2003 (2002) (2004) (2004a) (2000-2010) Table of Contents
Barbara Berner A Place I Call Home, 12 2003 Free Venice Beachhead, issue 270 1970s See Text
Terry Castle My Heroin Christmas, London Review of Books, 18 December 2003, 11-18. 1970s, See Text
You're Invited! Help Us Celebrate! Post Card, The City of Santa Monica, KR, 2003 See Image and Text
Richard Foss EAT: Bohemian Bargain, The Novel Cafe and Bookstore, CityBeat, 23-29 Ocotber, 2003, p. 34, 2003, See Text
Christine Fulbright Memories of Venice, 1956, 12 2003 Free Venice Beachhead, issue 270, 1956 See Text
Pico Iyer, A Californian who heeded a distant drumbeat, Tony Cohan Native State, Broadway Books, 320 pp., September 2003 LA Times Sunday Book Review, page R2, 2003, 1970s See Text
Roger W. Lotchin The Bad City in the Good War, Indiana U. Press: 304 pages. Reviewed in the 17 August 2003 Sunday LA Times Book Review by Jonathan Kirsch, R2, 2003, 1960s 1943, 1940s See Text
Leonard Michaels, Cryptology, 26 May 26, 2003 The New Yorker, pages 83-89 See Text
Joseph Montoya, Remembers artist who did Vietnam POW-MIA mural in Venice To the Editor: The Argonaut, 20 November 2003, 3, 1997, 1994, 1988, 1975, 1955. See Text
Marlene Park A Romantic in a Frenzied Office: Macdonald-Wright and the Federal Art Projects, 1934-1943 New Deal Federal Arts Project, 2003, 1930s, newdeal.feri.org/smw/ See Text
Eric Nakamura Rabbits and Robots: Who are kozyndan?, Giant Robot, Uprisings, Asian Pop Culture, (kozyndan cover) p. 64 (detail of The Audience, p. 67), no. 28, 2003. See Below
Kevin Roderick, Politics, Los Angeles, June, 2003, page 40-44, 2003, 1990, 1983, 1979 See Text
Santa Monica Planning Division Santa Monica Landmarks Tour, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999, 1996, 1990, 1987, 1983, 1981, 1979, 1978, 1977, 1976, 1975, 1971, 1963, 1953, 1947, 1940, 1938, 1935, 1930, 1927, 1924, 1923, 1922, 1919, 1917, 1916, 1913, 1911, 1909, 1908, 1904, 1902, 1900, 1899, 1894, 1893, 1875, See Text
Mark Simonson, Oneonta, N.Y. City Historian, Writer drew inspiration from Oneonta, The Daily Star, Monday, July 28, 2003, 1939 See Text
Jodi Summers Days on the Market, 2 May 2003's Santa Monica Daily Press, 2003, 1976, 1913, 1911 See Text
Calvin Tomkins, Profile: Flying into the
Light, The New Yorker, January 13, 2003. pages 62 to 71,
1974, 1972, 1969, 1968, 1967,
1966, 1965, 1961, 1943
See
Text
Sean Wilsey On Skateboarding, Using So Little, London Review of Books, 25, no. 12, 19 June 2003, pp. 18-21, 1970s See Text
Emily Young Metropolis: snapshots from the center of the universe: A Place in the Sun, Catching Up with Edward Biberman's Los Angeles. Los Angeles Times Magazine, 21 December 2003, p. 8, 2003, 1986, 1885, 1936, 1904 See Text
Documents
Barbara Berner A Place I Call Home, 12 2003 Free Venice Beachhead, issue 270
"I moved to Venice in the early 70's, I was 27. Back then the lines between Ocean Park and Venice seemed blurry. Now they are, as we know, clearly defined.
"My friend Tina took me to POP when I was 15. We had cut school. I had never heard of POP till then. A pervert exposed himself to us on the walkway into the park. I thought we deserved it cause we had cut school.
"I vaguely remember the boardwalk. Very different than now. From what I remember, there was a row of blue wooden one-story buildings on the beach side. There were hardly any buildings on the East Side of the walk. It is a good thing I didn't hang out in Venice in the late fifties; I would have been chasing the Dragon for sure.
"I went to Olivia's Restaurant on the SW corner of Ocean Park and Main in my 20's with my first husband for soul food. We were middle class, smokin' dope, doing psychedelics and thought it was a great hole in the wall place. I did not connect to Venice then either, still too asleep to connect with anything much.
"It took me a few more years to find my way back to my home for the past 31 years now. Luckily I woke up, got feminized, political, left my middle class existence, husband, took my 2-yr. old daughter and moved into a commune on 3rd St. between Ashland and Rose. This was a radical/political commune filled with college students, another single mother and child.
"I loved that commune, the people, the vegetable garden, making bread in a huge metal bread maker, dinners around the long wooden table and the parties. I loved that I was involved in radical change, my own life, group change and philosophy. Life seemed serious business but with good times mixed in.
"I worked at the Midnight Special Bookstore on W. Washington, was involved with collective day care, started one of the first consciousness raising groups held at our commune that grew and grew till we opened a women's center on South Venice Blvd. We ordered food with the co-op then picked it up in the middle of the street on W. Washington Blvd. in the morning. That was how sleepy Venice was back then. We almost have gridlock now.
"There were other political collectives around, all had names. Ours was the 3rd Street house. One was the Fraser house and the Thornton house. There was Mayday in Culver City that included a non-sexist pre-school. All of our tires were slashed one morning at all of the communes. This was a big intrigue; we were getting ready for the revolution.
"It did not come as we had expected. Our house was sold. We felt the owner a traitor, selling out to the establishment. One couple moved to Bellingham, Washington, one couple to Berkeley and I moved in with another single mother in Culver City for a while, then to Santa Monica to go to school.
"While in school, a lover brought me to the Fruit Tramps on the Boardwalk, a small organic market where you could work for your food, I had gotten into herbs and began ordering them for the store and making herbal potions.
"The climate seemed different; everyone was into the 'flow', fasting for days on end, taking high colonics, giving away all their possessions, meditating at the water's edge. I swear it is possible to ask and receive whatever your heart desires at the water's edge, between Dudley and Paloma still to this day!
"There was a woman from Tennessee who had a free store on Main where you could drop off clothes and pick up new ones. She wanted to preach and finally moved back to Tennessee.
