Reimagining the Civic

1968 Academy Awards Ceremony
Santa Monica Civic

Reimagining the Civic         

SUSAN CLOKE

Columnist

We sat on uncomfortable seats in Santa Monica’s beloved Civic Auditorium.  A full house was there for the Santa Monica Symphony Orchestra’s “A Farewell Tribute to the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.”   The all -Tchaikovsky program included a gorgeous performance by Antonio Lysy of  “Variations on a Rococo Theme for Cello and Orchestra.”  The “1812 Overture,” written by Tchaikovsky in 1880 to commemorate “the defense of the motherland,” concluded the program and the significance of the piece was not lost on the audience.  When Conductor Guido Lamell closed the evening with a promise to be back at the Civic there was great applause.

Built in 1958 and given Landmark Designation in 2002, the Civic was known worldwide as the home of the Academy Awards. 1968 was the last year the Academy Awards were held at the Civic.  The awards ceremony was held late that year because of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

The Civic has been the venue for artists andperformers who are part of the cultural history of the Country: Andre Previn, Dave Brubeck, Pete Seeger, Ella Fitzgerald, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Elton John, Ray Charles, Arlo Guthrie, the Beach Boys, the Carpenters, Bill Cosby, Jonathan Winters, Allen Ginsberg, the Rolling Stones, James Brown, Sarah Vaughan, and Bruce Springsteen.

Designed by Welton Becket and Associates, the Historic Resources Technical Report cites it as “an excellent example of International Style design as applied to an auditorium.  It was also considered an engineering marvel noted for its use of hydraulics for raising and lowering the floor for multiple uses.”

“Functionally obsolete” was the description of the current state of the Civic by John Altschuler, a former Santa Monica City Manager and the Chair of an Urban Land Institute (ULI) panel discussion on the building’s future.  The ULI does think the Civic can be saved and has ideas for how to understand the urban design problem and how to finance the revitalization.

The panel was one of many outreach events held since the October 7, 2012 Council meeting where staff was directed to, in Jessica Cusick’s words, “beat the bushes to get public and expert opinion on a vision for the future of the Civic.  The Council had two goals:  to retain the cultural use of the Civic and to identify funding in light of the loss of Redevelopment Funds.”

Cusick is the Cultural Affairs Manager for the City.  She has been pursuing both goals and reports that there is “significant interest in revitalizing the Civic as a cultural venue by private sector businesses.  Given the interest from both the public and the private sector in preserving the Civic as the cultural heart of our city I am optimistic that we will be able to put together a way to fund the future of the Civic.”

The Civic is on the agenda for the June 11, 2013 Council meeting.  Council Member Winterer expects that will be the “beginning of discussions of public/private partnerships.” 

A week before the Council meeting there will be a community meeting to discuss ideas for the Civic.  The meeting will be held at Virginia Avenue Park, June 4, 2012, at 7:30 pm.  

The public interest has been long and well expressed.  The City has committed to protecting and revitalizing the Civic at least since the time of the original Civic Center Specific Plan.  The Santa Monica Conservancy, the Landmarks Commission and other organizations have expressed support and an interest in working on good solutions.

“Save the Santa Monica Civic,” an organization founded in November 2012 by Landmarks Commissioner Nina Fresco and a coalition group of well known Santa Monicans, is committed to “restoring and enhancing the Civic’s place as a vibrant cultural and community hub, as well as saving its landmark architecture and continuing its celebrated heritage.  We will seek to develop recommendations for a management approach that will be profitable and enable long-term efficient operation.  The coalition will help garner public support for any viable approach.”

When the Civic Auditorium was just an idea in the 1950’s, the Council established a Public Board to advise the Council on the development of the Civic Auditorium.   Given the broad public support for the Civic and the high level of interest, doesn’t it make sense to create an advisory board for today’s needs, composed of both public and private sector members and staffed by the City Manager and Cultural Affairs Manager, for the planning part of the revitalization of the Civic?

According to Sepp Donahower that Advisory Board could be the precursor to a Management Board on the model of the Pier Board.  Donahower was a pioneer concert producer who brought the Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix and Janice Joplin to Los Angeles.  He believes it can be made to be financially self -sustaining.  “The Civic will only work,” he said, “if it’s part of something bigger – a cultural commons.  Give people a reason to go there, make it a fun thing.  We could have a great public plaza and garden with wonderful places to drink and eat and listen to good music.  Build an exhibition space that could also be used as a venue for films or a place to have weddings.  Maybe follow ULI’s suggestion and add a boutique hotel.  When you put sympathetic elements together it will create the environment for success, it will serve the entire Civic Center and energize the neighboring hotels and Main Street.  It will be a connecter.”  

Saving the Civic also supports the City’s goals for environmental sustainability.  Certainly, as was written on a Santa Monica Conservancy sign at the Main Street parade, “The greenest building is the one that already exists.”  

Let’s revitalize and keep the Civic.  Let’s also look at the idea of creating a Cultural District incorporating the Civic, using the adjacent parking lot as a site for a new building, compatible in scale and character but having its own identity, and create an art park that surrounds both buildings.

Saving the Civic is the right thing to do for so many reasons.  It’s time now for all ideas to be on the table to help us get from where we are now to once again having the Civic Auditorium be the cultural ambassador of the City.  We honor our history, we protect our cultural future, we enhance our international reputation, we support our commitment to sustainability, and we support our business community.  It is an exciting challenge and one I think we’re up to.

What Say You?

What Say You? Parks and the City Council

Susan Cloke
Columnist
Santa Monica Mirror

Santa Monica is having an identity crisis.  This city of 80,000 plus residents is internationally known for its ethos, life style, commitment to principles of sustainability and love of art, as much as its beaches and weather.

