Newest articles on The Sacramento Press tagged as "tourism"

Watercolors Hiking in historic Locke and Delta Meadows State Park

2011-09-13T10:47:13Z

A Watercolors and Hiking event will be held in Locke, Calif. on Thursday, September 15, 2011 starting at 10:00 a.m. The hike will be led by Martha Esch. Bring the kids and the grandparents; everyone is welcome! Well-behaved dogs on leashes, okay. This is a mostly level 1.5 mile hike apart from one 20 foot long, somewhat steep, narrow path up a levee hill and some optional off-path routes along the way that are prickly and narrow.

Locke artist and art teacher, Martha Esch, will demonstrate easy techniques to painting a quick, lovely, loose watercolor postcard of scenic spots along the hike. Next, participants will begin using watercolor kits, blank postcards and brushes that will be passed out to all who'd like to paint their own scenes. (There will be a $5 art supply fee.)

Pack your own brown bag lunch, your own beverage and maybe some small snacks to share with others. The group will gather in front of Al the Wop's famous bar and steakhouse, located in the middle of Main Street in Locke, Calif.

If you arrive late, just follow the wooden walkway next to Al's to the back of Locke and the walking path past the community gardens, up the levee to the Meadows State Park to catch up. At the top of that levee, the first of two postcard watercolor paintings will take place overlooking the beautiful lagoon called Railroad Slough.

After 15 minutes, the group will stop painting and hike about 1/2 mile to a scenic overlook along Snodgrass Slough where they'll pause to paint their second15-minute postcards.

Lunch will take place at the Snodgrass Slough as well before the hike back to town where the 90 to 120 minute tour winds up back on Main Street.

Everyone in the hiking group will be welcome to sneak a peek at Esch’s paintings, some in progress, at "The Shack," her art and music studio located at the top end of Main Street at Levee Road.

The Delta Meadows State Park is a beautiful, secret gem and the town of Locke is a fun, historic place that you'll want to soon return to with your out-of-state guests. Visitors are free to visit antique and gift shops, museums and the town’s two restaurants, Al the Wops and the Locke Garden Chinese Restaurant.

Visitors should be sure to shop at Lisa Kirk's fun store called Strange Cargo, located next to Al the Wop's. If you have some muscle strain after your hike and want some acupuncture, Diane Thomas is the one to visit at Locke Chinese Medicine a few doors north of Lisa's shop.

Call Martha Esch at (916) 776-1000 with questions. Hope you can join!

To get to the meeting place in Locke from I-5, take the Twin Cities Road exit west toward the tall radio towers. When you hit the road along the Sacramento River, turn left (south) and go one mile to Locke and turn left into the tiny town. When you enter Locke, park in the free parking lot, straight ahead, next to the public restrooms. Entry codes are: Men 3535/ Women 3434.. Gather in front of famous Al the Wop's, located at 13943 Main Street, Locke CA 95690.

Disclosure: Aricle author, Martha Esch teaches private, small and large group art classes in watercolors, oils, and acrylic painting as well as clay classes to all skill levels and ages. For more, visit her blog at www.marthaesch.blogspot.com

Historic Home Tour in Marshall School Neighborhood

2011-09-12T19:57:35Z

Sacramento Old City Association 36th Annual Home Tour
What: A tour of 8 historic buildings in the Marshall School neighborhood, and street fair at 27th and J Street.
When: Sunday, September 18, 10:00 AM-4:00 PM
Where: Marshall Park, 27th & J Street, Sacramento
How Much: $20 in advance, $25 day of event

On Sunday, September 18, the Sacramento Old City Association (SOCA) presents its 36th annual tour of historic homes in Sacramento’s central city. Each year, we offer an inside look into the beautiful and historic buildings that line Midtown and Downtown streets, and some of the newest infill development projects in the city. This year’s tour of the Marshall School neighborhood, in the northeastern quarter of the central city between F and J Street, features homes in the Queen Anne, Craftsman and Neoclassic styles. In addition to seven residential buildings, this year's tour includes a rare inside look at the Sacramento Eastern Star Temple, a National Register listed 1925 Romanesque Revival building.

The tour starts at Marshall Park, at the corner of 27th and J Street. A street fair at the park features local contractors, architects, builders and artisans specializing in historic home rehab and remodeling, local businesses, artists and crafters displaying their wares, local nonprofits, advocacy and local history organizations.

Local musicians Tender Cinders, Garage Jazz Architects, The Freebadge Serenaders, and Emile Dalkey will perform at the street fair in the center of Marshall Park, starting at 11:00 AM.

