What Say You? Construction City

“An unprecedented amount of excitement” was Council Member Kevin McKeown’s characterization of the number of development projects planned for construction over the next five to ten years in the Santa Monica.  His comment was made at the February 1, 2011 City Council meeting, one of two important meetings Santa Monicans held this week to discuss all the development proposals on the table.

McKeown’s comment was in direct response to the City Staff team motto, “BE EXCITED. BE PREPARED.” City staff presented Council with an overview report of the projects planned for construction in the downtown and civic center areas in the next 5 years: Colorado Avenue Esplanade from 4^th Street to Ocean Avenue; Freeway capping at Ocean Avenue; California Incline Replacement Project; Pier Bridge Replacement Project; Exposition Light Rail Downtown Station at 4^th and Colorado; Civic Center Parks; Civic Center Village Housing Project; Olympic Drive extension from Main Street to Ocean Avenue; Civic Auditorium renovation; Early Childhood Center at the Civic Center; Santa Monica High School new facilities; Parking Structure 6 re-build; Bike Centers in Parking structures 7 and 8; AMC Theater project; City-owned 4^th/5^th Street and Arizona site; and plans for the renovation of the Miramar Hotel, construction of the Shore Hotel and a proposed hotel at 710 Wilshire.

The LUCE anticipated and included all these projects, what the Council was being asked to review and discuss was the timing and management of the construction of the projects and the City staff proposals for management of the traffic impacts of the proposed projects.

Speaking at the “State of the City 2011 Santa Monica: Passport to Success” Chamber of Commerce meeting on January 27, 2011, at the Broad Stage, City Manager, Rod Gould, addressed these same issues with candor. “Although the General Plan protects 94% of town from more intensive 

development and only allows larger projects along certain transit corridors, these projects will be seen and felt as they are constructed.  There will be noise, dust, detours, and inconvenience, but the payoffs will be long lasting and allow the City to emerge stronger from this historic recession than when it went in.

“This year begins what is likely to be a period of transformative change in 

Santa Monica. Major public and private reinvestments will yield a more beautiful, livable, economically viable, environmentally healthy, and safe City.”

The City Staff report, presented at the February 1, 2011 Council Meeting underscores the message of ‘transformative change’.  “This exciting vision requires that implementation is carefully planned and managed.  The City has a host of unique and transformative opportunities that few cities are fortunate to have.  With the reality that a range of projects may be constructed in near proximity and within a close time frame, it is important to ensure that the act of ‘placemaking’ allows the ‘place’ to continue to function.  The City will focus on the details of implementation to ensure minimal disruption.”  The main portion of the Staff Report rightly focuses on planning for traffic and parking management during construction of the projects for the next five years to be co-ordinated by a City Staff team. 

City Council Member Pam O’Connor, speaking at the Council meeting, seemed to be expressing the feelings of the Council when she said, “I hope that the 2040 City Council will say that infrastructure improvements made by Council, Staff and the Community in the second decade of the 21^st Century are still serving us well.”  She went on to recognize the problems of traffic congestion due to this level of construction saying, “We have to realize that there may be problems and there may be whining, and I may be one of the whiners.”  I don’t think O’Connor will be alone in her traffic, parking and circulation concerns.

In his State of the City speech Gould said, “Our fair City is well positioned for civic advancement … due to its social, political and economic strengths including: smart, sophisticated, and engaged citizens who strongly support sustainable and progressive local government and a clear consensus

on the kind of City its residents expect and deserve, including issues of social equity, environmental stewardship, and economic vitality.”

So let’s get some of the “smart, sophisticated and engaged citizens” that Gould so well acknowledged to be part of the team that looks at the traffic and circulation problems that are inherent whenever there is construction.  We need to do more than to ‘manage’ traffic problems.  We need creative and fun ideas for alternatives to the car that make Santa Monica a more fun place to live, work, shop, dine and play. 

What didn’t get discussed, at either meeting, was whether or not this was the only, the right, or the best schedule for this quantity of concentrated construction.   Whether or not it is the right, the only, or the best schedule is something I hope will be taken to the neighborhood groups, as well as the Council, for discussion.

The projects are located in the downtown and Civic Center areas, but the traffic impacts will affect all residents and everyone who comes to the City.  It would be ironic indeed if, Santa Monicans started going out of the City to shop or dine because the traffic in Santa Monica made going to our own downtown unpalatable.