"One Life had opened a small restaurant, organic, with no prices on the menu where you would pay what you thought the food was worth and it was fabulous. So were the people who ran the store. There was Blackies on Main for Blues, the Comeback Inn on W. Washington for jazz and the Circle Bar for whatever. Beyond Baroque was right next to the Comeback Inn back then.
"Walking the boardwalk was the main attraction, up and down, several times a day. Not much of a working crowd, much of the nine to five around. Artists, musicians, lots of philosophers, poets, kids and seniors. The world was on the boardwalk.
"Somewhere in the late 70's it changed. I had gone away for six weeks in the summer and when I came back, MONEY had appeared. The Reagan/Bush era had hit Venice. Nice shops on Main, buildings going up on the boardwalk, talk of stopping the artisans from selling without a license and on and on. Overnight Venice was changing once again.
"Money is still here, so are the artisans, in fact even more. That is the wonderful thing about Venice, its ability to change. Always, on the forefront, the current vision is ever present; the freedom to be whoever and create whatever is your desire."
Terry Castle My Heroin Christmas, London Review of Books, 18 December 2003, 11-18. 2003, 1994, 1982, 1979, 1970s
"A commentary on Art Pepper's autobiography Straight Life: The Story of Art Pepper, 1979, reissued in paperback in 1994, and relates that in the early seventies Art Pepper spent several years at Synonon.
" . . . Pepper managed to get himself into Synanon, (the celebrated Santa Monica rehabilitation centre and Atlas Shrugged-style beach commune. He lived there for several years in the early 1970s and met Laurie, a fellow resident who became his third wife. He gradually cleaned up - at least partially - and began a heroic if truncated musical comeback. He made some new records, started touring again, and as a quasi-rehabilitated éminence grise, gave jazz workshops at colleges and universities. . . .
"He began dictating Straight Life to Laurie . . . asked some of his old bandmates, producers, drug dealers, prison cronies and girlfriends to add their . . . comments. The resulting feuilleton was hailed as a poetic masterpiece: a riffing, scabrous, West Coast Season in Hell. . . . Though mostly off junk, Pepper continued to consume pills in great quantities and shot up, quite brazenly, with coke and methadone to the last days of his life. He died in Panorama, California, of an exploding brain, in June 1982, at the age of 56." p. 12
"All the more surprising, then, the pathos the writer achieves when he describes courting Laurie, his last and 'greatest love', at Synanon in the 1970s. Synanon itself - the most celebrated rehab programme of its day - sounds like a Southern California cult nightmare: all rules and regulations and not being able to go to the bathroom without permission. At the Santa Monica 'campus' - where Pepper lived for two years - there were the usual cult trappings: a charismatic guru (named Chuck) and army of live-in disciples; elaborate rewards and punishments for performing (or neglecting) communal household chores; and daily Khmer Rouge-style group therapy sessions in which the goal was to drive your fragile fellow addicts into a state of mental meltdown.
"You'd be in a game with ten or fifteen people and if somebody, like pissed on the toilet seat in their dorm or something like that, you'd tell itl You'd accuse him of it in front of the girls. When your covers are pulled in front of women it's really a drag, so there'd be some wild shouting matches. They made up a lot of things, too, just to get you mad, to get you raving. Somebody'd accuse you of farting at night so loud they couldn't sleep, or some chick would accusse some broad of throwing a bloody Kotex in the corner of the bathroom, leaving it laying there. The idea was that rank{l}ing you and exposing you bad habits would make you eventually change. And it worked, you know, it worked."
" . . . After staying sober and drug-free for some time, male and female Synanon residents who wanted to start a sexual relationship could petition the counsellors to let them go on 'dates' together - little walks around the neighborhood, trips to the nearby shopping mall, chaste bike rides. The formal courtship period accomplished, they might then request permission to spend a couple of hours together in the commune's designated trysting place . . . " p. 15
"On their first official date, he and Laurie sit on a bench and watch the carousel.
"In the end one gets the feeling that Pepper is just too much . . . the old guy has to be defended against; not only for playing the sax, doping up and balling chicks to startling excess, but for describing it so unambiguously, with the ludic genius of a trailer-park Villon. He's an out landish daddy-o from some time before les neiges d'antan - if Southern California can indeed be said to have had them." p. 16
Richard Foss EAT: Bohemian Bargain, The Novel Cafe and Bookstore, CityBeat, 23-29 Ocotber, 2003, p. 34, 2003,
The Novel Cafe, 212 Pier Ave. (310) 396-8566
12 2003 Free Venice Beachhead issue 270
Christine Fulbright
Memories of Venice, 1956
I am 8 yrs old. Mom moved to Venice in the 50's. Sleeping in sandy beds of the children of Beatnik poets and artists. Waking in the middle of the night to the artist peeing on his painting and the couch I am sleeping on. Larry lipton and his wife Netty hosting. Big Daddy and the Gas House with a bathtub in the middle of the studio. I sat in and thought it was funny. Main Street sunlight mis- sion, the 5 and dime, safeway, a gas station on the corner of main and Ocean Park Blvd. Olivia's Soul food. Later Mom worked the Muffin Pan Game at P.O.P. I got in free. Spying on prostitutes and winos flashing on speedway. Don't go to the canals the Hells Angeles are there. The Venture Inn and Saucy Dog are where they hang out. Fond memories.
Pico Iyer, "A Californian who heeded a distant drumbeat," Tony Cohan Native State, Broadway Books, 320 pp., September 2003 LA Times Sunday Book Review, page R2, 2003, 1970s
" . . . Every day one summer, . . . he (Tony Cohan) hitched the 12 miles from Coldwater Canyon to Santa Monica Pier to look out across the ocean toward all the places he longed to get to . . . California was where he dreamed of somewhere else.
" . . . 'Santa Ana breeze rustling the oleanders, smell of suntan oil and semen' . . . 'past the pinball arcade with the skee balls in their troughs. Madame Doreena's crystal ball on velvet, the merry-go-round ponies frozen to their poles behind glass doors.'"
Kay Kyser and his Orchestra Fun with the Ol' Professor '44-'47, Sony (A-70229), Col-cd-7575 2003, 1947, 1940s
Roger W. Lotchin The Bad City in the Good War, Indiana U. Press: 304 pages. Reviewed in the 17 August 2003 Sunday LA Times Book Review by Jonathan Kirsch, R2, 2003, 1960s 1943, 1940s
" . . . allows us to see how the war effort shattered the status quo and revolutionized the sleepy world of prewar California.