Those attending the tour will get an inside, guided tour through each building, provided by volunteer docents, including members of the Marshall School New Era Park Neighborhood Association, SOCA, and the Sacramento Art Deco Society. Tour participants can also show their tour wristband for a 15% discount in the restaurants of the nearby Sutter District. The tour costs $25 on the day of the event, or $20 in advance via www.brownpapertickets.com. The street fair is free and open to the public.

Started in 1975, the SOCA Home Tour was created to showcase historic homes in neglected central city neighborhoods. Members showed off their home-repair projects and shared techniques, tools and advice. As these neighborhoods became the Sacramento region’s favorite destination for culture and entertainment, the home tour has grown into a celebration of central city life, including art, culture, business, transportation and transit, entertainment, history, downtown living, and the irreplaceable beauty of Sacramento’s historic neighborhoods. The tour is also a fundraiser that helps SOCA carry out its mission to preserve and enhance a high quality of life for Central City residents, businesses, working people and visitors.

Tickets can be purchased online at https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/187298
For more information about SOCA, visit http://www.sacoldcity.org

Sponsored in part by Midtown Monthly Magazine, The Sutter District restaurants, and Midtown Business Association

Disclosure: William Burg is a board member of the Sacramento Old City Association.

"Jane's Walk" Urban Planning Walks

2011-05-04T05:27:47Z

Sacramento Jane’s Walk 2011: Saturday, May 7 and Sunday, May 8

Jane’s Walk USA is a series of free neighborhood walking tours that helps put people in touch with their environment and with each other, by bridging social and geographic gaps and creating a space for cities to discover themselves. Since its inception in 2007, Jane’s Walk has happened in cities across North America, and is growing internationally. Sacramento’s Jane’s Walk series incorporates elements of urban planning, neighborhood advocacy, urban history, and architectural history, to demonstrate how a neighborhood’s physical form promotes its walkability, sustainability and economic and social vitality. All tours are free of charge; show up at the starting point at the designated time in comfortable walking shoes. No RSVP is necessary.

In 2010, Sacramento's first Jane's Walk series took place on May 1 with four simultaneous tours. This year, five total tours are being held over two days; except for the Oak Park and Southside Park tours, the tours are held at different times, so people can attend more than one.

Sacramento Jane’s Walk Schedule

Saturday, May 7

Alkali Flat
10 AM – Noon
Tour Guide: Luis Sumpter, Sacramento Old City Association Board Member
Starting Point: Shine Coffee, 1400 E Street
SOCA and Alkali Flat Neighborhood Association board member Luis Sumpter will lead a tour of Sacramento’s oldest surviving residential neighborhood, Alkali Flat. This tour will visit local architectural landmarks, neighborhood businesses, adaptive reuse projects, and new mixed-use projects under construction.

Midtown
2 PM – 4 PM
Tour Guide: William Burg, Sacramento Old City Association Board Member
Starting Point: Mondo Bizarro, 1827 I Street
William Burg, historian and author of Sacramento’s Streetcars, will guide this tour of Midtown’s mixed-use business corridors and adjacent residential neighborhoods, from the days of Sutter through the streetcar era to the present day. The tour will focus on walkability, transit, mixed-use neighborhoods, and Midtown’s legacy as a regional epicenter of creativity and art.

Sunday, May 8

Southside Park
10 AM-Noon
Tour Guide: William Burg, Sacramento Old City Association Board Member
Starting Point: Callahan Bandstand, 7th and T Street, Southside Park
William Burg, historian and author of Sacramento’s Southside Park, will lead this tour, focusing on the neighborhood’s rich cultural diversity, transportation, landscape and urban design, neighborhood activism, and adaptation to changing neighborhood roles.

Central Oak Park Walking Tour
10 AM-Noon
Tour Guide: Tom Sumpter, Oak Park Neighborhood Association
Starting Point: Guild Theater, 2828 35th Street
Neighborhood activist Tom Sumpter will lead a tour of Oak Park’s historic business district along Broadway and nearby landmarks, designed by Sacramento State geography professor Robin Datel and using a tour brochure published by the Center for Sacramento History.

Downtown: From the Railroad Tracks to the Civic Center
2 PM – 4 PM
Tour Guide: Melisa Gaudreau, Sacramento Heritage Inc. Board Member
Starting Point: Sacramento City Hall, 915 I Street
Historic architect Melisa Gaudreau will lead a tour of downtown Sacramento, focusing on Sacramento Heritage Inc.’s new tour of the Civic Center area along H, I and J Street between the historic Southern Pacific passenger depot and City Hall.

