2004a Roberts2004a

Kelyn Roberts, Observations, April, 2004a 

Nancy Richler, 2004

239 Hollister Body Outline in Front Lawn, 2004

Jake and Annie's, 2004, 1999, 1996

2700 Main St., {Since replaced by an Irish pub}, 2004, 1999, 1996

Rose Cafe (1979-), 2004, 1999, 1996, 1979

220 Rose Ave., 2004, 1999, 1996, 1979

Opened in 1979

{Note the Rose mural; also the family owns the Indian Restaurant on Main Street and has recently remodeled one of the houses in the Ocean Park Historical District on Third St.}

{Derek Shearer, an Occidental College Professor, went on to become, I believe, an Under-Secretary of Commerce and Ambassador to Finland under the two terms of the Clinton Adminisstration respectively.}, 2004

Van Go's Ear, 1999, 1996

796 Main St., 1999, 1996

{Giant portrait of Van Gogh on the Side of the Restaurant, 2004}

Kelyn's Commentary on 1983 Lunsford, 2004

{ KR: Haldeman was a member of the Santa Monica High Hall of Fame until removed after his involvement in the Nixon scandals.}

{1a. And is now the Casa Del Mar Hotel, having been remodeled, apparently never having given up its hotel or was it a private club?license. 1b.The foot of Pico was also known as Black Beach, the segregated beach and 1c.the end of the storm drain for west LA, and 1d. the site of the Santa Monica Arts Commissions Public Art Work by the Antins, depicting the storm drain coverage area and the flora and fauna.}

{ 2a.The Bay Street Hill from Neilson to The Promenade is featured in the movie Dogtown and the ZZ Boys as seminal in the invention of modern skate-boarding. 2b. Off-shore, the foot of Bay Street is known as the Bay Street Break as is the home break for the Santa Monica High Interscholastic Surfing Club. 2c. Ocean House, 2017 Ocean Avenue. Home to Theresa Weisberg; ex-mayor Feinstein's mother; Mel Blanc's wife; }

George A. Neilson, a city commissioner of the '30's and '40's and an Ocean Park resident. {Is commissioner the same as councilor? Belying OPCO's claim?}

{Main St. once connected Ocean Park to down-town Santa Monica over the distinctive 2nd St. Bridge, but now appears to be blocked by the new Rand Headquarters, and plans call for the actual demolition of the bridge. With the new Palace of Justice and the free-way entrances blocking 4th Street, Ocean Avenue and 11th appear to be the remaining routes. This isn't necessarily bad.}

{Now, The Pioneer Boulangerie, closed as a restaurant and used as a staging area for much of the infra-structural development now being undertaken, it is now being offered for sale as an investment opportunity, vested with certain increased development potential with some affordable housing and without much parking, and now the site has been razed. Rumor has it that the developer sold the property to himself .}

{Pacific Park seems to have been hi-jacked by the private kennel next door and turned into an exclusive "dog - only" park. See Joselyn Park below.}

{11a See 12. The Central Beach Tract: Has been or is home to artists, Connie and Tom Jenkins, and their son and daughter, both surfing professionals; Arthur Mortimer; Lucia's husband, et al.; CSUN professor, Lucia Baskouskus, Lithuanian Minister of Education; another Lithuanian who became a millionaire skateboard champion; American Academy of Science Member and Cal Tech Professor Barry and his wife Samoan Barish, Mental Health Therapist; Richard and Cecille Willis, Dentist and Mental Health Therapist, and his two sons, Joe Willis, a keyboardist; Harry Schearer, satirist and bass player; The Dean of the USC Film School and her consort; Abby Scheer; Susan Cloke; Harriet Beck, schoolteacher, and sister of Santa Monica City Councilman, Ken Genser; and, sadly, aspiring actresss, Muriel Hemingway; and UCLA Professor, Charles Seeger, father of Pete et al.; City Councilman and ex-Mayor Michael Feinstein; Alison Clark, Head of the Art and Architecture Library at USC; Ruth, head of KCRW etc.}

{ Hayden & Fonda, Their two kids? Troy Garrity? Do we mention Roger Vadim's home in OP, father of Vanessa? And what has happened to . . . ?}

{ Beach Park # 1:Recently redone, and contains Michelle Doner's twin coral plinths.}