"'Separated by space, race, class, and occupational barriers, normally the aristocratic polo men, cowboys, and black soldiers had very little in common' . . . (But World War II was a) 'participatory conflict (and) 'their fear of totalitarianism united them in a greater effort.'
"The melting pot . . . was specifically urban. 'Americans have traditionally been very skeptical of their cities and often downright hostile to them, but cities and city people would contribute markedly to the overthrow and containment of totalitarianism. The 'bad city' came in very handy in the 'Good War.'""
". . .California was quickly turned into a vast arms factory and a staging area for the war effort . . . a map . . . showing a dot for every aircraft plant in Los Angeles County is solid black at it center because of the sheer concentration of war production."
"'Fortress California came of age in World War II . . .The overbuilt, overnight, jumped-up, 'improbable' California cities were an enormous asset to the American homefront.'"
". . .
"The sheer congestion brought its own social and cultural reverberations as soldiers and sailors, factory workers and young locals encountered each other in the hectic setting of bars, ballrooms and clubs all over California. The Zoot Suit Riots of 1943 . . . were the result of a clash between military men on liberty in the streets of Los Angeles and the young men they encountered there . . . 'the best known 'recreational' event of the war . . . both sides were out to amuse themselves.'
"Some of the gender and racial barriers that fell during World War II come as a surprise . . . the civil rights movement of the 1960s was rooted in World War II.
". . .
"The author is careful not to overstate his case, insisting that the war ought to be regarded as a 'heroic interlude' rather than a revolution. Some of the forces of change already were at work before the war was over. . . 'Races met, mingled, settled in grudgingly or willingly, or skedaddled ' . . . 'No one knew quite what to make of this mix; yet all seemed to agree that it was upsetting, different, and fascinating.'"
Leonard Michaels, Cryptology, on pages 83-89 of the 26 May 26, 2003 The New Yorker,
" . . . I fancied myself buying things like a dishwasher, but I don't work for money. You know what I mean. My salary pays my bills. I work like most people, not to waste my life. Have you been to Santa Monica? That's where I live. On the beach you see people with nice bodies and no jobs. Also no brains. Life is too short to waste a minute getting a sunburn. I've never even taken a vacation. I don't know why anybody would want to . . ."
Joseph Montoya, Remembers artist who did Vietnam POW-MIA mural in Venice To the Editor: The Argonaut, 20 November 2003, 3, 1997, 1994, 1988, 1975, 1955.
"It was a pleasant surprise to see the photograph of the Viet Nam War POW-MIA mural on Pacific Avenue in Venice as part of the Veteran's Day cover of The Argonaut Thursday, November 6th.
" . . .
"The mural was conceived and painted by the late Peter Stewart*, with the assistance of others in the veteran community, including many homeless verterans.
"Peter [Stewart*] was born in 1955 in California and served more than two years in the U.S. Navy, including a tour of duty in the waters of the South China Sea during the Vietnam War aboard the USS Ranger as a naval aircraft weapons specialist. He was honorably discharged in 1975.
"Peter [Stewart*] began his muralist career in 1988.
"His Venice mural, You Are Not Forgotten, lists the names of the 2,273 Americans missing in action from the Vietnam War.
"The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors recognized Peter by choosing the mural as a backdrop for presentation of a proclamation marking September 16th, 1994, as POW-MIA Recognition Day.
"The proclamation was presented to Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 526 of West Los Angeles and Culver City. Peter attended the presentation both as a muralist and a member of the chapter.
"Another fine example of Peter's work is the National Veterans mural on the grounds of the Veterans Administration West Los Angeles Medical Center, a mural that depicts U.S. military personnel, U.S. military medals, awards and unit insignias.
"Sadly, Peter died in 1997.
" . . ."
Marlene Park A Romantic in a Frenzied Office: Macdonald-Wright and the Federal Art Projects, 1934-1943 New Deal Federal Arts Project, 2003 newdeal.feri.org/smw/ - 9k
"The American artist Stanton Macdonald-Wright is best known for his early abstract paintings, first exhibited in Munich and Paris in 1913. He and Morgan Russell called their innovation "Synchromism," and as such it is featured in surveys of American art. Synchromism used colors in the manner of musical notes, if not always in consistent scales. When Macdonald-Wright returned to Southern California his brother, the art critic Willard Huntington Wright, remained in New York where he became famous as the mystery writer S.S. Van Dine. His character, Philo Vance, solved crimes in films as well as in books. In California, Macdonald-Wright is recognized as a leading teacher and apostle of modernism in the between-the-wars period. But what is generally missing from the literature is that his scholarly, romantic disposition, his extensive knowledge of ancient and Chinese art, and his disregard of the more literal arts of the period, made him a successful artist and administrator on the WPA/FAP. He was certainly out of step with the politics and realisms of the 1930s, but he believed that one artist's sensibility could communicate itself to a public, and he promoted experimentation that would adapt the monumental arts of the past to contemporary economic, architectural and technical realities.
"Thus the Southern California WPA/FAP is noted for its "texturalized" mosaics, made from commercial tiles cut into patterns distinctive for each thing represented; its monumental, direct-carve sculpture from native stones; its Petrachrome murals, made like terrazzo floors but without metal divisions between the segments; and its casein tempera murals, painted in thin washes so as not to reduce the acoustic properties of walls in newer earthquake-conscious construction. The latter was adapted only to interior use, but the other media were used indoors and out, giving them greater public visibility.
"Macdonald-Wright was associated with the Federal art projects from 1934 to 1943. When he painted an extensive mural cycle for the new Santa Monica Public Library (1934-35), the Public Works of Art Project helped raise money for the materials and paid the salaries of two assistants. The subject is the two-fold artistic and technological development of mankind, in which the two streams flow together in the creation of the three-color motion picture. (Macdonald-Wright had invented a color film process, made films, and devised a color organ to play his synchromies.) From his olympian viewpoint, he emphasized the interchanges between eastern and western cultures, and pictured great fields of energy as well as portraying individual inventors. The introductory and culminating panels, usually stored in the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, are part of the exhibit.