About Jane’s Walks
Jane’s Walk USA honors the legacy and ideas of urban activist and writer Jane Jacobs who championed the interests of local residents and pedestrians over a car-centered approach to planning. Jane’s Walk USA helps knit people together into a strong and resourceful community, instilling belonging and encouraging civic leadership.

All Jane’s Walk USA tours are given and taken for free. These walks are led by anyone who has an interest in the neighborhoods where they live, work or hang out. They are not always about architecture and heritage, and offer a more personal take on the local culture, the social history and the planning issues faced by the residents. Jane Jacobs believed strongly that local residents understood best how their neighborhood works, and what is needed to strengthen and improve them. Jane’s Walks are meant to be fun, engaged and participatory – everyone’s got a story and they’re usually keen to share it.

Thousands of people have taken part in a Jane’s Walk USA. Past walks have explored a wide range of urban landscapes, from social housing slated for redevelopment to areas with a rich architectural and cultural heritage, to teen hangouts and secret gardens. Walks are led by individuals and small groups. Some are focused around historical themes more than geographical areas, for instance, some strolls have been built around ideas like the history of the bicycle, gay and lesbian history, places of relevance to the homeless, the history of ‘skid row’, and urgent planning matters facing certain neighborhoods.

About the Sacramento Old City Association
The Sacramento Old City Association promotes actions that preserve and enhance a high quality of life for Central City residents, businesses, working people and visitors. The organization works to achieve balanced and harmonious relationships among residential, commercial and employment uses in the Central City. To achieve these goals the Sacramento Old City Association works to:

•Increase public awareness of the irreplaceable historic, architectural and cultural resources of the Central City
•Gather and disseminate information useful in the preservation of structures and neighborhoods of Sacramento.
•Advocate the policies and positions of the organization to the appropriate public agencies and private parties.
•Build and strengthen coalitions with other organizations working to achieve similar goals.
•Promote a quality urban environment through the encouragement of compatibly designed and constructed housing, commercial and office buildings.

For More Information about Jane's Walk or the Sacramento Old City Association:

http://www.sacoldcity.org
http://janeswalkusa.wordpress.com/

Disclosure: William Burg is a board member of the Sacramento Old City Association.

Department Store Holiday Display for K Street

2010-11-05T05:16:22Z

Sacramento County Historical Society
Holiday Window Display Project
Roos-Atkins Building, 1001 K Street, Sacramento CA
Grand Opening of Window Display: Friday, November 26, Noon

This November, Sacramento County Historical Society will recreate a full-sized holiday display window on K Street, using animated figures that once graced the windows of the Breuner’s department store in downtown Sacramento. The display will occupy the window of the former Roos Bros. department store building at 1001 K Street, the northeast corner of 10th and K. Setup will take place during November 2010, with a “grand reveal” of the completed display the day after Thanksgiving, November 26, at noon. The display will remain in place until the first week of January, 2011.

The Downtown Sacramento Partnership is an active participant in this project, with contributions from the Sacramento Old City Association, Capital City Preservation Trust, Midtown Neighborhood Association, Matrix Arts, and SCHS members. The property management and real estate firm Colliers International has provided access to the ground floor picture window of the historic Roos-Atkins Department Store. This enormous window on a feature corner provides an ideal place to celebrate K Street’s legacy and usher in its future.

The theme for the 2010 Holiday Display Window is “Winter in the City,” an urban scene set in downtown Sacramento circa 1910. Store windows containing period gifts and merchandise, a nickelodeon movie theater, a K Street streetcar, and lighted architectural elements will reflect the holiday season. Animated Gaffney Display Company figures will interact with each other and their surroundings. Local artists and SCHS volunteers will create the display setting. The window will also include historic photos of original Breuner’s display windows,other downtown department stores like Weinstock & Lubin, Roos Bros. and Kress, and past holiday celebrations on K Street, provided by the Center for Sacramento History. Interpretive panels will explain K Street’s historic role as a shopping, entertainment and cultural destination. We hope this celebration of K Street’s history can also serve to inspire its future, and recreate the sense of wonder of holiday seasons past.

Sacramento County Historical Society is organizing the fundraising effort. We are close to our funding goal, but we need your help to bring this tradition back to life on K Street. Please consider a tax-deductible donation to this project via Indiegogo.com by using the link below:

http://www.indiegogo.com/Winter-in-the-City-?a=52855&i=addr

The idea for this display window started last year, after a presentation by Gaffney Display at an SCHS meeting that resulted in a smaller window display at Grebitus & Sons Jewelers--see that story below:

http://www.sacramentopress.com/headline/18787/Historic_Holiday_Display_at_10th_L

William Burg, Vice-President, Sacramento County Historical Society
SCHS is a 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicated to promoting and sharing local history through publications, education and special events.