{ The Golf Course: Now Sea Colony III, a gated condominium development; Past or present home to Mel Blanc's son; Hal Girard, PhD, UCLA Professor of Social Psychology and Desi S. Girard, Phd, Clinical Psychologist and painter; Warren G. Bennis, PhD, USC Professor of Management. }

{Home to the only person named twice in Minnesota's Hall of Fame, for table tennis, U.S. National Champion and for bridge, . . . Ocean Park Post Office is between the two towers.}

{ Sea Colony ; A gated condominimum development which along with Santa Monica Shores surrounds a public park to the east of Barnard Way and includes tennis and basketball courts, unusable paddle tennis courrts, and an observation hill. There are public walkways from Neilson Way at either end of the park.}

{ Marine Telephone Exchange: Now it houses developer, Eli Broad's Art Collection.}

{Now also contains One Life Groceries, Novel Cafe, a helpful hat store, a book store . . . }

{The Fish Enter.Was this the place that sold pier and carnival artifacts for many years after POP had been torn down?}

{Is it the Dakota Hotel where Richard Diebenkorn, Sam Francis, James Turrell et al. were working in the sixties and seventies?; Chinois on Main is our most notable restaurant, soon to be joined by private dining facilities, replacing an antique store; Paris 1900 is an exquisitely kept collection of early twentieth century couture; Jadis is a fading repository of movie-related materials.

{Contains a cross-dressed boutique and a Starbucks.}

{Houses the Eames family Design Store (linking the Eames' Venice Design Studio on what is now Abbot Kinney to their home in Santa Monica Canyon); also on the inner courtyard was the Political Cartoon Gallery . And next door is the Duganne artist studios and aetelier, the 10 Women Gallery; and then the Printing Place and then ZZ Boys and Surf Appparel Shops.}

{Now called "The Victorian", it seems as though there was a private land-grab of a public space under the guise of preservation. And it seems to have a collusionary agreement with the Omelet Parlour. (And as an undeserving thought isn't it the case that all the old buildings in SM which are moved are moved to Ocean Park?)}

{July 4, 2004: I went early to the Farmer's Market in the Main St. parking lot behind The Victorian and The Historical Museum to be first in line for the fresh oysters farmed in the Santa Barbara Channel. While waiting I discovered on a rock in the front yard of the Jones House a bronze plaque which had been dedicated April 25, 1985 by the Ocean Park Lodge 369 F & AM (Free and Accepted Masons) commemorating Alexander Rosborough Fraser (1856-1926), Charter Master of the Lodge; Herbert Richmond Gage (1848-1930); George Merritt Jones (1862-1932); Abbott Kinney (1850-1920)}

{Whoever the HSMS might be!? This was the site of Olivia's, the late lamented soul food restaurant; It used to contain the kitchen from Merle Norman's (original?) house (see # 51) where she formulated her cosmetics. Diane & Browne Goodwin* used to be involved with the HSMS.}

{Issues surrounding the mural probably led to the formation of the Arts Commission and a Public Arts Policy. The mural is on the side of what is now a surf and snowboard store ZZ Boards, expanding on the fame of the documentary, Dogtown and the ZZ Boys.}

{Don Girard*'s design offices were located in this building. Then there is the Egg Factory redesigned by Frank Gehry* and the Santa Monica Art Museum turned into a theater and Rockenwagner*'s restaurant and out door barbeque. And Peete's Coffee and Doctor Richard Willis*, dentist offices.}

{ Tropical Mural No longer there, I think.}

{kr, 27 March 2004}: today a Hostetter is head of the World Elvish Society, a Tolkien homage organization and I don't know if he's related to Moses.}

{Moved from next to Geraldine's to the Church Parking lot?}

{This is obscure, but it is now being used as the parsonage by Sandi Richards and family.}

{There are also unique cast iron gates and a day-care center and SMMUSD Development Offices there now and what appears to be parking . . . }

{ kr: We must remember that Antioch College was located at Hampton and Rose briefly.}

{Judy Abdo's house? Source of the Pier House Collective Cookbook?}

{And the mural on the side of the restored beach apartment house south of the pier.}

See #34; She also planned the mural at Santa Monica Boulevard and 26th St., on the west facing wall of the Santa Monica Jewish Community Center; replaced with a mural depicting the Santa Monica Carousel Horses escaping along the beach.}

