdoor serving area. Coupled with the closing of The Poet and The Patriot, it's getting harder to find a pint of Guinness downtown. 

Across Pacific and to the north of Walnut Avenue, Joe's Pizza and Subs has left its shop next to Pacific Cookie Company, which continues to thrive (hooray!) The other Joe's location remains open, at the corner of Water Street and Branciforte Ave.

Two years ago, the 1200-block business that seemed most likely to disappear was Forever 21. The clothing chain survived bankruptcy, however, and its Santa Cruz store reopened. Following Borders Books, another large chain retailer failure at 1200 Pacific might have started rumors about ghosts or curses.

At the corner of Walnut, right across from Forever 21, local clothing retailer Berdel's also seems to be doing well. The store has grown to absorb the next-door space formerly occupied by Synergy Clothing.  

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

Santa Cruz Changes - 25: Pacific Avenue 1300s

The first large building in the 1300 block of Pacific Avenue doesn't actually have a PacAve address. The edifice that replaced the beloved Cooper House has a 100 Cooper Street address, and the retail spaces have suite numbers, so longtime corner tenant O'Neill Surf Shop is in Suite 100D.

Inclusion of the Galleria walkway in the building design was perhaps a nod to the glass-roofed alley that used to serve as a backstage area for Don McCaslin and Warmth when the band was set up on the outdoor stage. Warmth inspired James McFarlin's mural that once adorned the alley wall.  

To the south of the Galleria was the Pour Taproom in Suite 100B, which offered an impressive array of brews on tap, but didn't survive the 2020 COVID closures. The space remains vacant, as does the adjacent space vacated by Verizon, who moved to a different suite in the same building.

The venerable El Palomar Hotel, at 1344 Pacific, is home to the also-venerable El Palomar Restaurant, which survived a lengthy dislocation during building repairs after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. The restaurant found perhaps the nicest of all the outdoor "parklet" dining spaces allowed by the city in 2020 when indoor dining was prohibited, but it's not easy to find. It's behind the PacAve buildings, in Frazier Lewis Lane. You might not recognize that name, either, because the city has never installed any identifying signage.

Until 2019, there was a small sign identifying Frazier Lewis Lane, courtesy of local confectioner Marini's, whose back door opened onto the Lane. Lewis was also a Pacific Avenue confectioner, from a much earlier era, credited by some with inventing the candy bar. 

Marini's other locations remain open on the Boardwalk and the Municipal Wharf. Their former PacAve storefront remains vacant.  

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