For more information about SCHS, please visit our website at http://www.sachistoricalsociety.org

Photos 1-8: Courtesy of the Center for Sacramento History. Photos 9-11: Taken by William Burg. Photo 12: Author's collection.

SCHS Presents: Sacramento's Underground

2010-05-22T01:11:54Z

Sacramento County Historical Society Presents:
Sacramento's Underground, a presentation by Heather Downey

Date: Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Time: 7:00pm - 9:00pm
Location: 5380 Elvas Avenue (Sierra Sacramento Valley Medical Society Building), Sacramento

All Ages--Open to the Public

Before the long-anticipated Underground Tours kick off this summer in Old Sacramento, SCHS will host a talk about the origins and significance of the city’s underground sidewalks and raised streets.

Sacramento is the only city in California with raised streets and the lingering architectural features known as the “underground.” On the surface, the raising of Sacramento’s business district offers accounts of mishap, controversy and, of course, the pioneer-entrepreneurial spirit that has come to define the early history of not only the city, but the Western United States in general. Additionally, the history of this construction project illuminates the opinions and experiences that characterized the first and second generation of Sacramento citizenry while underscoring the one thing they had in common: the desire to ensure that their city remained economically and politically viable. Such an interpretation of Sacramento’s “underground” opens doors to enrich and expand Old Sacramento visitors' understanding of the city’s history, while also connecting that past to larger trends in American Western and urban history.

This month’s speaker, Heather Downey, is a graduate of Sacramento State’s Public History program. She is the subject matter expert for Sacramento’s forthcoming Underground Tours, and has designed two interpretive displays describing floods and street raisings in Sacramento.The underground sidewalks, and the interpretive plan for the tour, are the subject of her Master’s thesis.

For more information about the upcoming underground tours, visit the Sacramento History Museum website:

www.historicoldsac.org/education/tours.asp

For more information about the Sacramento County Historical Society, visit the SCHS website:

www.sachistoricalsociety.org

Disclosure: William Burg is vice-president of the Sacramento County Historical Society.

A 10-Step Plan To Fix K Street, Or: The Legend of the Skyscraper Fairy

2009-10-12T03:55:54Z

As a Sacramento resident keenly interested in the history of K Street from the gold rush to the present, I have read many opinions regarding the best ways to fix the ongoing problems of K Street. Some have been proposed recently, ideas that I view with a mixture of amusement and horror. Most involve returning to the mistakes of the past while clearly avoiding its successes. In order to take the best from the past while avoiding some of its mistakes, I have selected some favorites. I can take credit for none of them, as they are all ideas that have been suggested at other times and places, but they seem like the best of the lot to me. This ten-point plan varies in scope from the very simple and inexpensive to the rather complex and expensive, some are short-term solutions while others are longer-term solutions for better times, but all of them are practical. I can provide more detail about most of these points if requested.

1. Accept that the Skyscraper Fairy does not exist.

Many landlords along K Street have no apparent interest in maintaining or improving their properties. Some are convinced that as long as they own the land, the magical Skyscraper Fairy will give them uncountable millions for the land where their decaying buildings sit, and will replace them with shiny new skyscrapers. Thus, they have little interest in maintaining or tenanting their buildings. The result is under-utilized or vacant buildings whose facades continue to crumble. Despite the Downtown Partnership’s efforts to power-wash streets and alleys, buildings allowed to fall into disrepair, inhabited only by bats and squatters, make our historic buildings into eyesores. Ideally, the city’s code enforcement division would issue stiff fines to property owners who allow their buildings to fall into disrepair, in order to prevent demolition by neglect. Unfortunately, the city of Sacramento is also one of the guilty parties, and one of the strongest believers in the Skyscraper Fairy. City-owned properties currently sit vacant, awaiting their own savior in the form of a deep-pocketed developer who will brush aside the old building and provide badly-needed money to build something else. Given K Street’s current state, this is unlikely—the only propositions so far are dependent on generous subsidies from the city of Sacramento. Until both the city and K Street property owners can be dispelled of their belief in the magical skyscraper fairy, their properties will continue to rot.

2. It’s time to leave the shopping mall in the past.

K Street was a bustling place until the 1950s, when most of Sacramento’s population moved out of the central city, the residential neighborhoods adjacent to downtown Sacramento were demolished, and the city streetcar system was replaced by highways and automobiles. Suburban malls were closer to the new suburban neighborhoods and had plentiful parking, while K Street was far away and none of the stores had parking lots. The K Street pedestrian mall of the 1960s and 1970s was a desperate move to woo suburban shoppers by simulating a suburban mall, including demolition of nearby buildings to provide parking. But the suburban malls were still more convenient, and their parking lots bigger and more obvious, so K Street’s rebirth as a mall of the 1970s failed. A 1990s re-vamp that enclosed the section from 4th to 7th Street has become another failure, due to its failure to move beyond the idea of a suburban mall downtown.

