Santa Cruz Changes: 32 - Sea Walls

 

Several recent "Changes" posts have featured some of the colorful wall murals created by local artists. The paint is barely dry on a new set of murals, part of a project called "Sea Walls: Artists For Oceans". The project is described as "A public art initiative to give our oceans a creative voice."

The project has a website: https://seawalls.org/activation/santa-cruz-usa/, where a map can be downloaded showing the 19 mural locations scattered around the city, along with information about the artists. 

The two shown here are on walls facing Frazier Lewis Lane (behind the Front-Soquel parking structure.) 

While admiring the four murals at this location, have lunch at the El Palomar outdoor dining "parklet". Its location away from street traffic makes it one of the better pandemic dining experiences.

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

2023-07-21 update: there's now a website listing and showing all of the Santa Cruz murals. Its self-explanatory name is Santa Cruz Murals.com.

Santa Cruz Changes: 31 - lower Pacific Avenue

The significant changes to the lowest-numbered stretch of Pacific Avenue are older than others mentioned so far in the "Changes", but significant. One of those changed the street itself - the two traffic circles. Long popular in Europe, and known in British parlance as "roundabouts", traffic circles have been slow to catch on in the U.S. 

The plan for two traffic circles on Pacific Avenue was approved in 2006, and the first one was installed in 2010, where Pacific meets Center Street in front of Depot Park (before Depot Park, Washington Street also ended at the same junction). Also at that location, W. Cliff Drive begins as a one-way street, climbing the hill parallel to Pacific. The well-intentioned-but-impossible-to-read-while-driving sign shown in the photo attempts to be helpful.

After an appropriate cooling-off period for drivers to get over their freak-out, The second circle was installed in 2014-15, at the end of Pacific Avenue, in front of the Municipal Wharf entrance. Both circles are busy, and both seem to be working well. 

Even the inclusion of a complicated dedicated bike path works - but watch out for tourists turning from the circle onto the Wharf! 

Another notable older change is the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Exploration Center, at 35 Pacific, just across the railroad tracks from the circle. 

Establishment of the Sanctuary was a major victory for local advocacy groups like Save Our Shores, and the breaking-wave-shaped Exploration Center benefits from its prominent location next to the rail-trail corridor (more on rail-trail soon!).  

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

Santa Cruz Changes - 30: 700-500 Pacific Avenue

Crossing Laurel Street, Pacific Avenue gets into the downtown planning area long labeled "south of Laurel". 

The most significant recent change in the 700 block, the closure of Saturn Cafe, has already been noted in "Changes" #10. But the round Saturn Cafe room was just the showroom end of building constructed in 1947 for a car dealership. 

Local boom-and-bust company Kinko's occupied the larger part of the building from 1985 to 1999. More recently, Walgreen's drug store gave that space a try, but closed last year. Now an Ace Hardware franchise has taken over the entire building in 2021 - including the round corner showroom. It's a rare business opening since 2019, so good luck to them.

The streetscape past Ace Hardware is best described as "eclectic". No recent major changes, although a building is under construction on what has long been a vacant lot at the northwest corner of Pacific and Sycamore - don't know yet what it will be.

Across Sycamore is the big residential development at 555 Pacific, the subject of the very first Santa Cruz Changes post back in March. News since then is that Current eBikes has moved into one of the retail spaces.  

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

Santa Cruz Changes - 29: 900-800 Pacific Avenue

In the 900 and 800 blocks of Pacific Avenue, we get into some familiar territory, at least on the east side of the street. The three big redevelopment projects on that side will rebuild the entire 900-800 frontage. The two Pacific Station projects were described in posts #21 and #22. Neither of those projects have begun construction yet. Most of the 800 block has been razed in 2021, and the big new project there (see post #4) is slowly rising from the ground. So let's look now at the west side of those two short blocks.

As with the 1000 block, the first thing to notice as you travel south on Pacific Avenue past Elm Street is a large, colorful wall mural facing you on the right. Streetlight Records has filled some of the new & used LP/CD/DVD vacuum left when Logos closed, and seems to be doing well. All of the mid-block businesses beyond are also open. 

At the next corner is yet another fun wall mural, facing south toward Maple Street from the wall of long-time retailer Andy's Auto Supply. The store closed in 2019, unlikely to return, but I hope the mural stays. If the scene pictured in the mural is accurate, Andy's used to be located farther south, in the 800 block. 

The old location of Andy's has long been home to Zachary's, a locally-owned breakfast/lunch institution. Since re-opening for indoor dining, weekend waiting lines once again fill the PacAve sidewalk in front.

Past Zachary's is the last surviving Santa Cruz example of what was once common in commercial building nomenclature - the Jonas Block. From about 1870 to 1910, Pacific Avenue filled up with large-ish buildings dubbed "Block"  - usually following the owner's name. This one was built by David Jonas, a clothing retailer, in 1908. the building name, high up on the roof-edge parapet, is hard to see from the street because of the trees, but can be read easily on the Andy's mural.

The block ends at Laurel Street and a less-treasured local institution, the Bonesio Liquor Store. The front corner of the building is chamfered at 45 degrees, so that customers can drive in from either street, stop right in front of the door, leave the motor running while running in to make a purchase, and exit straight ahead onto the other street. What could go wrong? 

A bit of historical deja-vu: in 1963, Victor Bonesio announced his intention to sell his liquor store to a man from Tulare named Harold W. Jarvis. Probably no relation, but among the earliest wine-and-spirits wholesale/retailers in Santa Cruz was George M. Jarvis, who opened a store on the north end of Pacific Avenue in 1876.  

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