"Macdonald-Wright's long career with the WPA/FAP commenced immediately upon the program's implementation in Los Angeles. He was an adviser, briefly an artist, and then an administrator, first for Los Angeles County, then for Southern California. His administration was not without controversy. The local chapter of the Artists' Union attacked him, primarily on the grounds that he was not content to administer but usurped the role of artists. He did donate a small still life in oil and several large landscape drawings in pencil (represented in the exhibit) to the project; he designed some five mosaics as well as the Petrachrome panels for the Santa Monica City Hall and two theater curtains. He collaborated on the grandest of all designs, that for the Long Beach Municipal Auditorium mosaic.
"One can read into this material the predicament of much New Deal art: the artist overwhelmed by bureaucratic functions; the collaborative nature, for better and worse, of monumental art; the inability to present the art in a museum context and thus in the context of the artist's other work; the critics' cries of "compromise"; and the judgments that its achievements are isolated because they did not lead to post World War II innovations. Macdonald-Wright did not so much compromise as adapt in order to earn a living. He used other parts of his imagination and knowledge, of his theoretical and pedagogical positions, to move the Southern California project toward practical, popular, and creative solutions. There was nothing ideal about the Federal art projects, but the achievements, as exemplified by Macdonald-Wright, are both fascinating and real.
The reader might find most useful:
Lydia Modi Vitale and Steven M. Gelber, New Deal Art: California , Santa Clara, Calif.: de Saisset Art Gallery and Museum, 1976.
Nancy Dustin Wall Moure, Painting and Sculpture in Los Angeles, 1900-1945 , Los Angeles, Calif.: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1980.
Robin J. Dunitz, Street Gallery: Guide to 1000 Los Angeles Murals , Los Angeles, Calif.: RJD Enterprises, 1993 (with maps)."
Eric Nakamura Rabbits and Robots: Who are kozyndan?, Giant Robot, Uprisings, Asian Pop Culture, (kozyndan cover) p. 64 (detail of The Audience, p. 67), no. 28, 2003
Kevin Roderick, Politics, Los Angeles, June, 2003, page 40-44, 2003, 1990, 1983, 1979
"Civic Unrest: . . . As prosperity has become more conspicuous, renters in beachfront Ocean Park&endash; birthplace of the city's liberal soul-warily eye the north-of-Montana crowd. . . .
"As Santa Monica became more desirable, soaring rents threatened to price out the beach lovers. Zane and friends, with charismatic backers like Tom and Jane (the then married Hayden and Fonda), organized in funky Ocean Park and among seniors. . . It (SMMR) sailed to victory, with it, young, liberal firebrand Ruth Yannatta Goldway (1979-1983) was elected to the city . .
" . . . Bob Holbrook (b.1941?) (elected to City Council in 1990) . . . grew up in Ocean Park, graduated from Santa Monica High . . .
" . . . director of the USC campus pharmacy . . ."
Santa Monica Planning Division Santa Monica Landmarks Tour, 2003.
32. Loof Hippodrome, 1916
Foot of Colorado Avenue
Architects: various builders
Designation: 17 August 1976
"The Hippodrome is a California-Byzantine-Moorish-style fantasy that has housed a succession of vintage merry-go-rounds, carousels and Wurlitzer organs over the years. The current carousel was built by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company in 1922. Originally from Nashville, Tennessee, the carousel was moved from the Venice pier to the Santa Monica Pier in 1947. It has 44 hand-carved and hand-painted wooden horses, which were restored in 1990.
"The Hippodrome building was restored during the period from 1981 through 1984, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987."
33. Santa Monica Pier
Foot of Colorado Avenue
Architect: Charles Looff {?}
Designation: 17 August 1976
"The Pier is California's oldest pleasure pier and has the only amusement park on a pier on the west coast. It was originally two separately owned, adjacent piers: the Municipal Pier built in 1909, and the Pleasure Pier, built in 1916 by Charles Looff. Looff said he chose this location because Santa Monica beach "is well-known as one of the finest on the Pacific Coast, it attracts the highest class of people, and transportation facilities are unequaled." Looff was a pioneer amusement entrepreneur who had built Coney Island's first carousel in Brooklyn, New York. In 1909, Looff moved his operation to Long Beach, after realizing the potential for amusement parks along the Southern Californian coastline.
"While the Municipal Pier was for strolling and fishing, Looff constructed amusement and food establishments on the Pleasure Pier, including the exotic Hippodrome building to house the Pier's carousel. Looff sold the Pleasure Pier in 1924 to a corporation which lengthened it that year and built the famed La Monica Ballroom, which soon became home of some of the earliest national radio and television broadcasts. Although the ballroom was demolished in 1963, in its heyday the massive structure could accomodate as many as 10,000 people.
"In 1953, the City took over the Pleasure Pier and leased it to a private operator. Since the 1970s, the Piers have been known collectively as the Santa Monica Pier. The entire Pier was named a County Historical Landmark in 1975. After the 1983 storms that destroyed the west end of the Santa Monica Pier, the structure of the Pier was strengthened."
34. Santa Monica City Hall, 1938
1685 Main Street
Architects: Donald Parkinson & Joseph M. Estep
Designation: 16 October 1979
"The Art Deco style City Hall was partially financed by the federal Public Works Administration. The building is a concrete structure in the Classical Moderne style, popular in the 1930s and 1940s. It carries a nautical tone to suit this oceanside community.
"The entrance is decorated with colorful tile work by the local Gladding, McBean Tile Company. The lobby murals were designed by Stanton Macdonald-Wright*, and installed under the auspices of the Federal Arts Project. The building provided jobs and pride to the community during the Great Depression; it is a standing tribute to cooperation among residents, city officials and the federal government."
35. Barnum Hall, 1938
601 Pico Boulevard
Architects: Marsh, Smith & Powell
Designation: 9 December 2002
"This Streamline Moderne auditorium on the Santa Monica High School campus has long been an architectural and cultural focal point. It was one of the few Works Progress Administration (WPA) relief projects completed in Santa Monica during the 1930s. Internationally recognized local artist Stanton Macdonald-Wright* created the large mosaic in the lobby and the fire curtain mural on the stage as part of the WPA and Federal Arts Project.
"The primary facade contains a large glazed grid and a geometric motif in the concrete bas-relief. The auditorium was recently extensively renovated through the efforts of the "Save Barnum Hall!" parents' organization."
36. Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, 1958
1855 Main Street
Architect: Welton Becket & Associates
Designation: 9 April 2002
"This building was the third of three major 20th century Civic Center structures, beginning with City Hall and the County Courthouse. It remains an excellent example of the mid-20th century International Style. It is the only surviving institutional design of world-famous master architect and Santa Monica resident Welton Becket in the City.
"The Auditorium has state-of-the-art engineering designs: a hydraulic floor, retractable domes and flexible stadium seating. Its acoustics system was designed by UCLA Chancellor Vern O. Knutsen, and is still highly functional, and requires minimal maintenance."
37. Bay Street Craftsman Cluster, circa
1900
137, 141, 145 & 147 Bay Street
Designation: 5 December 2000
"This historic district contains four structures, all two story, front gabled, multi-family residences. Architectural unity and physical connection are reinforced by the palm tree-lined Bay Street.
"These buildings are among the earliest intact examples of Craftsman style apartment buildings in the Ocean Park District. They were strategically located at Neilson Way, originally the Los Angeles Pacific Railway right of way, which connected Santa Monica to the rest of the region, and were also close to the beach and the Main Street commercial district."
38 Horatio West Court, 1919
140 Hollister Ave.
Architect: Irving Gill
Designated: 2 January 1979
"This is one of the finest remaining examples of architect Irving Gill's work in the Los Angeles area. Gill's work was heavily influenced by the region's Spanish Colonial Revival and Mission Revival architecture. Abstracting elements of these styles, his designs were modern interpretations of these more traditional forms. This property also shows Gill's interest in designing affordable alternatives to the single-family home. On the first floor of the two-story homes French doors lead from living areas onto an enclosed terrace. In the 1970's, the buildings were restored.
"Horatio West Court is on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977."
39. Hollister Court, 1904 - early 1920s
2402 Fourth Street & 2401 Third Street
Architect: Unknown
Designation: 13 December 1990
"This bungalow court consists of 13 individual Craftsman style units, congregated along the perimeter of the property, forming a lushly landscaped central courtyard that is shared by the residents of the complex.
"Bungalow courts provide many of the amenities of a single family home at an affordable price, and were the precursors to garden apartments which were considered a more permanent housing type. This building type was popular in the early 20th century as vacation homes and offered opportunities for community life and gatherings.
"The property was subdivided into condominiums in 1993."
40 John and Anna George* House, circa
1911
2424 Fourth Street
Architect: Unknown
Designated 17 March 1981
"Situated on the crest of a hill, this California Craftsman bungalow features include a large double columned front porch, several large picture windows, a widow's walk which faces the ocean, and a glassed in morning room. The large front door is pierced by three vertical channels of beveled glass. During restoration of the house in the early 1980's the structure was repainted its original gray color and a small second floor additon was constructed.
"The Georges were a prominent local family. John George was a City Council member and his wife was an active clubwoman." p.18
41. Merle Norman* House, 1935
2523 Third Street
Architect: Ellis G. Martin
Designation: 10 June 1996
"This Mediterranean Revival style house features multiple red tile gabled roof with bracketed eaves and a central chimney. The home was the principal residence of the nationally famed cosmetics entrepreneur, Merle Norman*, for over twenty years.
"Mrs. Norman's business began in a garage in Ocean Park, where she set up a laboratory and came up with the "3 Steps" treatment. Aside from her success in cosmetics, Mrs. Norman is also recognized for her innovative marketing techniques, consisting primarily of free demonstrations and word-of-mouth product promotion during the Great Depression."
42. Charles Warren Brown* House, 1908
2504 Third Street
Architect: Charles Warren Brown
Designation: 11 August 1997
"An early Craftsman era structure, this home typifies development in Ocean Park at the turn of the 20th century. It features typical Craftsman elements such as strongly delineated porch columns, exposed purlins and rafters, combinations of cladding and gable motifs. The proportion of window to wall area is high, and windows were placed in irregular combinations or banded.
"Owner-builder Brown appears to have been actice in civic affairs and briefly served as a Councilman, which furthered his success as a speculative buyer and builder."
43. Merle Norman Building,
2525 Main Street
Architect: H.G. Thursby
Designation: 11 November 2002
"This Streamline Moderne/Art Deco style building was the former headquarters of Merle Norman Cosmetics. Its ornate and stylish design reflected Norman's prosperity and the building towered above most of Main Street's low-rise commercial structures. {The Library?}
"The Streamline styling of this building is a distinctive interpretation of an architectural movement, which suggests dynamism, progress, and optimism. The unique combination of complex curves, pylons, and a prominent circular cupola distinguish this building. It further symbolizes the success of a Santa Monica business during the peak years of the Great Depression."
44. Ocean Park Library, circa 1917 -1918
2601 Main Street
Architects: Kegley & Gerity
Designated 3 May 1977
"The Ocean Park branch library is the last Carnegie Library remaining in Santa Monica, and one of the few small Carnegie library still operating in California. The architecture is a simplified variation of Classical Revival design, characterized by symmetry, a central entrance and a continuous roofline. The original facade was retained during a major remodel and expansion in 1985.
"The library site was donated by the Tegner* family where the original Tegner home once stood. In 1902, Charles A. Tegner opened a small real estate and insurance office in downtown Santa Monica, which is still operating after 100 years." p. 19
45. First Roy Jones House, 1894
2612 Main Street
Architect: Sumner P. Hunt
Designation: 2 January 1979
"This building, constructed for Santa Monica civic leader, Roy Jones, is the earliest known American Colonial Revival style work of architect Sumner P. Hunt, whose work was well known in Southern California for designing structures in both the Spanish Colonial Revival and American Colonial Revival styles.
"Originally located at 1007 Ocean Avenue, the house was donated to the Heritage Square Museum and moved to its present location on City - owned property in 1977. Today, it houses the California Heritage Museum, which specializes in decorative arts. The first floor is furnished in 1890s to 1930s styles."
46. Third Street Neighborhood Historic
District
Bounded by Ocean Park Boulevard, Second, Hill and Third Streets.
Designation: 1 July 1990
"The Third Street Neighborhood Historic District is the City's first Historic District. It consists of 38 contributing buildings constructed between 1875 and 1930. This small Ocean Park neighborhood illustrates many of the historical and architectural patterns that characterized the larger community. Historically, the neighborhood has ties to some of Santa Monica's most prominent early residents. Architecturally, the buildings chronicle the evolution of design from the Victorian era through the revival styles of the 1920s and 1930s, with an emphasis on hipped roof, turn-of-the-century cottages and Craftsman bungalows."