A new generation of city planners has noted that shopping centers of the 2000s look a lot like old downtowns, with stores that copy historic styles and a mixture of pedestrian paths and driveways. These planners have decided that this is the future of K Street, and call for a return of cars to K Street so they can pretend K Street is a new suburban "power center," the 2010s equivalent of a shopping mall. But those suburban “power centers” are still closer to suburban shoppers, and their parking lots are still bigger. If K Street is simply opened to cars and its facades remodeled to emulate new suburban shopping centers in North Natomas, how can the result be any different from the last two attempts to disguise downtown Sacramento as a suburban mall?

3. Cars, no. Bikes, yes.

The simplest change to energize K Street will cost very little: permit bicycle riding on K Street. Bike riding is already on the rise, and the freedom to bike on K Street would turn it into the main cycling corridor of the central city, free from the vehicular mayhem of J and L Street. Provide a few bike racks so bike riders can stop and shop as well as ride through, and the numbers strolling past store windows will dramatically increase.

4. Shrink light rail to streetcar size.

Until the 1940s, K Street had transit in all sizes. On K Street itself, streetcars ran from the heart of downtown to Midtown, Southside and nearby suburbs like Land Park, Oak Park and East Sacramento. These cars were small, typically 30-40 feet long, about the size of a modern bus, and operated at speeds up to 25-30 miles per hour. Like a bus, they worked reasonably well with traffic, but because they had fixed rails they had a smoother ride and a predictable path, making them more comfortable for riders. Trains ran every ten minutes during the day, and “owl” runs carried late-night travelers all night.

On the corner of 8th and K Street, interurban trains ran in both directions. Passengers from Woodland, Chico, Stockton and even Oakland could hop on the train and get off on K Street. These trains were bigger, 60-80 feet long, and operated in trains as long as 6-8 cars. They were taller and wider than streetcars, and could reach 60-70 miles per hour going flat-out through the countryside. They ran on 8th Street because K Street was far too busy to handle the big trains.

Today, modern Light Rail trains are more like the interurbans than streetcars. With 80 foot long bodies and operating in four-car trains, they are not well-suited to playing the role of a streetcar. By through-routing Blue Line trains north via the upcoming 7th Street extension and connecting to North 12th Street via Richards Boulevard, light rail trains could bring passengers from Folsom, Rancho Cordova, South Sacramento and North Highlands to K Street without crowding pedestrians off the street.

Meanwhile, the streetcars can return to K Street. Some of Sacramento’s historic streetcars exist in unrestored condition in private collections, but modern streetcars offer amenities like air conditioning and ADA-accessible low-floor entryways. They can run on the existing K Street tracks while leaving more room for pedestrians and bikes. Using existing light rail lines and sharing their tracks, these streetcars can link nearby neighborhoods and connect with light rail. Extending streetcar lines into existing neighborhoods and new development areas costs less than one-third the price of light rail extensions and drives population density, economic investment and reduces the need for cars and parking. Run them until after 2:00 AM to give downtown visitors an option to leave their cars at home—especially if they plan on drinking.

5. Legalize street life.

This is another cheap and easy solution. Part of Second Saturday’s success is its prolific use of street music, performers, and vendors, but its monthly status creates a feast-or-famine condition. A permit program to allow music, performance and vending at any time means that visitors to K Street won’t need to check their calendars before going downtown. Street music and vending also gives local entertainers and small businesspeople a stepping stone to a retail storefront or a musical career. Musicians and vendors will promote activity, give walkers a reason to stick around, and attract visitors to enjoy the street life. This also does not rule out special street festivals and special events above and beyond the day-to-day activity, and maintaining K Street as a pedestrian walk maintains this valuable civic amenity for more public festivals. Both everyday street life and special events will draw visitors from within Sacramento, the surrounding region, and tourists from out of town.

6. Tours bring tourists.

Despite the demolition of the past few decades, K Street still retains a remarkable number of historic buildings, proud evidence of our architectural heritage in stone, terra cotta and concrete. Many cities use local tourism programs to bring visitors into the heart of the city, but to most visitors, Sacramento’s history ends at the edge of Old Sacramento. Efforts to alter this perception have been minimal. The Downtown Sacramento Partnership has a guided tour program, but it is minimally staffed, minimally funded, and minimally advertised. Downtown visitors looking for local history information are likely to come up empty-handed. Sacramento needs a full-strength tourism program worthy of a city with such a rich and diverse history. K Street, the walking street at the heart of the city, can be the center of such a tour program, with more tours branching out into nearby downtown streets and our architecturally rich residential neighborhoods. History tours appeal both to visiting tourists and to locals interested in learning more about their city's past.