What Say You?

 

Hometown Hero: Tom Cleys

Tom Cleys               Photo credit Dennis Davis

The Santa Monica Conservancy held its annual meeting, January 23, 2011, at the historic Church in Ocean Park.  The sanctuary was filled, bringing together Santa Monicans of many interests and opinions, but with a shared commitment to historic preservation.

“The City of Santa Monica is a mix of historic architectural styles and new buildings. Our challenge is to respect the past and to build the city in a way that respects our history as we build the future,” said Tom Cleys, the founding president of the Conservancy.  “We need the new energy that comes from integrating the new with the old.”

Cleys helped to shepherd the Conservancy in its beginning years.  He served as president in 2002 and 2003 and has been the organization’s treasurer every year since.  “I was happy to be able to provide some leadership and to help solidify the organization in the beginning, but it is the energy and ideas of all involved that made it happen.”

Cleys had been living in West Los Angeles, but he wanted to replicate the sense of neighborhood he had experienced as a child.  “What I liked about Santa Monica was that people seemed to really care and so many people were so involved.”  His parents had set the example for him of what if meant to be part of a community.  “You live in a community, you want it to be a good community, and you work to make it a good community and to make a difference.”

He decided Santa Monica was the right place for him.  In 1998 he bought a two-bedroom, one-bath, 1926 bungalow on 23rd Street in Sunset Park.  He spent four years renovating the house, doing as much of the work as he could himself, but hiring plumbers, electricians, and other trades when he needed expert help.  He’s still working on the house and is currently restoring original windows.

“Rehabbing my own home was my one opportunity to do a rehabilitation project and it was a heck of a learning experience and added another 50 or more years of life to my 1926 bungalow,” Cleys said.

Cleys’ appreciation for historic buildings started in his childhood home of Chicago.  He grew up in a simple Queen Anne style house, originally built in the 1890s, in a neighborhood of old houses. Cleys remembers, “I grew up with the architecture in the neighborhood and I was fascinated with a beautiful building with a moss green, extraordinarily detailed, terra cotta façade.  As an adult, I went back to visit Chicago and saw the building had been landmarked. On the landmark plaque it listed Louis Sullivan as the architect.

“Chicago is a great city for architecture,” said Cleys. “We lived in a great neighborhood and we went downtown to great parks and great buildings.  I saw the John Hancock, the Sears, and the Standard Oil of Indiana Towers, being built.

“My view on architecture and good design is that it creates the stages for our lives. People may not know the architect, the architectural design style, or be educated in architecture, but they value well-designed, well-proportioned spaces. The job of the Conservancy is to help the community to understand what they intuitively know.”

When the 2011 Annual Conservancy meeting was over, Cleys helped to put away the chairs, to sweep the floor, and he talked with the people in the room while he was cleaning up.  He was happy with the meeting and the success of the Conservancy. 

“It will continue to be successful because it is a good fit with Santa Monica thinking and because there are so many good people committed to the Conservancy.  It is interesting to be here over time and see the success of the Conservancy and of the Santa Monica History Museum and the California Heritage Museum.  It bodes well for the future of historic preservation in Santa Monica.

“But there will always be people who think differently,” Cleys noted. “Yet I feel confident saying that the community as a whole has the right to keep historic buildings from being torn down by creating the opportunity for reasonable re-use and allowing owners to adapt and to upgrade, but with the integrity of the old structure and style.  It creates such an interesting environment for the entire city.  We’re a great city and we deserve great architecture.”

What Say You: Traffic City or Bicycle City ?

Photo by Linda Jassim    Bicycle Sharing in Paris

 Santa Monica’s iconic image is well deserved.   Is that image now in danger of being replaced with the image of an impassable downtown?   All too often the downtown scene is one of cars circling for parking places in the public garages, long waits at intersections, and extra time added for any car trip passing through the downtown.   Always, any proposed development is under considerable added scrutiny because of the traffic problems.

Enter the “Bicycle Salon.”   Santa Monica bicycle advocates, including City Council Member Kevin McKeown, got together at the studio of Arts Commission Member Linda Jassim and Planning Commission Member Gwynne Pugh to hear a presentation on the French VELIB  bike-sharing program and how it has transformed Paris.

