Hometown Hero: A Tribute to Millie Rosenstein 1914-2011

Millie Rosenstein
Photo courtesy of Paul Rosenstein

SUSAN CLOKE

Columnist, Santa Monica Mirror

 “A life-long progressive, she marshaled the arguments and stood solid.  If you needed an ally, she was the one you wanted.  She had values and she had ideals and she never wavered.  I’m grateful to have known her on the picket line, working the phone banks, at city hall, at somebody’s backyard fundraiser.  She was your sweet grandmother with a warm hug, a conscience and the strength to back it up.  I will miss you, Millie.”  These words, from her friend, former Santa Monica Mayor Jim Conn, will make anyone who knew Millie smile in recognition.

Millie was born in 1914.  Her mother died in the influenza pandemic of 1919 and Millie was sent to live with her aunt.  The depression came and existence was meager.  After high school, she went to work as an office worker and soon met Herman (Gaby) Rosenstein, a veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, the volunteer brigade that fought against the fascists in Spain.

He was then drafted into the U.S. Army.  They decided it was time to marry, but it was December 1941 and all leaves had been cancelled because of Pearl Harbor.  They quickly found a Justice of the Peace to marry them on Christmas Eve.  When Herman was discharged from the army they lived in the projects in New York and raised their two children, Paul and Fran.  Herman worked in the electrical trades.  When the children were young Millie wanted to stay home with them. 

Her son Paul said, “My mother felt she had an unhappy childhood and she wanted to be with us and make sure we knew we were loved and supported.  When I was about 10 she decided to go back to office work.  The result was that our family made too much money to stay in the projects.  We couldn’t find affordable housing in New York; we’d been to California and liked it, so our whole family moved to California.  It was 1958, the same year the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles.”

The Rosensteins lived in the Fairfax area.  They volunteered for Tom Bradley in his first campaign for the Los Angeles City Council.  They worked against the Vietnam War and supported Eugene McCarthy for president.  Paul remembers, “It was about this time Millie took an assertiveness training class offered by a women’s movement group.  It really made a difference in her life.”

That difference became apparent in the 1980’s when Millie and Herman retired and had the time to do what they wanted, to work in the community and to travel.  Millie and Herman really thrived in Santa Monica.  They became part of a close group of politically progressive seniors who influenced Santa Monicans for Renter’s Rights, its politics and philosophy.  They became members of the Santa Monica Democratic Club, where Millie served as president for eight years.  She also served on the Senior Commission, the Social Services Commission and the Commission on the Status of Women.  She volunteered for Senior Peer Counseling and for KCRW.  Millie also worked on Tom Hayden’s campaign for assembly and when Jane Fonda came to Millie’s house party for Tom’s campaign, Millie pronounced it a “highlight of my life.”

In addition to all her community work she was an avid reader and a classical music fan, often going to Sunday matinees at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.   “Millie was also an eager traveler,” said her daughter-in-law, Ada Hollie. “Travelling was a big part of her life.  I enjoyed listening to her talk about all her travels and to looking at her many photographs.  She and Herman went to China, Spain, Cuba, Egypt, Greece and Nicaragua.   She and her dear friend, Betty Mueller, went to Portugal together.

Starting in 2007, Ada and Millie played scrabble every Tuesday. “We were serious,” said Ada, “but not competitive.  And we allowed using the dictionary so we could learn new words.”

Paul said about his mother, “I saw her almost every day for the last 8 years of her life and I got to know her in a new way.  We would go to lunch or dinner every weekend.  Our roles reversed as she needed more help and it was a new relationship for both of us.  We became very close all over again.”

Millie’s life was shaped by the events of her century and she understood what that meant and felt it was her responsibility to make the world a safer and more just place for everyone.  She was an optimistic person.  She knew how she wanted to live her life and she lived that life, expressing her humanitarian philosophy, her politics, her enthusiasm and her deep and loyal love of her friends, her family, her son, Paul Rosenstein, and her daughter, Fran Alexander.

The Santa Monica community will come together at the Broad Stage on September 24^th at 3:00pm to celebrate and pay tribute to Millie Rosenstein and to rejoice that we had in our community, in the words of Patricia Hoffman, “a great ally and sometimes a great challenge. Millie was strong, feisty and opinionated and sharp to the very end of her life. She lived her beliefs.”