47. Moses Hostetter* House, 1893
2601 Second Street
Architect: Unknown
Designation: 12 April 1990
"This Victorian era single family home was constructed by Moses Hostetter*, an Iowa farmer who migrated to Santa Monica in 1893. Hostetter served as a member of the Santa Monica Board of Trustees between 1896 and 1900, acting as chairman of several committees. The house features two three-sided, two story bay windows. The exterior is clad in the original redwood bevel siding with decorative fishscale shingles. The only alteration to the structure is the removal of the upper gable, which occurred sometime in the 1920's.
"The house was carefully restored during the 1980's."
48. First Methodist - Episcopal Church, 1875
- 1876
2621 2nd Street
Architect: Unknown
Designation: 4 January 1977
"A simplified variation of a Gothic Revival style, the building was the first church erected in Santa Monica. The site was donated by the Santa Monica Land Company of City founder John P. Jones. Located originally at Sixth and Arizona, the church was moved to Hill and Lake Streets in 1899 and occupied by the Ocean Park Methodist - Episcopal Church. Lake Street became Washington Boulevard, and is now Second Street.
"In 1923, the old church was sold to the Stephen Jackson Women's Relief Corps, No. 124 and was renamed "Patriotic Hall." In 1971, it became a private residence." p.20
49. Parkhurst Building, 1927
185 Pier Ave
Architects: Norman F. Marsh & Company
Designated 6 December 1977
"This Spanish Colonial Revival building was constructed by Clinton Gordon Parkhurst, the next to the last mayor of Venice before this city became incorporated into the City of Los Angeles. It was designed by the architectural firm of Marsh, Smith and Powell. Partner Norman F. Marsh was responsible for the design of the many prominent structures in Venice, as well as the plan for the arcaded streets and canals. The multi-sided tower with its intricate design formed by protruding bricks, as well as it other ornamentation, make this one of the more visible landmarks on Main Street. This building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978."
50. Craftsman style Residence, 1913
502 Raymond Avenue
Architect: Unknown
Designation: 14 April 2003
"The main structure on this property was built in 1913, and the rear unit was added in 1940. The house typifies the residential development of the Ocean Park neighborhood during the first quarter of the 20th century. The residence's Craftsman features include the low-pitched multi-gable roof, horizontal emphasis, shingle siding, exposed rafter tails and eave brackets, and wood frame windows.
"The brick pillars on the front porch were restored in 2001, when the property was extensively renovated. The stained glass windows were not the original type used on this house, but are typically associated with the Craftsman style."
52. Shotgun House, circa 1899
Moved from 2712 Second Street to the Santa Monica Airport
Architect: Unknown
Designation: 11 January 1999
"Known as a "shotgun house", this structure is one room wide, one story tall, and several rooms deep. The shotgun house is a vernacular American building type that resulted from a synthesis of sources from the Caribbean region, Europe, and Africa. Its form was adaptable to a variety of circumstances under which temporary or inexpensive housing was required.
"This house may have been constructed initially as a beach cottage, or may have housed workers associated with the nearby rail or oil industries. It is now in storage awaiting a relocation site." p. 21
Mark Simonson, Oneonta, N.Y. City Historian, Writer drew inspiration from Oneonta, The Daily Star, Monday, July 28, 2003
"The detective story is a kind of intellectual game. It is more - it is a sporting event." This is the opening to "Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories" by S.S. Van Dine, the author of numerous and popular Philo Vance mysteries of the early 20th century.
"Some of those "games" Van Dine played to solve mysteries may have had a few veiled references to Oneonta, because the author spent considerable amounts of time here. Some of his more-serious works had very real references to the area. Van Dine was actually a pen name; the author was Willard Huntington Wright.
"Although Willard was born in Virginia in 1888, his father, Archibald Wright was born in the old Dietz-Bundy house on Main Street, the site of Bresee's store today. The young Wright was named after his father's boyhood friend Willard V. Huntington. There were plenty of relatives and friends of the family in the area who often recalled Willard Huntington Wright's visits to Oneonta.
"Wright attended several colleges and then entered the writing field. Beginning in 1913, Wright published various books on art, literature and music, which were regarded as scholarly works, but gave him little fame. In 1916, Wright wrote his first novel, A Man of Promise. It received critical acclaim but wasn't a huge seller. Interestingly, it is this book that contains apparent references to Oneonta. Although the action takes place in "Greenwood," past historians liken it to Oneonta. Misses Bertha and Julia Wright lived in a colonial house on River Street (long since demolished), and this is where Willard visited - and in all likelihood penned the novel.
"In The Man of Promise, Wright referred to the old Normal School on Normal Hill as "Oak Hill," speaks of River Street, the Susquehanna River and a panoramic view of the city from Franklin Mountain, where he'd hike to, called "The Crow's Nest." In the novel, Wright named the leading male character Stanford West, who fell in love and married Alice Carlisle, the daughter of a judge. In real life, Wright was always attracted to prominent lawyer Alva Seybolt's daughter, Edna.
"Wright adopted the name S.S. Van Dine from a relative on his mother's side whose name was Van Dyne, and the initials S.S. were added, simply because he liked the combination. In addition to writing, Wright was prominent as a critic in the literary and art world.
"In 1923, Wright suffered a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized for about two years. While recovering, he only read detective stories. As mentioned before, his novel didn't sell well, so as he read these mysteries, he thought they were easier to write, and much more profitable. Coincidentally, the character Stanford West in The Man of Promise sought escape from the simpler form of literature such as detective stories, but in real life, Wright fell into it.
""I had spent 15 years building up a cultural reputation," Wright once said. "Each one of my Philo Vance stories has made more money than all my nine serious books put together."
"The Benson Murder Case was S.S. Van Dine's first detective mystery in 1926. Here he introduced the famous sleuth, Philo Vance. Six "Murder Cases" followed - Canary, Greene, Scarab, Kennel, Gracie Allen and Winter. All were best-sellers. Van Dine also wrote a series of short stories for the Warner Brothers film studio in the early 1930s. They were used as a basis for a series of 12 short films, each about 20 minutes long. None of the screen treatments by Van Dine have been known to be published in book form.