VELIB (Velo Libre/Bike Freedom) had its Paris debut in 2007, with Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe leading the way.  Ten thousand, identical, sturdy bicycles, were located in 750 automated rental stations throughout Paris.  The program has almost doubled the number of bicycles and stations in three years and the VELIB program is now the largest bicycle-sharing program in the world.

The VELIB system locates bike rental stations approximately 1,000 feet apart and there are about 15 bicycles at each station.  Fees vary, with yearly rates, weekly rates, and daily rates.  The basic fee of 5 euros (about $6.50) gets one into the system for a week.  Then rates are varied and are designed to encourage the use of the bikes for short trips within the city.  Reducing the number of short car trips was determined to be the way to bring the highest environmental benefit to the city. VELIB is designed as a traffic reduction program.

Here is how it works.  If you’re going to lunch, for example, you use your credit card to ‘unlock’ a bike from the nearest bike station, ride it to the restaurant, and dock it at a bike station near the restaurant.  If the ride is less than a half hour – which is almost always the case if you are going from place to place in Paris – there is no charge over the basic fee you have already paid.  After lunch, you go to the closest station and reverse the process, getting a new bike.  Again, if your return trip is less than a half hour, there is no additional fee.  The fee schedule is set to make it easier, more economical, and more fun to take the bike.

VELIB has proven successful in Paris.  The program has reduced traffic congestion. It has had environmental benefits, such as the reduced use of gasoline, reduction in car emissions, and limiting the land needed for parking.  Riders get the health benefits and the pleasure of seeing the city as they ride. To protect bike riders, Paris has carefully and cleverly implemented new rules and painted clear signage on the streets.  This has made bicycle riding safer in Paris than it had been before VELIB.

Paris may have the largest bicycle-sharing program, but bicycle-sharing programs have been implemented in more than 238.  Minneapolis, Minn.; Denver, Colo.; Washington D.C.; London, England; and Copenhagen, Denmark, are a few of the cities where you can find similar programs. 

Speaking to the Santa Monica City Planning Commission, Charles Gandy, the coordinator of the City of Long Beach Bicycle Program, told the Commission, “The City of Long Beach has publicly set itself the goal of being the most bike friendly city in America.”  Using mostly department of transportation grant monies, Long Beach has redesigned streets to create separated bike lines; used paint to create safe bike lines on shared streets; educated children and adults, public officials, police officers, transit officials, and business owners on bike usage and safety, as well as the advantages of cycling for the business districts, the environmental benefits, and the personal health and enjoyment benefits.

Santa Monica is proud to be a sustainable city.  But it lags behind hundreds of other cities when it comes to creating real opportunities for people to safely and easily use the bicycle as transportation.  Yet we know it is a viable way to reduce traffic congestion, reduce the need for parking spaces, improve air quality, benefit personal health, and have a good time while doing good.  In London all the bikes are blue.  The bikes in Paris are gray.  The bikes in Denver are red.  Santa Monica, what color will your bikes be?

Hometown Hero Cristyne Lawson, Dancer and Dean

Cristyne Lawson

“All I’ve ever wanted to do is dance,” said Cristyne Lawson, the recently retired Dean of the Dance Department at CalArts and a person who has danced with every icon of the American modern dance movement of the 20th century.

Cristyne Lawson’s great grandmother, Ary Shaw McReynolds, moved, with her daughter, Mary McReynolds Stout, and her son-in-law, Rev. Stout, to Santa Monica in 1908.  Rev. Stout had been asked to join Rev. Phillips at the CME Church on Fourth Street and Mrs. Stout would teach English at Prairie View College.

Ary Shaw McReynolds is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery on Pico Boulevard.  The family believed her to be of both African American and Native American heritage.  Also buried at Woodlawn are Lawson’s mother, father, sister, and uncle.

Her mother, Bernice Stout Lawson, grew up in Santa Monica and studied piano with the well-known teacher, Miss Lilias G. Hart. She went on to study music at the University of Southern California and to be a performing artist.

Lawson’s father, Hilliard Lawson, was the first black City Council member in Santa Monica.  He came to California after being thrown out of Vicksburg, Mississippi when his father died.  His mother went to work, as a cook, for the socially prominent Pasadena Jowitt family.  This was Cristyne Lawson’s first introduction to Deborah Jowitt, who became her friend, went on to be the Dance Critic for the Village Voice, and to write glowing reviews of Lawson dancing with Alvin Ailey.