From its beginning the City was the landscape for the creativity and imagination of the people.  They built neighborhoods of wonderful bungalow houses with front porches and neighborhoods of elegant craftsman houses on wide streets planted with majestic palms.  Entrepreneurs brought their energy to the City and built the Santa Monica Pier, started the Paddleboard Races, opened restaurants and stores and businesses.  It wasn’t all perfect.  The City had its seamy side and there were disasters but overall the City thrived in the energy of its people and the natural beauty of the beaches of the Pacific Ocean and the mostly balmy weather.

This image of the City is now giving way to the demands of a new scale of development and a faster pace of life.  And it is the pressure, the push of new development and the faster pace of life that is pushing the current identity crisis. 

The flashpoint for this is the internationally recognized and iconic Palisades Park.  The Park is the grand promenade of the City.  A park of scenic vistas planted with specimen trees where people can find shade in a historic pergola.

Palisades Park Pergola at Sunset

Once Palisades Park was where people went to stroll, to watch the sun set over the Pacific, to picnic or to sit on a park bench and read.  In our time it became a park for joggers and is now the end point of the Los Angeles Marathon. 

Recently for-profit, professional trainers decided to offer classes in Palisades Park. They brought heavy equipment, tied exercise bands to trees and made the park a more crowded and louder place.  Residents were concerned and took their complaints about the fitness trainers in Palisades Park to City Hall.

The Council responded, seeing it as a matter of needing to create a citywide ordinance governing commercial fitness trainers in all parks.  A proper response to the ongoing problem of sharing public open space in a City with more demand for parks and playing fields than the City can currently provide.

But the concerns being expressed are about more than the appropriate regulation of trainers in the parks.  These concerns go to the heart of the identity crisis.  What is being asked is: Which parts of the City’s built environment are we willing to change to accommodate the pressures of this faster pace of life and which will be kept as they are?

Palisades Park is the flashpoint because it’s a public park of significance, of memory and of history.  Changing the character of the park goes to the core question of how the City Council will understand and govern given the pressures for changing the scale and the pace of the City.

At the Council hearing of April 23, Margaret Bach, representing the City Landmarks Commission, spoke about the need for “stewardship and protection of the City’s only landmarked park.”

Bach went on to say,  “It is a uniquely configured park– a narrow, linear park at the edge of fragile bluffs over looking the Pacific, 14 blocks long covering more than 26 acres. A destination for locals and visitors alike, it serves as a veritable museum of the history of the city. The park's evolution over the decades embodies its original public purpose.

“Preserving Palisades Park for public enjoyment, prohibiting equipment that can damage the park's many features, and clarifying the current regulation that prohibits commercial activity within the park --- these three objectives constitute the most appropriate, practical and fiscally prudent approach to a regulatory structure for this world-class resource. We are counting on the city to continue to be the responsible stewards of Palisades Park. Our landmark park is unique among parks in Santa Monica. It deserves special consideration and protection.”

In writing this article I spoke with several Council Members.  They are rightfully proud of the parks we have.  They all talked about wanting to build more parks, to make sure good parks are within walking distance of every residence, that there are more playing fields and more opportunities for people to exercise and to enjoy being outdoors. 

The City is committed to supporting an active lifestyle and that includes fitness trainers and classes.  Council Members directed staff to negotiate a compromise regulating the commercial trainers and to prepare regulations for review. 

The carefully crafted Staff Report to the Council looks at all the City Parks.  It recommends a series of regulations for commercial fitness trainers, including permit and license requirements, locations, conditions of use and so on.  In some of the City Parks Staff recommends no commercial fitness training be allowed, in some parks Staff recommends 1 on 1 or 1 on 2 commercial fitness classes be allowed, and other parks would allow commercial fitness with a trainer and groups.   The staff report recommends allowing commercial fitness trainers in both Palisades Park and the upcoming parks at City Hall with the condition that they limit their classes in those parks to 1 or 2 people.  The details will be spelled out in a new Ordinance scheduled to come to Council in June. 

Certainly fitness classes should follow the rules of urban politeness: share the park, protect the landscape and the furniture and buildings, clean up after themselves and in general be good citizens.

Trainers and the clients for the commercial fitness classes have participated in the crafting of the regulations and agree.  The one place where they disagree is they want to continue to hold group classes in Palisades Park.  They like Palisades Park best for its ease of parking, for its views and because people know it.

Stroller Strides, now called FIT4MOM, is a national franchise.  According to the testimony they gave at the Council hearing it’s a great program made greater by being in Palisades Park. But why wouldn’t it be a great program at the beautiful Annenberg Community Beach House, which has great amenities, ample parking and wonderful beach views; or Airport Park or Virginia Avenue Park, which are both great spaces and have ample parking.  I understand surf camps need the ocean and tennis classes need tennis courts.  But fitness classes don’t “need” Palisades Park.

Fitness training is a good thing.  Any one wishing to train in any city park is allowed as long as it’s not for profit.  The proposed regulations won’t change that.  The proposed regulations only address for-profit fitness trainers. In appropriate park locations the main concern with for-profit fitness training is that it’s pricey and that excludes many people who would like to participate. 

There are ways around this problem.  Other Southern California cities run their own fitness programs, making it financially possible for many more people to participate.  If the trainers want the benefit of public property maybe their fees should be regulated to be inline with the fees of Santa Monica’s other recreation programs?  Or maybe there’s a better answer?  Affordability is a problem the Council should consider in the context of the use of public property for private profit.

Even with good regulations and good will on all sides, when I listen to the conversation about commercial fitness trainers in Palisades Park I hear people asking that a line be drawn and that the trainers not be allowed in Palisades Park, the grandest of our parks, and that the Council recognize and honor the history, the geography, the ecology and the iconography of the park.

What Say You?