On K Street, the potential star attraction of local tourism is right under your feet. Sacramento’s underground sidewalks, the result of a street-raising measure intended to keep the city above flood waters, run the length of K Street from the river to about 12th Street. Many are demolished, but enough material remains to allow a tour to weave in and out of underground sidewalk spaces, sunken alleys, basements, and even below-surface businesses. Combined with the dramatic story of the raised streets, and some entertaining and colorful stories from Sacramento’s history, the potential of an underground sidewalks tour is unlimited. In Seattle, local booster Bill Speidel turned a walk through clammy underground sidewalks in a notoriously bad part of town into a million-dollar tourist attraction that is known worldwide, drawing as many as 300,000 visitors a year and employing as many as 50 full-time staff. There is no reason that Sacramento can’t do the same.

7. Bring on the nightlife.

If a suburban mall isn’t the answer, what will bring suburban residents downtown? The answer is simple: Give them something the suburbs don’t have. Sacramento is best known for its quiet suburbs, the result of a decades-long whitewashing operation to conceal our party-animal past. The rowdy days of the Gold Rush, the proliferation of local breweries and wineries, our almost total refusal to acknowledge Prohibition, the legendary jazz and blues clubs of Sacramento’s West End, and even last year’s New Year’s Eve party (2,000 expected, 12,000 attended) burst through the “town where nothing happens” façade. It’s time to face the truth, and bring more nightlife down the length of K Street. This doesn’t just mean bars, it also means late-night restaurants, theaters, live music venues, dance clubs, movies, spas and salons, comedy clubs, coffee shops, and other imaginative options for entertainment. Cooperative parking agreements with state parking lots can provide tens of thousands of parking spaces, and better public transit can carry revelers home in safety.

8. Shop local, even if you’re from out of town.

The shopping-mall consultants are half right about K Street—it does need more than nightlife to survive. Daytime and early evening traffic means retail stores and services in between the state-employee lunch rush and the arrival of the dinner, drinks and dancing crowd. However, national chain stores are hesitant to expand, even if bribed into doing so. And again, suburban visitors won’t drive downtown to a store in their local mall. The answer is, again, to give them something the mall doesn’t have: unique, local stores. Local businesses keep money in the local economy, stimulate local employment and provide a unique character that chain stores simply can’t match. Encouraging local businesspeople to rent storefronts on K Street should be a city priority. Matched with neighborhood-serving retail like food markets, cleaners, drugstores and small department stores, locally-based retail on K Street should appeal to suburban shoppers, out-of-town visitors, and central city residents. As stores fill and crowds start to appear, instead of having to beg national chains to locate on K Street, they will appear on their own, smelling money to be made.

One idea we might lift from San Francisco: the much-adored Metreon, high-tech consumer wonderland, is falling on hard economic times, with many vacancies. Earlier this year, a full-time farmer’s market moved into the Metreon, and has already proved a popular destination. A permanent farmer’s market on K Street, instead of the current sporadic weekly markets, would provide fresh foods to a neighborhood where none are sold. Downtown workers, visitors and residents would all benefit from a convenient source for the Sacramento Valley’s agricultural bounty.

9. Living on K Street shouldn’t mean sleeping directly on it.

The destruction of the downtown neighborhoods near K Street was followed by the destruction of thousands of inexpensive rental rooms, commonly known as SRO hotels, where thousands of workers lived. As inexpensive housing disappeared, the poorest people did not. Out of necessity, they made their home on the streets. Many are still there, and as existing SRO stock is phased out of service and homeless services disappear, their numbers grow. They will not vanish and they will not simply move away, because they have nowhere to go and no alternative. The only way to reverse this trend is to replace the housing that was lost. This replacement housing need not be here on K Street, but it needs to be somewhere. Our only alternative is to accept the presence of people sleeping on the streets as an unalterable condition, and tell them that their suffering is necessary and unavoidable—or to simply remain in denial of the problem, which amounts to the same thing. As a people, as a city and as a nation, I think we are capable of better than that.