Unlike her father’s racially hateful experiences in Mississippi, Lawson felt “at home in Santa Monica.” She reflected on her childhood saying,  “I have been really lucky. I wasn’t ostracized, as a child in Santa Monica for being black, as children were in so many places in America.  People put more into color than what’s there.

“I felt there was no place that I would rather be.  My friends and relatives all lived within easy walking distance.  I had a bicycle and could go everywhere in the city.  There were no parking lots and no parking meters. Can you imagine how wonderful it was to have the beach coming right up to the grass?

“In the Santa Monica black community, everyone used to go to CME Church, on Fourth Street in Ocean Park, for their social life,” said Lawson.  “Originally called the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, as the country changed its ideas about race, it became known as the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church.

“I am who I am because my grandmother listened to everything I said and was interested in everything I did.  If I went to a movie, I could come home and act out every part and she would give me unending attention.

“My grandmother took me to Lincoln (Reed) Park for the dance program.  The woman who taught dance at the park was a Ruth St. Denis trained teacher.  I knew then that I wanted to be a dancer.”

Lawson went to Santa Monica High School (Samohi) and then on to Los Angeles High School where they had a dance program, headed by the Wigman dancer, Martha Krogman. In high school she performed with the school’s Orchesis Club and she performed in the movie “Carmen Jones,” starring Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte.

Accepted to Juilliard, she was a member of the first Juilliard Dance Company. “Coming from Santa Monica, I found New York unreal.  I had to adjust,” remembered Lawson. “I lived at the Dunbar Apartments in Harlem.  Juilliard was still at 125th Street at that time.”

Lawson took a break from Juilliard to go on a worldwide, six-month tour with the Graham Company.  She also worked on Broadway, where she and Alvin Ailey were lead dancers in  “Jamaica,” starring Lena Horne and Ricardo Montalban.  When home for the summer from her studies at Juilliard, she performed in the movie “Porgy and Bess.”

After graduation from Juilliard, she toured Europe with the Modern Jazz Quartet.  It was in Europe that she met her husband, Graham Smith, an Australian architect and a dancer.  They were married 19 years, and had two children.  

It was a telegram asking her to come and help start a new school in Buffalo, New York that brought her back to the states. “At the school, I was choreographing for my own company,  ‘Company of Man.’ We were dancers and film-makers and we made multi-media films.  I also choreographed a dance called ‘The Story of Christ in Vietnam.’ It was the most incredible moment.  We could not have lasted.  It was so completely consuming.”

She went on to become the dean of The Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance at CalArts.   “The school decided artists were the best people to run schools. They felt you had to have done it in order to teach it,” said Lawson.

“The problem with a school like CalArts, is you can have famous people come, but teaching can’t be about ‘you.’  One has to be able to bridge the gap between being an artist and doing one’s own work and at the same time give to the students.

“I’m really happy to be back in Santa Monica.  I’ve been all over the world, but I love Santa Monica. It has changed, but it hasn’t changed beyond recognition.  Ocean Park still has the same feel.”

What Say You? Big Changes Coming to Downtown

Big changes are coming to Santa Monica’s Downtown District. The Exposition Light Rail (Expo) is on schedule to open 2015.   The City has just completed a deal to secure the property between Fourth and Fifth Streets on Arizona, taking over the current sites of both Bank of America and Chase Bank.  The Civic Center Parks are on a fast track and are now in the public planning process.  Plans are being made for freeway capping adjacent to the Civic Center Parks. The California incline is scheduled for infrastructure improvement.  The Santa Monica Pier Bridge is scheduled for infrastructure improvement.  Santa Monica Place reopened August 2010 and is still evolving.  A new AMC Cineplex is planned for Fourth Street.  The City is about to start work on the Downtown Specific Plan, the document that will set the guidelines for the future of the downtown.

Expo is expected to bring thousands of people into Santa Monica’s downtown to shop, to eat, to play.  It is both hoped and expected that people who currently drive to Santa Monica will decide it is more convenient and more fun to take Expo and leave their cars at home.