"The pen of S.S. Van Dine, and with him, Willard Huntington Wright, passed away in 1939."
Jodi Summers Days on the Market, 2 May 2003's Santa Monica Daily Press, 2003, 1976, 1913, 1911
" . . . 1976&endash;The City of Santa Monica passes its landmark ordinance, giving the city the right to designate which properties are of historic significance.
"Since Santa Monica passed its first landmark ordinance 27 years ago, 18 houses have been declared city landmarks. The most recent designation is a newly restored craftsman located in Ocean Park. The single-family home, which was built between 1911 and 1913, is located on street full of newer apartment buildings and condominium units. The application for landmark status was filed by the homeowner, who describes the property as 'as a little house in a wood full of big buildings.'" p. 6
Calvin Tomkins, Profile: Flying into the Light, The New Yorker, January 13, 2003. pages 62 to 71, 1974, 1972, 1969, 1968, 1967, 1966, 1965, 1961, 1943
In 13 January 2003 The New Yorker, pages 62 to 71, Calvin Tomkins writes in a Profile: Flying into the Light about the artist James Turrell: Born in 1943 and raised by his grandmother in Pasadena after his aeronautical engineer and academic father died in 1953 and his mother joined the Peace Corps shortly thereafter. Without graduating from high school, " . . . 1961, he entered Pomona College . . . and majored in mathematics and perceptual psychology, and . . .took . . . art classes." Continued his art studies for a year, 1965&endash;66 at UC Irvine. "In 1967, after serving some time in jail (vaguely for couselling draft resisters), Turrell moved back to Los Angeles. He had a little money saved up, which he used to take a lease on the old Mendota Hotel, a small, derelict building in what was then a sort of slum, the Ocean Park section of Los Angeles, where Richard Diebenkorn and a number of other artists had studios. Setting aside two rooms in front, on the street, for his studio, Turrell proceeded to seal them off from the outside world, blocking out the windows and painting the walls, floors, and ceilings a uniform white. Then he made some carefully calibrated openings that allowed light to enter the rooms under controlled conditions. In the daytime, shafts of sunlight would move slowly across a section of wall or floor". . . first one-man show in 1967 at the Pasadena Art Museum with the catalogue essay published in Artforum, . . He rebuilt old cars and flew airplanes for the Neptune Society and with Sam Francis. "The California light-and-space art . . . Irwin, Turrell, Douglas Wheeler and Maria Nordman&endash;never functioned as a group, and didn't agree on much of anything. . . He worked with Robert Irwin and Ed Wortz, a psychologist, in LACMA's Art and Technology Program for a year and a half in 1968 and 1969, exploring sensory deprivation and ganzfelds. . . . "Turrell preferred to keep on transforming rooms in the Mendota Hotel. He made dreamlike spaces divided by walls of colored light that looked solid until you came close to them. He made ganzfelds in which the viewer lost all sense of dimension. Turrell cut his first skyspace in the roof of the Mendota Hotel. His landlord found out and made him repair the damage, but Count Panza di Biumo, an adventurous Italian art collector who visited the Mendota in 1972, commissioned Turrell to do a skyspace and several other works at his palazzo in Varese, This was Turrell's first commission, completed in 1974. That same year, a group of Hollywood investors bought up his entire block in Ocean Park, forcing Turrell and several other artists, including Sam Francis and Richard Diebenkorn, to find new studios."
"Richard Diebenkorn moved into a new building at 2444 Main St. in Ocean Park."
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Sean Wilsey On Skateboarding, Using So Little, London Review of Books, 25, no. 12, 19 June 2003, pp. 18-21.
"Skateboarding's inspiration springs from adversity: surfers without waves; pools without water (1970s skating owes much to the California drought); kids without family. It's a particular product of American rootlessness . . . Skateboarding has always been a 'sport' for fuck-ups.
" . . .
"The best skaters of the late 1980s and early 1990s&endash;Natas Kaupas, Tommy Guerrero, Mark Gonzales, Rodney Mullen&endash; would the Embarcadero just for fun, not for cameras. They were street skaters. They skated and talked to everyone, then flew back into the city in search of spots. Stylistically, Natas Kaupas (Satan Sapuak backwards, Sapuak, according to Thrasher means 'God' in some ancient language) was my favorite.
" . . .
" . . . Skateboarders are not role models.
"Skateboarding is observing things minutely. It is tuning the world out: cutting your hand and not noticing till hours later. Looking at the world like a skater means looking down. It means rarely raising your eyes above kerb level, constantly monitoring the smoothness of concrete and being alert to the presence of pebbles or grit, experiencing an instant elevation in your mood when you roll through a spot where you've successfully pulled a trick, and depression and superstition in a place where you've slammed&endash;no matter the scumminess or beauty of the location in conventional terms. Skateboarding is bringing emotion to emotionless terrain&endash;unloved parking lots, vacant corporate downtowns long after the office workers are home. . . .
"Skateboarding is unresearchable: anecdotal, singular, self-expressive. And that's the problem with The Answer is Never, (Century, 2002, 354pp.) Jocko Weyland's history of skateboarding (which began an an article in Thrasher), as well as the recent skateboarding documentary Dog Town and the Z-Boys. Both try to do it all. . . .
" . . .
"'Using so little.' It's the perfect indictment of everything that's wrong with, and the most succinct encapsulation of everything that's great about skateboarding. The beauty of using so little in a country that uses so much. Living for a plank and four wheels in a profligate culture. And the saddening fact that Thrasher has stopped moving against the wind. . . .
"Skateboarding has joined right in with commercial American culture&endash;and there's something frighteningly involuntary about this numbing and succumbing. . . . And now it doesn't know what to do.
" . . .
"This is a strange time in the history of skateboarding and its homeland. It looks both more alive and more dead than ever before. Every ad and photo in all the skate magazines is eerily the same. In a 'sport' that's all about imagination&endash;like a country all about freedom&endash;nobody has any idea what to do. Skateboarding seeems both ashamed of itself and not nearly ashamed enough. And it doesn't get any more American than that.
" . . . "
Emily Young Metropolis: snapshots from the center of the universe: A Place in the Sun, Catching Up with Edward Biberman's Los Angeles. Los Angeles Times Magazine, 21 December 2003, p. 8, 2003, 1986, 1885, 1936, 1904
" . . . Biberman (1904-1986) trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and studied painting in Paris. When he moved to New York, his work landed in shows at the fledgling Museum of Modern Art. He came west to join his brother, Herbert, a writer-director, and later married Sonja Dahl, who, at 93, now lives in Northern California.