{Now is a historical landmark? and a two family residence.}

{Michael Fawcett, in the film Carnations, Ostriches and Condos: The Secret History of Ocean Park, tells the story that in 1875 Nancy Lucas built a house on the highest point of land in her 800 acre barley ranch, and she died of strychnine poisoning and the front lawn was later donated to the City for the park. Nancy Lucas* died of strychnine poisoning after she sold the house to Mary Greene. Mary Greene's second husband was Dan Moody, who, Mary Greene swore, was killed by a single shot from his pistol which he sat on during a trip to Los Angeles. In 1904 the Mansion burned to the ground, but the circumstances of its burning were so questionable that the insurance company refused to pay.}

{see # !; the rails along the central promenade in the park were foundational to the sport of skate-boarding and roller-blading; perhaps its tragic beginnings as an estate engendered iniquity: the park benches on the upper level is where John Haldeman, Nixon's man, and a native Santa Monica Canyonan, and removed from the SAMOHI Hall of Fame and hardball USC student politician, tried to bribe Judge Julius Sirica to cover up the Watergate Break-In. }

{See the Lord Carlton and The Enchanted View as other wrestlers' ding-bats.}

{#53, #55 and the public murals raise serious issues about the role and the place of public art in our culture and in Ocean Park in particular. One shouldn't forget the mushroom atomic bomb explosion made of chain links by LA Times political cartoonist, the rolling half circles left by an Italian artist as an afterthought; the missing Nancy Graves sculpture through which marched an endless succession of volley ball nets, the temporal succession of starfish, banners and shopping carts and the random ephemera, graffitti, car alarms and plate-glass scratching; Robbie Conal covering up his own caricatures with his own caricatures; commercial signs vanishing and then blocking the sidewalk; and people living long enough in the same location to actually personalize or vernacularize it, or perhaps it requires persons to create a dialogue, heap scorn or revenge themselves upon wit their environment, including public art, and their neighbors who doubtlessly deserve all the discussion they have stood for for so long.}

{>Date: Wed Mar 31, 2004 2:57:25 PM US/Pacific

To: kelyn <kelyn@adelphia.net>

Subject: CME

The Phillips Chapel at 4th & Bay was established in 1908.

At the time, CME meant Colored Methodist Episcopal; at some point, Colored became Christian (no jokes!).

Source: Santa Monica: Jewel of the Sunset Bay by Marvin Wolf & Katherine Mader (published by the SM Historical Society in 1989)}

{See surf boards, turkic elements, polynesian perverse, etc. as decorative elements or remanents of earlier architectural mannerisms.}

{Now the site of John Muir Elementary School, and perhaps the Alternative School and two servicable tennis courts and youth baseball and soccer fields.. }

Who was Walter G. McGinley? Much of the park is now unusable having become a dog run. The recreation center is used as a polling place and for yogi classes. The garages may be original. There used to be a Table Tennis table there but is has disappeared. There used to be picnic tables. I don't know the history of lawn bowling, shuffleboard, roque et cetera in Santa Monica, let alone roller-blading, skate-boarding, acrobatic biking, roller hockey, surfing and volleyball. In the film, Pier Trilogy I, besides the tumbling, gymnastics, weight-lifting and body-building, they show youths playing table tennis. Various pictures depict bowling alleys, and there is the current bowling alley on the site where the professional wrestlers were first televised.}

{Now the site of the ? High School, a day-care (the Ocean Park Community Day Care?); see # 58; it was determined in the 1980ties that the site, located at the corner of Lincoln and Ocean Park Boulevards was unfit for children and was to be developed by SMMUSD as a revenue producing commercial site.}

{The Auditorium was called the Cafetorium since it served as a cafeteria and an audiotorium.}

{Home to Artist Katherine Jacobi and her artist son, Ari, who attended SAMOHI; Actor & ACLU Member Richard Dysart; The artist from the beach tract who built her studio next to Dick and Kathy's which the Artist Susan Wolf moved into; Michael Hill, OPCO Board; the short person , who claimed to be Keith Laumer, the science fiction writer, whose mother was a PTA President at John Muir School; Also it needs to be checked how two blocks fit between Sixth and Seventh }

{The giant shoe is there as of 1/20/2004}

Hal Glicksman, 1982, 1970 1963 Lived on Fourth St., across from the park, 1963

(Back to Sources)

 Kelyn Roberts 2017