But it isn’t just the poorest that need housing in the central city. Housing for all income levels should be included in new development projects, but putting it into existing buildings would be even easier. Many formerly residential buildings were converted to office use in the 1960s and 1970s, so why not convert the abundance of vacant upper-story office space back into residential units? This housing should cross the economic spectrum: SRO units for the disabled and seniors, low-income units for service employees, workforce housing for office employees, and high-end, high-up housing for the high rollers. A truly urban life results when you can see all the way across the economic spectrum just walking down the street. That can’t happen unless the street has places for all of them to live, dine, work and shop. Again, not all of these places have to be directly on K Street, but they should be close enough to walk there in a few minutes. Restoration of residential buildings will preserve their architectural value, bring life back to the neighborhood, fill a great social need, and jobs restoring and maintaining the buildings will create more employment than comparable levels of new construction.

10. Have faith, be good, and the Skyscraper Fairy will come.

Part of the current mentality of property owners on K Street is based on outdated models of how downtown development should happen. For decades, cities were assumed to be teeming pits of an imaginary disease called “blight” that could only be cured with wrecking balls and a liberal application of public-funded redevelopment dollars, designed to push out “undesirable” tenants and solicit only the coveted suburban émigré to return to the central business district, and then only to spend money and leave, never to live. Today’s cities don’t work like that anymore. People want to live in cities because they want the amenities of urban life unavailable in the suburbs. If K Street can offer those amenities, not a sanitized Disneyland version and certainly not a copy of a suburban mall, they will grow interested in K Street. If they are interested, they will come to visit. If there are places to live, and things to see and do, they will want to move downtown. Once enough people have moved downtown that there is no longer room in existing buildings, and people feel safe and secure in neighborhoods that are well-maintained, high-rise developers who understand how cities work will look at K Street and see dollar signs. Instead of developers seeking handouts to build on K Street, they will come with money in hand where they think they can make even more.

And when they do, the Skyscraper Fairy will visit the property owners and civic leaders who took care of their buildings, who encouraged vitality and street life instead of a tax write-off, who promoted transit and walkability, and drew people back downtown to share in K Street’s uniqueness, character and history. She will shower them with money and riches and blessings, and cranes will rise on K Street, filling the gaps between the last century’s architectural gems with bright, tall new buildings. Yes, Sacramento, there is a Skyscraper Fairy, but she has very high standards.

William Burg is a board member of the Sacramento Old City Association. This story is a guest editorial opinion, and does not represent the opinion of Sacramento Press or its editors.

Underground Sidewalks Update at Preservation Commission Meeting

2009-08-03T18:05:16Z

This Wednesday, August 5, Sacramento's Preservation Commission will hear an update on the "Underground Sidewalks" survey project. This survey has explored much of Sacramento's surviving underground sidewalk structures, and is preparing a detailed report on their current condition and historic context. An earlier meeting, held in March, outlined what the survey would do(sacramentopress.com/headline/5128/City_Will_Survey_Underground_Sidewalks) and this meeting will present the initial findings of the survey team and report their progress. The final report on the underground sidewalks should be completed by September of this year.

The meeting will be held at Sacramento's City Hall, 915 I Street, in the City Council chambers on the first floor. The meeting starts at 5:30 PM and the Underground Sidewalks survey will be the first of several staff reports presented at the meeting.

A complete agenda of the Preservation Commission meeting can be found here:

www.cityofsacramento.org/dsd/meetings/commissions/preservation/2008/PC_Agenda_8-05-09.cfm

Sacramento's underground sidewalks are a side effect of a massive street-raising project, executed from the 1850s to the 1870s and intended to keep downtown Sacramento above water during the region's frequent floods. Brick walls about 12 feet high were built at the street edge and filled with dirt, but the spaces between the buildings and the street were left open, and were the building owner's responsibility to cover and fill. Over the past 130 years, many of these spaces have been filled in or demolished by subsequent development, construction and sidewalk repair.

This survey, funded by a local nonprofit and a matching state grant, is intended to document all of the surviving "Underground Sidewalk" spaces in downtown Sacramento and research the methods used to build these structures. The survey will have many potential uses, possibly including the creation of a historic district, or facilitating an "Underground Sidewalks Tour" program similar to that found in Seattle and other cities. The public will have an opportunity to ask questions and provide comments to the Preservation Commission and the consultants conducting the survey.

The City Preservation Commission was created by the City Council. Its powers and duties include: to develop and recommend to the City Council preservation policies appropriate for inclusion in the General Plan and other regulatory plans and programs of the City and to provide oversight relative to the maintenance and integrity of the Sacramento Register of Historic and Cultural Resources; to review, nominate, and make recommendations to the City Council on properties eligible for listing in the Sacramento Register as Landmarks, Historic Districts and Contributing Resources as set forth in the Historic Preservation Chapter, Title 17, Chapter 17.134, of the City Code; to review and approve preservation development projects of major significance and appeals of Preservation Director decisions per the Historic Preservation Chapter, Title 17, Chapter 17.134, of the City Code.

