Rising from the Ashes – Salvaging a Future from California’s Historic Losses
While at the California Preservation Foundation, I've seen my share of loss. Sometimes it seems that the demolished buildings outnumber the saved. We are a curious-seeming bunch, those of us interested in salvaging what little remains left of our shared cultural...
Save the Historic Tax Credit!
FEDERAL HISTORIC TAX CREDIT IS THREATENED Take Action to Save the Historic Tax Credit! The Federal Historic Tax Credit is seriously threatened and your help is needed – NOW - to save this critical and effective program. Watch Ronald Reagan make the case for Historic...
Cypress Lawn Memorial Cemetery
Early cemeteries were more utilitarian, unorganized, and located on family farms or on church grounds. In the 1830’s the concept of rural cemeteries began, with Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts; rural cemeteries evolved into the lawn-park cemetery,...
Forty Years of Grassroots Advocacy at San Diego’s Chicano Park
At one point in its history, San Diego’s Barrio Logan contained the “second largest Chicano barrio community” with a population reaching 20,000. City zoning laws in the 1950s incited changes to the community and Interstate 5 bisected its heart. In 1969, the Coronado...
A Look at Laguna Honda: Loyalty to the Past and Openness to Change
Since 1867, Laguna Honda Hospital and Rehabilitation Center has embodied San Francisco’s pledge to care for its elderly and disabled, “Obamacare before Obamacare”, as one staff member put it. Since a major reconfiguration completed in December 2010, dust has settled...
Historic California Live Music Venues – Absolute Treasures
The first concert I ever attended was in October of 1983 at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley (est. 1903). The band headlining the historic venue that night was 80s juggernaut, Men at Work, from Australia. I must have been one of the youngest attendees there...
The Survivors: The Last of the Great San Francisco Movie Theaters
Growing up in the Sunset district at a time when VCRs and basic cable were still very much a household rarity, I would not have to travel very far to enter the magical world of cinema on the big screen. As a kid--and still today--the experience holds a certain rare...
East Brother Light Station
Across the northwest shores of Richmond, near historic Winehaven and the Point Molate Naval Fuel Depot sits National Register #71000138, the East Brother Light Station.
How “True” is New Mexico True: A New, Old Architectural Style – Part II
Shortly after New Mexico became the 47th state, Santa Fe residents, city officials, architects, and artists, all agreed to promote a uniform style that would not only link the city with a romantic architectural image, but...
How “True” is New Mexico True: Popular Visions of New Mexico’s Past Part I
Observations from Santa Fe The following opinion is based on observations during a two-month summer stay in Santa Fe, New Mexico as a trades intern with the Historic Santa Fe Foundation. The observations were made while restoring historic features and...