Les Storrs Santa Monica Portrait of a City Yesterday and Today, Santa Monica Bank: Santa Monica, CA, 1974, 67 pp., 1974, 1973, 1970s
" . . . three new faces on council led to a new city manager, James Williams . . . took over late in 1973 . . .
pp. 48, 49 [Photo captions: "Third Street as it looked from Broadway in 1888 and below in 1973 . . ."; "Santa Monica Mall, in addition to providing a stimulus for the downtown area, is widely known as a "people place," as this photo, taken at the time of an outdoor art exhibit, plainly shows. Citizens stroll on the mall at all hours, whether stores are open or not, enjoying the absence of vehicular traffic."]
" . . .
"First city engineer and public works director under the present form of government was . . . Maurice M. King . . . succeeded by Bartlett L. Kennedy . . . his deputy was Marcel Gentillon . . . a navy officer in World War II . . .
"Police chiefs . . . Earl Reinbold . . . assistant Gerald Constable . . . retired in 1974 and was succeeded by George Tielsch.
Two fire chiefs stand out . . . Charles Carrel and John Sturges . . .
Kenneth O. Grubb has been city clerk, responsible for licenses and records . . .
"Santa Monica has one of the few publically owned bus lines which does not operate at a loss . . .
". . . the result of able management [by] William Farrell and his successor, John Hutchison . . .
"Parks and Recreation, under the direction of Donald Arnett, have helped enhance Santa Monica's reputation as a city having more than the usual number of trees, beautifully maintained parks, and recreational facilities to fit the needs of people of all ages . . . the actual maintenance of parks was, until fairly recently, a function of the department of public works.
". . . Ron Severeid lent the necessary expertise to the botanical side of the problem . . .
"Administrative services . . . have been placed under the supervision of Richard Aronoff. Wayne Higbee was personnel director for a number of years; the late Ashley Shaw was the purchasing agent who set up the program of central warehousing . . .
"Clyde Fitzgerald, airport director, and Jeremy Faris, manager of the Civic Auditorium . . .
"William A. Hard and later Frank Gaudio, directors of finance . . .
Chapter Seven Commercial, Economic and Social Developments
". . .
"In the beginning, and in the first two decades of the present century, Santa Monica was basically a community of homes, served by what would be described today as "convenience" commercial facilities.
"People lived, in general, on incomes derived from other sources than local, whether the breadwinner of the family worked in downtown Los Angeles, or whether he was, in the language of the day, " a gentleman of leisure," meaning that he had a fixed income . . .
"Virtually all residents lived in single family homes.
"Today four out of five families in Santa Monica are apartment dwellers; today the community has a very substantial economic base derived from numerous industries and from commercial activities which are regional in their clientele.
". . .
"In the early days, Santa Monica had but one commercial bank, the Bank of Santa Monica, although in 1902 the Ocean Park Bank was organized, and in 1905 the First National Bank of Ocean Park.
"Banks continued to be local institutions for many years, until the branch banking system began to develop and to absorb the smaller institutions, largely during the period of economic expansion which followed World War I and which came to a crashing halt with the bank holiday of 1919 and the subsequent Great Depression.
"In contrast with those early days, Santa Monica now has one major community bank, the Santa Monica Bank, which shortly will celebrate its forty-sixth anniversary, and ranks nationally among the top 600 in the country. It has branches in West Los Angeles, Pacific Palisades, Marina del Rey, and two in Santa Monica in addition to the head office at Fourth Street and Arizona Avenue. Organized originally as the Santa Monica Savings Bank, chartered February 17, 1928, it received a new charter as the Santa Monica Commercial and Savings Bank in 1934 and in 1958 a third charter changed the name to its present designation as the Sasnta Monica Bank.
"Aubrey E. Austin, Sr., was one of the organizers, and became president early in the 1930s. He was succeeded by his son Aubrey E. Austin, Jr.
"Santa Monica's present importance as a financial center is indicated by . . . fourteen branch offices of other banks. They include: Bank of America, City National Bank, Crocker National Bank, First Western Bank, Security Paciific National Bank, Southern Californis First National Bank, Union Bank, United California Bank and Wells Fargo Bank.
"In addition, Santa Moonica has eight savings and loan association offices, two of which, Century Federal and First Federal of Santa Monica have headquarters in Santa Monica and branches in other communities. Others are American, California Federal, Gibraltar, Home, State Mutual and Glendale Federal.
"Pennsylvania Life Insurance Co. has its head office on Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica to serve the entire Southern California area.
" . . .
" . . . the Douglas Aircraft Co., now McDonnell-Douglas, Santa Monica plant is . . . being phased out.
"The Rand Corp., which grew out of a group of scientists and engineers working for Douglas more than three decades ago, a think factory, began by doing in depth research for the armed forces, mainly the Air Force. This continues today, but research also is done for clients of all sorts, from industry to government. Staff is made up very largely of engineers and former college and university faculty members having expertise in many fields.
"Second generation outgrowth of Douglas is System Development Corp., which . . . develops . . . systems for the computerization of . . . operations. It was formed when this phase of the Rand operation grew so large . . .
"Santa Monica is looked upon with favor as a base of operation for many businesses . . . it is the headquarters of General Telephone Company of California, a subsidary of General Telephone and Electronics . . .
"In the industrial area, Santa Monica is the home of Papermate . . .
" . . .
". . . the Southern California Rapid Transit District.
". . . the downtown area lies very close to the Santa Monica Freeway, which places the entire westerly portion of the Los Angeles metropolitan area within 20 minutes driving time from Santa Monica. Completion of the freeway was perhaps the most significant event of its time.
"This came about largely through the efforts of Robert E. McClure, then a member of the California Highway Commission. The freeway has brought Santa Monica within 20 minutes driving time of downtown Los Angeles, the San Fernando Valley and the South Bay cities . . .
". . .
". . . Santa Monica long ago approved bonds which enabled the University of California to establish its Los Angeles campus in Westwood, a decision which has greatly influenced the community ever since.
". . .
"So Santa Monica., surrounded on three sides by Los Angeles and on the fourth by the Pacific Ocean, a city of only 8.1 square miles of area, maintains a degree of self sufficiency, and a strong sense of communtiy identity.
". . . the present trend toward condominium apartments rather than rentals. The family which owns its own apartment is likely to develop a greater degree of political and social responsibility . . .
". . . continuing unabated in 1974 . . . the old Miramar Hotel, recently acquired by Fujita Corp., USA . . . "