 “Moving people in, through and around downtown, accommodating pedestrians, and encouraging bike riders are key concerns for downtown,” according to Kathleen Rawson, CEO of the Bayside District Corporation.  “Responding to issues of homelessness and taking care of homeless people used to be the highest ranked issue in the downtown community.  Now it’s parking and traffic.”

Downtown Santa Monica is a local, regional and international destination.  More than 60,000 people will come just to skate at the Ice Rink and thousands more will come to watch the skaters and to admire the decorative art.  Portraits of Hope, an internationally acclaimed non-profit that helps children deal with trauma through participation in public art, decorated the Ice Rink.

Events in the downtown are the responsibility of the Bayside District, as is the Ambassadors program.  Ambassadors, wearing logo shirts, greet visitors, answer questions about where to eat, give directions, escort employees to cars on late work nights, connect lost objects and owners, remove graffiti, and keep a record of all their interactions – over 170,000 in the past year. 

Santa Monica’s Police Chief Tim Jackman said, “Much credit goes to the Ambassadors for the decrease in the downtown homeless population.  Santa Monica’s homeless population is down about 23% citywide and over 27% in the downtown area.  The Ambassadors have done a good job of connecting homeless people to City Services.”

Councilman Bobby Shriver, a nationally recognized thinker and problem solver in the movement to ‘End Homelessness’ agrees, saying, “When it comes to addressing homelessness, Santa Monica is the regional leader.”

Bayside District is the public-private company responsible for planning and managing the downtown.  They are funded by a downtown property assessment, a portion of the business license fees, and revenues from special events, such as filming.  Bayside’s total annual budget is now approximately $5 million.

“Bayside gets $200,000 from the City for services through the Public Landscape Division for Promenade maintenance,” said Assistant City Manager Elaine Polachek, when asked about City support for Bayside. “Although the Ambassadors, may report problems more quickly than in other parts of the City, when it comes to ‘fixing potholes’ they go into the regular queue with the rest of the City.  The City benefits directly from business license fees, parking revenues and sales tax dollars.  We also benefit because the Promenade is a draw for tourists and the City relies on tourism for revenue.”

Given the importance of downtown and the scale of the planned new projects, City Staff is preparing for a Council study session to present an overview of all projects, recommendations on how to co-ordinate and manage the proposed projects, and recommendations for a process for public participation.  The study session will be held late January or early February 2011 at City Council.

The number and scale of the proposed projects brings us back to how are going to move people in, through and around downtown.  But it’s not people that create the slow moving traffic and the lack of parking spaces, it’s the cars they drive. Doing Expo right will get people from the Los Angeles region out of their cars and into Santa Monica by light rail.  Bayside District, working with the City, will need to create a welcoming environment, with fun and easy options for getting around town to change how everyone, visitors and locals, get through and around downtown.  

“It will take time to create an infrastructure for bicycles and time to change a general mind set,” Chief Jackman noted.  “But, during the City Manager’s talks with neighborhood groups, biking was a top issue and so our direction to create the infrastructure for bicyclists is clear.” 

The goal is to make the downtown work in a way that is good for the downtown, for our neighborhood business districts, and for the whole city.   The success of our goals will be measured by; the number of visitors, the ease of getting around town, financial benefits and even-handedness, and the use of planning and architecture to define the character of Santa Monica.   

With thanks to the Bayside District for starting Santa Monica’s ‘Buy Local’ program, let us remember the ‘Buy Local’ slogan, “Santa Monica First” and guide the changes to come without changing our core values.

What Say You?




Hometown Hero: Arcadia Bandini

Arcadia Bandini

I wish I could time travel, sit with Arcadia on the porch of her home on Ocean Avenue, and talk about her life.  I would tell her that her gifts to the city have given shape and meaning to Santa Monica.

I can only study the accumulated facts and imagine what it might have been like to be the daughter of a prominent Ranchero family in Alta California; to witness the change to Statehood; and see the transformation of California. 

Arcadia’s aesthetic and social vision set a standard for Santa Monica.  Palisades Park, originally named Linda Vista, was her vision and she donated the land from Colorado to Montana for the park.  Then, the company she co-owned with Nevada Senator John Percival Jones donated the land from Montana to the northern end of the city to complete the park.

Arcadia was born in 1827, the daughter of Juan Bandini and Dolores Estudillo, a prominent and powerful family who owned Ranchos in San Diego.  In a decision, not unusual for their time and the standing of their family, Arcadia was married, at age 14, to a business acquaintance of her father’s, Abel Stearns. 

