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Friday, February 10, 2012
The New Girl: Where’s the There There?
by Susan Webb, published on October 29, 2009 at 2:57 PM
Storyline: The New Girl
I think the thing about Citrus Heights is that it’s so—real. We don’t put on airs with fancy restaurants and wine bars. We just go down to the one great local white-table-cloth restaurant and get the before-6:30-half-price wine special. (Oops! Booyah closed last year.) We don’t get those European-style flatbread pizzas because Ciro’s traditional is seriously so dang good. We don’t—um. I’m done with this line of thinking.
What struck me as strange about the area when I first got here was the strip malls. I mean we probably have more strip malls per square mile than anywhere else in the world. Sure, there are lots of neighborhoods, public parks, trees, but they’re all tucked behind the strip malls. They started building them, I guess, back in the fifties, and just kept updating to the newer style throughout the sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, and they’re still going—look at what’s going on in Folsom and Granite Bay and Rocklin. What the heck are they thinking? Enough already! Let’s tear down the older ones or fix them up, convert them to affordable housing or dog parks, but no more new strip malls. Are you with me on this? Anyone?
In Citrus Heights, we don't have an actual physical downtown. We have the Mall, folks tell me. Ain't that the same thing? It is not. So we have to borrow our neighboring cities' downtowns.
Actually, I love old downtown areas. There is a lot of potential in Old Fair Oaks (the chicken capital of the greater Sacramento area), in Old Roseville and in Old Folsom. It’s tough for those small retailers to stay alive, though, competing with the Y’allMarts and the superstores, so when you go back, your favorite little shop is gone and there’s a tattoo parlor in its place. (Okay, nothing against tattoo parlors; some of my best friends have tattoos.) What I’m saying is, sometimes we have to go out of our way to support independent businesses so that we can help create our own little neighborhood Mayberry RFD because it’s already there; it’s just struggling to survive.
Little downtowns are good because they’re quirky. Coffee places, yes—something local, something mom-and-pop. They ought to have an ice cream parlor or frozen yogurt place, and affordable places to have lunch—preferably with patios—and bakeries! They definitely need to have art galleries that support local artists and not just the expensive-prints-that-look-like-real-paintings. There ought to be a nice little book store (usually with cats). Of course, there have to be affordable antiques and collectables, gifty shops and some women’s boutiques. But don’t think this is just a girl thing; we see great hardware stores (that aren’t warehouses!) and pubs (where everybody knows your name) in some of these little towns. Is it too much to ask to have my froyo and sushi and eat it, too?
Yeah, yeah—don’t tell me about Midtown. I know it. I love it. But it’s way over there. That’s my soapbox, and I’m sticking to it. (Plus I really like to go shopping. When I have money. Which I don’t.) I’m The New Girl.
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When I was growing up, the closest thing to a downtown Citrus Heights was Birdcage Walk. There was a cruise, and midnight movies, and there was even a terrific local coffee place called the Star Cafe that was open until midnight or later. There were a couple of bookstores nearby (Tower Books WAS a local bookstore--they were a chain, but they started here, so in my mind they count) and a comic shop and gifty shops and a couple restaurants. It was where you went if you were a funny-looking rebel kid in Citrus Heights and didn't even have the means yet to hang out in Midtown. Unfortunately it was where some kids went to beat up the funny-looking kids someitmes, so its value as a refuge was questionable at best. Many eventually moved to Midtown, which was considered something like a mythical far-away land. San Francisco was a place reserved only for myth and legend, where amazing footwear could be had--Midtown was still distant, but relatively attainable and reachable on the bus.
Of course, Midtown wasn't even Midtown as we know it then--where the Starbuck's sits on 19th & J was a card room notorious for prostitution, drug dealers worked the streets in Boulevard Park, Dorothea Puente was still poisioning her tenants in Alkali Flat. People only moved to Midtown if they wanted to get away from the suburbs, were looking for absurdly cheap rent, and often they considered the drug dealer down the street a neighborhood-serving business amenity.
But back to Citrus Heights...heck, Citrus Heights has better antique stores than downtown--ever been to the Olive Factory antique store on Auburn Boulevard? I think there is still a Trent's Bookworm in Citrus Heights--that's a local used bookstore, the owner Mr. Trent used to teach Driver's Ed at Mesa Verde High School. Unfortunately, the broadly horizontal and centerless nature of auto-centric suburbs mean that those places are almost never close enough together to walk from one to the other--the closest equivalent is the occasional strip mall or shopping center. I wonder how people will think of 20th century suburbs in 100 years. Will they consider them wasteful, benighted places, or an idyllic wonderland representing the apex of American civilization? Will those of us who grew up in such places and couldn't wait to leave develop sentimental feelings for big lawns and ranch-style homes when we reach our dotage, the memories of boredom, monoculture and long commutes faded by time?
Not only was Midtown the gravitational axis for reasons you mention, it was also the place where architecture existed. The centerlessness you describe is also expressed in the mind numbing straight lines and generic sameness of most of suburban Sacramento.
Setting a beacon for independent businesses and great bookstores is a wise move. You mentioned Beers, which has a cat named Raffles. Don't miss The Book Collector on 24th b/w J and K Sts. and Time Tested Books (cats no longer with us) on 21st b/w K and L Sts. For music, The Beat is the place -- on 17th and J Sts.
For that small town ambience, you can head to Old Town Fair Oaks. I'm told Carmichael has something similar........?
Being from the Bay Area and tucked into the homey spots behind the strip malls, you may not have noticed the biggest freak-out for those coming from the Central City -- no trees!!
Please continue to update on your outings and discoveries.
Carmichael doesn't really have an "old town," but there is a strip of 1950s era strip malls that were deliberately built in a sort of "Old West Revival" style that was popular in mid-century.
The Beat is TOP. No doubt. Half priced primo condition used CDs are overpriced? Meh.
What about business owners banding together to form some kind of rogue city planning committee? The Bookworm is a really wonderful small chain (if I remember correctly), so what if they joined forces with Aric's (if they're still around) and made sure they leased spaces next to each other? And same with little lunch places. Take over the stripmalls! Make them tiny little "downtown" areas!