Santa Cruz Changes: 40 - The Cruz Hotel

Nearly the entire east (river) side of Front Street between Soquel Avenue and Laurel Street is involved in three big development proposals now under consideration by the City of Santa Cruz. 

The first (described in post #9) to receive all of the required planning approvals is in the middle of the block, opposite the Metro Center. 

Attention has now shifted to a hotel proposed for several contiguous parcels between the planned "Maple Alley" Riverwalk access and Laurel Street, across Front Street from the current construction zone of the project described in post #4. The 2017 view above-right shows the site from the Maple Alley end. The only existing building is Santa Cruz Credit Union, which reportedly has already agreed to sell to the hotel developers.

Beyond the credit union building is a city-owned parking lot, then Laurel Street. Another city-owned 100'-wide parking lot (at left in the view above) will be split evenly between the hotel and the Maple Alley extension to the levee and Riverwalk.

From approximately the same direction, the view at left is one of the renderings developers submitted to the city. The landscaped outdoor space is the hotel's half of the parking lot. The small structure shown at far left is not part of the proposal. 

The developers have submitted many more renderings, in addition to the standard plans and elevations. The plan set can be found on the city website. For more information on city actions regarding this proposal, see this page.

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

Santa Cruz Changes: 39 - More reading material

Last week's post showed some examples of the many and varied historical plaques that can be found in downtown Santa Cruz. I began to wonder where I'd find the oldest of these plaques. Arguably the oldest building is the one put up in 1866 by Alfred Baldwin. The two-story brick building, one of the few such to survive the 1989 earthquake, is now home to Lulu Carpenter's coffee cafe. The familiar blue "historic landmark" plaque, however, is definitely post-quake.

It turns out that attaching a plaque to an exterior wall is a relatively recent idea. At the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium, a transition to such plaques can be seen from an older tradition - carving memorial information in a cornerstone. 

The City was not satisfied, however, with just the cornerstone. Under the Civic's entrance portico is what may be the oldest bronze historical plaque in town, giving Franklin D. Roosevelt (among others) a shoutout.

Funds for construction of the Civic Auditorium were provided by the "Federal Works Agency", part of what's usually referred to as the "WPA", the group of depression-era spending programs designed to put unemployed Americans back to work.

For more on how the Civic happened, check out Ross Gibson's Local History column that appeared in the Sentinel on Nov. 15. 

Another interesting wall plaque (shown at left) can be found over a side entrance - the official City of Santa Cruz seal in use when the building was constructed. 

Although its location high up on the wall makes it difficult to see details, the seal proudly depicts an old steam locomotive parked on a wharf, belching a column of smoke from its coal-fired boiler. To the left is a factory, also putting out a cloud of dense smoke. 

The things Santa Cruzans are proud of have changed quite a bit since 1939! 

Across Church Street, City Hall is a year or so older than the Civic, and a very simple dated cornerstone can be seen. At some more recent date, the City mounted a nice plaque just above the "1938" incised into plain gray concrete. 

Still searching for the oldest downtown historical markings, I went to another venerable brick building - the 1882 Hall of Records, usually referred to as "The Octagon". There can be found a type of memorialization even older than cornerstones. The Octagon displays its date of construction and other decoration in the triangular area (the "tympanum") enclosed by the classical pediment over the entrance (sorry about the lamp post).

Across Cooper Street, the Leonard Building applied its name and construction date to the curved walls of the corner turret.

Moving back across the street, one local group deserves a mention for contributing many, many bronze historical plaques all over the county. The "Clampers" added one in front of The Octagon in 2018 (below left) - probably as part of the Abbott Square remodel. 

Anyone curious about Santa Cruz history can learn a lot just by deferring that Pacific Cookie Company gratification long enough to stop and read the information provided on the many and varied historical markers.  

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

Santa Cruz Changes: 38 - Reading material

 

A fun way to learn about many of the changes that have happened in Santa Cruz is to stop and read the many commemorative plaques. Pacific Avenue is especially thick with them, and they come in three distinctive "flavors". One type is usually made of bronze with raised lettering and graphics, and have been placed by the city to commemorate city actions, such as the one installed on the Town Clock - shown at right. It is one of the oldest you'll find, having been installed in 1976 - just in time to celebrate the centennial of Santa Cruz cityhood.

Another plaque of this type commemorates the rebuilding of downtown Santa Cruz after the 1989 earthquake. Much of that rebuilding, unfortunately, followed the demolition of most of the buildings having historical value - the old brick structures fatally damaged by the quake. This city-installed plaque (left) can be found on a lamp post base in the little triangular plaza formed where Pacific Avenue and Front Street come together. 

A second type of plaque has been placed by developers, often when a restoration of a historical building has been attempted. For whatever reason, I've found that the historical information on this type of  plaque is less reliable. Most people have probably noticed the prominently-placed plaque at the corner of Pacific Ave. and Cooper Street, on the facade preserved from the County Bank building after the earthquake.

The plaque features a nicely-rendered image of the old bank, surrounded by angels supported on Greek columns in a style unknown to ancient Greece. Unfortunately, the building image mixes features from different iterations of the building. Still, it's an artistic attempt, and I like to stop and admire it from time to time.

The third type of plaque you'll see is the blue oval placed by the MAH Historical Landmark Committee. These include limited historical data, but the information has been thoroughly researched and verified. At left is the one on the McPherson building, at the corner of Pacific and Locust.

So, next time you're strolling downtown, take time to read a few of these informative plaques.  

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

Santa Cruz Changes: 37 - On Broadway

Our Broadway is not quite "where lights are bright", as in the old song, but it is a major four-lane thoroughfare in a city that has few of those, connecting to one of the five bridges that cross the San Lorenzo River in the City of Santa Cruz. 

Not a lot has happened on Broadway in the last couple of decades, but now there's a big new Hyatt Place hotel just west of Ocean Street. I couldn't find a photo of the church buildings that used to be on that site, but I remember attending services there in the late 1970s, so they were there for well over 40 years. As with many other sites of recent redevelopment, those structures will not be mourned as a loss of great architecture.

The nearby section of Ocean Street has also been mostly neglected for decades, apart from a couple of hotels. Back in post #13, we looked at the large new apartment complex under construction at 350 Ocean, replacing a motley collection of motor-court style apartments. Here's another 2017 photo (at left) from just before demolition.

The complex is now nearly complete, as can be seen in the recent photo on the right. The utility pole on the right, which the developers unfortunately chose to leave in place, can be used as a reference point between the 2017 and 2021 images. Also, the gray transformer box on the pole shows the large height difference between old and new. The "Moorish" trend in architecture was mentioned last week, and this building went full Moorish with its red and white striped entrance archway (cut off at left by my amateur photography).

By the way, if you're interested in the story of why Broadway stops abruptly at its eastern end, I recommend an article by Linda Wilshusen in Santa Cruz County History Journal 9. It's called "Between the Gulches: The Twin Fates of Live Oak Cityhood and the Broadway-Brommer Road". 

I'm not sad that the Broadway-Brommer hookup didn't happen, and I love that, since Arana Gulch Open Space Park was completed, I can ride my bike across the "gulch" on a nice bridge while cars have to take a long detour around (a scenic back way to get to Aldo's for lunch!) 

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