"The images are familiar yet hard to place: A parking meter and street lamp framed against a blank wall. A wood fence overrun by a climbing vine. A freeway ramp slicing through a cloudless azure sky. These carefully wrought Modernist visions of Los Angeles are so iconic and contemproary-looking that it's hard to believe they were painted half a century ago by transplant Edward Biberman.
" . . .
"The Pasadena Museum of California Art exhibit, Edward Biberman's L.A., [Dec. 2003-Feb. 2004] offers an introduction to the Philadelphia-born artist, whose subjects were inextricably entwined with the events that shaped his adopted hometown. From the time he arrived in 1936 to his death in 1986, he chronicled life here, both good and bad.
"Though his portraits of Lena Horne and Dashiell Hammett are in the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, the left-leaning Biberman initially devoted more of his energy to depicting Depression-era bread lines, the struggles of organized labor and the Communist witch hunt in Hollywood that undercut his career. Ironically, he is perhaps best remembered for the whimsical Venice post office mural of developer Abbot Kinney.
"But the current exhibit focuses on an entirely different phase of Biberman's artisitic evolution, postwar urban scenes rendered in a hard-edge Modernism that resonates strongly today. The dozen colorful paintings on masonite, guest-curated by Ilene Fort of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, creat a unique sense of place with crisp lines, minimalist shapes and atomospheric shading. In these light-washed compositions, Southern California's palm trees, architecture and freeways figure more prominently than people.
""What Biberman documented was the coming of age of Los Angeles when so many soldiers were coming back to California to settle into jobs and the good life," says Fort . . . "He did it with individual paintings in work that was personal, immaculate, pristine. It was as if he was saying, "This is a new begining."
"Biberman remained popular until social realism, a style he used for his politically charged paintings, fell out of favor. When his brother was branded a member of the Hollywood Ten, he suffered further from guilt by association. Still, Biberman continued to paint, teach and write, developing a pre-Hockney Los Angeles aesthetic that would influence the art world's next generation.
" . . . "
Santa Monica Fire Station #2 Rededication, 31 January 2003
You're Invited! Help Us Celebrate! Post Card, The City of Santa Monica, KR, 2003
Please join us for The grand re-opening of Fire Station # 2, 222 Hollister Ave., Santa Monica. Dedication Ceremony Friday 31 January at 2 pm. Open House Saturday, 1 February from 10 am-2pm. No RSVP Necessary. For more information call (310) 458-2221. Addressed to Resident, 2421 Third St. Santa Monica, CA 90405-3602. Franked with U.S. Postage meter, 0.23 in Santa Monica on 21 June 2003.
Jeffrey Stanton Raw Data Notes, Bay Cities, October 12, 2003
I collect data about Venice and Ocean Park's history. I've read the newspapers (Venice Vanguard and Santa Monica Evening Outlook completely through, plus large portions of the Los Angles Times up to 1913. Naturally I've been curious about the area's businesses, where they were located, how the business community grew to accomodate a growing resident population and increasing tourist industry that centered around Venice's amusmement piers at Windward and Center Street, and Ocean Park's piers between Navy and Pier Ave.
Unfortunately, I've never figured out what to do with this information and it has been filed away for many years. While it is possible to recreate the business districts using maps and aerial photos, then identify and mark the various businesses located in those buildings, the real question is: Does anyone care? People in the Venice Historic Society don't, and with most of Venice's residents being newcomers to a community, they know little of its history, nor care. I've had little feedback on this Web-Site since it was put on-line eight years ago in spring 1996. Still, someone out there may find a use for it and if they can use the raw data to create something interesting, please inform me and send me a copy of the results.
The following business information was taken from various phone books for the years 1907, 1912, 1915/16 & 1923/24, 1933 & 1936 at the Santa Monica Library. While it is helpful. it certainly isn't complete since not everyone owned a telephone, and I'm not sure what the criteria was for a business to be listed. The later directories are more useful. Lists of businesses by street addresses are not available before 1915.
Directories available: 1905, 1907, 1912, 1913/1914. 1915/16, 1917, 1918, 1919/20, 1921/22, 1923/24, 1925, 1927, 1928, 1930/31, 1933, 1936, 1938, 1940 (no Venice).
Venice and Ocean Park's business districts were both laid out by Abbott Kinney and /or his business partners in the case of the latter. The Ocean Park area was developed first (1891) and initially had the most residents. Its business district was on Pier and Marine and along Ocean Front Walk (Promenade-north of Navy) near the three block wide amusement pier. Since Trolleyway wasn't very wide, and lacked sidewalks, most businesses spilled over onto Main Street.
Venice of America, the Kinney tract (1905) near Windward, set aside Windward, Zephyr (Market) and Lorelei (18th Street), each one block long, for the business district. As the town grew, businesses spread along the Ocean Front Walk, especially near the three block Abott Kinney Pier at Windward. Businesses also appeared near the Center Street Pier in the teens, along Washington Blvd. (Abbott Kinney Blvd.) in the 1920's, and on Venice Blvd near the old City Hall. There were plans to expand the Windward business district near the canals after Villa City was closed in 1927. The lawsuits about filling in the canals delayed plans, and then the Depression derailed the project. That proposed business street became Venice Way, which eventually became housing in the 1940's instead of a business street.
Fires sometimes reshaped the community. The 1912 Fraser Pier fire burned the entire 6 block business district. That same pier partially burned in 1915, and was entirely destroyed along with adjoining structures on O.F. Walk in 1924. The Kinney Pier at Windward burned in 1920, but luckily spared the nearby business district.
Determining business names is quite difficult as usually a restaurant, for example, is only identified by the business owner's name. This is one of the reasons that I initially lost interest in the project when I started it many years ago.
Notes on Street Names: Zephyr is now Market, Lorelei is now 18th, Washington Blvd. extended to Rose on what is now called Hampton. Leona is now Washington St, White Wings was in Villa City where Venice Way is located, St Marks Plaza was at the foot of the Venice Pier at the intersection of Windward & O.F. Walk.
Jeffery Stanton 1907 Bay Cities Directories, with amendments