Stearns, born in Massachusetts in 1799, had come to Alta California to make his fortune.  He became a Mexican citizen, which required converting to Catholicism and speaking Spanish.  As a Mexican citizen he could then hope to achieve both social and political standing.

Dona Arcadia Bandini de Stearns and Don Abel Stearns lived in “El Palacio” on the corner of Main and Arcadia Streets, near Olvera Street.  The 1860 census lists their household as having 19 members living in the over 20,000 square foot residence – Abel Stearns, Arcadia Bandini, Refugio Bandini, Arcadia’s sisters, nieces, nephews, distinguished guests, secretaries, servants, painters and laborers.  

According to Arcadia’s grand-nephew, Ricardo Bandini Johnson, “Arcadia was known to be generous and likeable and very close to her family. Stearns was often away- both for business and for health reasons – and did not pay a lot of attention to Arcadia.”

Stearns died, in 1871, at the Grand Hotel in San Francisco.  Arcadia continued running the businesses.  Four years after the death of Stearns, on April 25, 1875, she married Colonel Robert Symington Baker, a wealthy sheep rancher and a prominent landowner.

That same year, Baker started construction on the namesake Baker Block.  Baker wanted a grand home and replaced El Palacio with a 3 story, 64,428 square foot building.  The first two floors were rented for commercial businesses and offices and the top floor was the residence.

An ornate building, it expressed the aesthetics of the ‘Gilded Age’ in which they lived. The large, land grant families: Sepulveda; Reyes; Lugo; Machado; Wolfskill, who donated the land for the VA cemetery:  Carrillo; Pico; Figueroa; Kinney; and Rindge were frequent guests at their famous dances and parties.

Stearns and Baker both spoke excellent Spanish as well as English.  Arcadia spoke only Spanish; at least she spoke only Spanish in public.  It’s easy to imagine that she understood a great deal and probably could speak, at least some, English. It is also easy to imagine that it was to her advantage in business and in society to speak only Spanish.

Baker owned Rancho San Vicente, bought from the Sepulveda Family for $55,000.  The Rancho included all of Santa Monica and its borders were Pico, Sepulveda, Topanga, and the Pacific Ocean.  Two years later Baker sold a portion of the Rancho to Senator Jones for $162,500.  Jones described Rancho San Vicente as the “most beautiful place I have ever seen.”

Baker and Jones filed a Platt map for the first subdivision of Santa Monica.  The 50’ x 150’ lots, located between Ocean Avenue, 26^th Street, Montana Avenue, and Colorado Avenue, sold at land auction for $150 to $300.

Arcadia Bandini’s vision for the city, as well as her business acumen, is demonstrated in the lay out of the Platt map.  Lots were designated for housing, schools, parks, churches, and businesses.  Parks and school sites were deeded to the new City.

Ricardo Bandini Johnson says, “Arcadia and Jones were the main force behind the donations.  Jones however, was mostly in Washington DC, and Arcadia Bandini and Georgina Jones became close friends and partners in the family business.”

Baker had significant health problems. In 1879, with Jones’ encouragement, Arcadia bought Baker’s interest in Rancho San Vicente.  Arcadia Bandini and Jones then formed the Santa Monica Land and Water Company.  They decided to sell large tracts of land north of Montana Avenue - another very successful business move.

In the 1880’s Arcadia built her home on the 1200 block of Ocean Avenue overlooking Linda Vista Park and the Pacific Ocean.  She kept the Baker Block, but mostly lived in Santa Monica.  Many members of the Bandini family continued to live in the Baker Block.

Arcadia’s life was one of business, grand entertaining, and family.  She spent time at her working sheep ranch where there were extensive gardens and opportunities for guests to hunt.  She was a frequent visitor to the beach.

In 1892 Arcadia’s brother Juan Bandini came from San Diego to work with Arcadia and stayed, becoming her most trusted advisor until his death in 1906. He was her closest friend and she deeply mourned his death.

Juan Bandini, in his diary entry on May 26, 1894, wrote,  “After 3:30 had a message that Mr. Baker had died at 2:30 and I went on the 5:45 (He is referring to a train on the railroad built by Senator Jones.).