What Say You? The draft Bike Action Plan

The voices of Santa Monicans asking for alternatives to city traffic congestion, environmental advocates wanting to reduce Santa Monica’s carbon footprint, residents wishing to incorporate more exercise into daily life, are joining their voices to those of long time cyclists working to create a bicycle friendly city. 

City Hall has heard them, loud and clear, and the 2011 draft Bike Action Plan lays out strong goals and an ambitious implementation plan to make Santa Monica a bike friendly city.

The Bike Action Plan is self-described as both bold and practical.  And it is.  Bold in that it states strong goals of making bike riding efficient, attractive, and fun for people of all ages and abilities “to use a bike to get everywhere in the city and to meet all the needs of daily life.”  Practical, in that it lists a detailed five-year implementation plan creating infrastructure and programs to achieve immediate goals and a twenty year vision for making Santa Monica a true bicycle city.

Santa Monica Police Chief Tim Jackman said, “What I am most impressed with is that as we develop future plans for a more bike and pedestrian friendly City, a key component of planning for the changes will be continuing education for cyclists, pedestrians and motorists alike on how to safety and cooperatively navigate the City's streets.  Public safety is always the first priority.”

The Plan outlines designs and timelines for achieving a “10% mode shift” to bikes and walking, among other transportation modes, to achieve the City goal of no net new trips in peak hours.  Ideas in the Plan include using the existing city street grid to create “complete streets.”  Streets, which through design and landscape provide safe and attractive places for people to walk, bike and even to gather.  As 25% of the City land use is devoted to streets, this could make a big impact. 

Transportation choices are seen as central to quality of life ratings.  Riding a bike promotes good health and reduces transportation costs.  Being able to bike to stores is good for local employment and for residents shopping in their neighborhoods. Improving neighborhoods by providing higher quality residential streets, lower vehicle speeds and improved connections within the city are other looked for benefits.

There is great praise for the draft Plan.  Santa Monica Council Member Kevin McKeown, himself a long-time cyclist said,  “This is a plan that bike activists embrace, and that we have the funding to implement.  We set aside $2.5 million already in this year's City budget.  When this comes back to Council for final approval just before Thanksgiving, we need to focus on the 'action' part of this 'action plan."

Phil Brock, Recreation and Parks Commission Chair, has more recently become an avid cyclist.  He said,  “This catapults our city into the forefront of American bike friendly cities. Combined with bike sharing and safer streets this plan, when executed, makes Santa Monica a more livable community.”

Richard McKinnon, a long time cyclist and a member of the Recreation and Parks Commission said,  “Riding a bike is now a huge idea. You see it everywhere you travel.  This bike plan threads bikes and bike facilities onto Santa Monica streets, and into our way of doing things.  It's the blueprint to making bikes safe and easy to use for everyone who lives in Santa Monica.”

What’s next?   According to City Manager Rod Gould, “After more commission input, we will return to the Council for final adoption, along with a work schedule for the projects, programs and activities contained in the plan. Cyclist safety is a major challenge in city as densely populated as Santa Monica in the most car centric region in the country.  To improve in this area will require bike safety engineering, education and enforcement. The Council is very focused on improving in this area, and we feel that as we implement the plan, more bicyclists will feel comfortable in town given changes to the streets and driver attitudes towards them.”  

In addition to what is in the Plan, shouldn’t we, as part of our Sustainable City goals, add the goal of having all infrastructure improvements, such as landscape design and paving materials used, meet the goals of sustainability.  All trees planted will provide better air quality as well as shade for pedestrians and cyclists.  They should also be designed to improve water quality by reducing urban run off and infiltrating storm water.  Paving materials should be chosen for sustainability and safety.  Each decision has to be specific to the design and the use of a particular infrastructure improvement, but each infrastructure improvement should be designed to meet sustainability criteria.  The idea is probably already in everyone’s mind, but it would be good to state it as a principle of the Plan.

Finally, what can’t be in the plan is the most important change necessary for success, but outside the control of City Hall.  We won’t become a bicycle friendly city until cyclists and car drivers agree to share the road with patience and courtesy.  Patience and courtesy behind the wheel of a car or on a bike have to become part of the ethos of Santa Monica for the City to be a safe place to bike, and without that, the best designed infrastructure and programs will not be enough.  So, let’s make it work.

I’ll see you around town.  I’ll be riding my new, white bike!

What Say You?