Arcadia continued to live and work in Santa Monica until her death in her home on Ocean Avenue, September 15, 1912.  Senator Jones, her long time business partner and the husband of her close friend, Georgina Jones, died the same year.

Arcadia Bandini de Stearns de Baker is buried in the Bandini family plot at Cavalry Cemetery on Whittier Blvd. in Boyle Heights, alongside her father, Juan Bandini, and her husbands, Abel Stearns and Robert Baker.

Arcadia Bandini made donations of land, all over the Los Angeles region, to be used for parks, schools, orphanages and other projects that were of public benefit. As there was no facility for veterans of the Civil War west of the Mississippi she donated the land for the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers and Sailors.  (Now the Veteran’s Administration).

Arcadia Bandini’s thoughtful and generous gifts to Santa Monica were instrumental in determining the character of the city. We are the fortunate beneficiaries.

Ricardo Bandini Johnson, the great nephew of Arcadia Bandini, shared his family’s history. I couldn’t have told Arcadia’s story without his generosity.

What Say You. Thought for Food.

Food, wonderful, glorious food now has new meaning and new questions.  Will you pick up your fork and enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday?  Or will you worry if the food you are about to eat is healthy and safe?  Perhaps you will worry that guests at your table will have food rules that will stop them from eating or enjoying the food at your table.  Or you will worry that the food on your table came at the cost of harm to the planet.

Thanksgiving, a favorite holiday of my childhood, had all the fun of a holiday party yet seemed the most easygoing of all holidays.   But it doesn’t seem to me to be so easygoing any more.

How did eating become so complicated?  Food is designed to be
a pleasure as well as a necessity.  It’s purpose is to bring energy, to build strong bodies and good health, and, hopefully, to share joy.

My maternal grandmother knew food as a pleasure as well as a necessity.  In my grandmother’s generation all food was local, all food was seasonal and all food was organic.

Family lore has it that my grandmother was working in the fields on her family’s farm when a man came by on horseback.  She gave him a drink of water, they exchanged pleasantries and, before he left he said, “I’ll be back.  Please wait for me.”

They were married in the old country.  He came to America and she and the first six of their nine children came later.     So eleven was the standard number for dinner.  Often, there were guests.  My grandfather loved good conversation and good music.  If he met someone who could add to the conversation at the table or who could join him, after dinner, in playing the violin, he invited that person home to dinner.

My grandmother loved my grandfather, loved that he brought educated and talented people to her table, and loved music.  Her challenge was to provide enough to eat for everyone who sat down.

It goes without saying that the most important quality of any feast table is the love and care of the people at the table for one another.  It also goes without saying that food and memory are intertwined, memories of our mother’s kitchens, memories of our favorite foods, memories of loved ones around the table.

Now food is about so much more than nutrition and memory.
Every time we pick up our forks we make a choice for our health, a choice for the health of our community, a choice for the health of the planet.   Even the choice not to think about it is a choice.

The first thought is often for health.  Are the fruits and vegetables I’m eating organic?  Do I have to worry about chemical pesticides that present health risks?  Was the meat or poultry sustainably farmed or does it contain hormones and antibiotics that present health risks?  

The second thought is often for the health of the community and the planet.  Is this food local?  Did getting it to my table contribute to the carbon footprint?  Did chemical pesticides leach into the water table and harm the water supply?  Did chemical pesticides get into our rivers and lakes and harm the aquatic life?   Was the food on my table sustainably farmed, not only for my health, but also for the health of my community and the planet?

How do we answer these questions?  Fortunately, information is everywhere today.  In “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” Michael Pollan takes us through the origins of four meals, our choices, and how we got to today’s food dilemma.  Building on the work of her mother, American food guru, Frances Moore Lappe, Anna Lappe’s new book is “Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It.” The New York Times magazine devoted the October 10 issue to “Eating Together” in praise of the sharing of community that has been created as an unintended, but welcome, benefit of the organic, sustainable, local food movement.  Magazines in every part of our country, such as Vermont’s “Local Banquet”, DC’s “Flavor” and Martha Stewart’s “body + soul”, cajole and entice us to give thought to our food, our health, the health of our communities, and the health of the planet.

We have much to be grateful for and much to think about as we give our thanks this year for family and friends and life.  Let us also give thought for food. 

What Say You?

Contact Susan Cloke

opinion@smmirror.com