Meeting location: New City Hall
915 I Street- 1st Floor, Council Chambers
August 5, 2009 - 5:30 P.M.

City Will Survey Underground Sidewalks

2009-03-27T16:47:23Z

Date: Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Time: 5:30-7:30
Location: Historic City Hall, 2nd Floor Hearing Room, 915 I Street

On Tuesday, March 31, the city of Sacramento invites downtown property owners and community members to a Public Workshop to find out about the Raised Streets-Hollow Sidewalks Historic Survey. Join the Public Workshop, learn about the survey and ask questions.
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This survey, funded by a local nonprofit and a matching state grant, is intended to document all of the surviving "Underground Sidewalk" spaces in downtown Sacramento.

In the 1860s and 1870s, Sacramento's Board of Trustees undertook a project to raise downtown Sacramento's streets above flood levels by building brick walls at the edges of the downtown streets and filling those walls with dirt. This resulted in streets as much as 12 feet higher than their original level. Building owners either used teams of screw jacks to elevate their building to the new street level or simply made their second floor into the new ground floor. Because the building owners were responsible for the space between their building and the street, most built brick vaults over the sidewalk area, leaving the old sidewalk as a covered but accessible underground space. Most of the street raising was done between approximately I and L Street, from Front Street along the river to 12th Street to the east.

Over the intervening 130 years of development, new construction and redevelopment destroyed or damaged much of the original underground sidewalk areas, to the point where only a handful remain. This survey will document surviving remnants and research the methods used to build these structures. The survey will have many potential uses, possibly including the creation of a historic district, or facilitating an "Underground Sidewalks Tour" program similar to that found in Seattle and other cities. For those interested in learning more about the survey, the methods used, or those who hope to take a peek inside the history of Sacramento, this public workshop should be very interesting.

Sacramento's underground sidewalks have become the subject of local legend, and there are many myths associated with them. Most bear little resemblance to reality, but excite the imagination. They even appear in works of historical fiction, like James D. Houston’s Bird of Another Heaven:

"Soon another man spoke, his voice soft, almost a whisper. “I have heard of tunnels,” he said, “underneath the city of Sacramento and they are lined with the doors and windows of buildings, built there many years ago. I have not seen this, but I know a fisherman who is part white and part Indian. He was down there when he used to clean the streets. He tells me there is a city underneath a city, with streets and alleyways, built before the great flood, and dark as tunnels now. Anyone who died in the floods, this is where their spirits go.”

Hopefully, this survey will help us more fully comprehend a well-known but little-understood aspect of Sacramento history.

The value of PE classes in junior colleges

2009-02-12T07:40:34Z

An article in the SacBee today discusses a Legislative Analysts’s suggestion that junior colleges either drop PE classes, or that the colleges be paid less to offer them than the level of state funding provided for classes that are deemed more academic in content. These are the one-unit classes that are offered in subjects such as golf, tennis, and bowling. The inference is that these classes are not worthwhile and don’t deserve to be subsidized at the same level as other classes.

This seems like an odd standard to apply. As the article points out, students wanting to graduate or transfer are typically required to have one of these classes. What the article doesn’t point out is that that requirement is set by the state that subsidizes that education, precisely because teams of experts have determined that these are in fact worthwhile. It’s not like they showed up by chance or accident.

Another distinction suggested is that these are simply classes for fun and not as valuable as the more academic and vocational classes taken elsewhere in a college career. But if you examine some of the other, more esoteric classes that students routinely take, it may very well be that golf, bowling, and tennis are more likely to be used in life, or even in a career path. Try telling Tiger Woods that golf isn’t vocational. One of the students referenced in the original article was taking bowling multiple times attempting to improve his game enough to compete in tournaments. I wonder if any of his other classes are preparing him for national competition. There may very well be as many students who will use golf, for example, in a business setting, as those who will use <insert subject of your choice here>. And there are many students taking other classes for fun, personal enrichment, or without a specific utilitarian end in mind, and they aren’t single-credit classes.

The article also compares the PE classes and their subsidy rate with fitness classes for senior citizens. One could easily ponder whether or not we would need to teach physical activities to seniors if we taught younger students such life-long activities as, say, golf, bowling, and tennis. Oh, right, we are – for a reason.

During the working years of an adult life, most people will engage in work and other obligated activities for about a third of their week (very rough fractions), sleep for another third, and engage in activities of their own choosing, if they’re lucky, the rest of the time. When they hit retirement, the proportions will shift suddenly. We spend a lot of time and money preparing students for the work portion and we spend a lot of time and money medicating people for sleep. What we tend to spend less on is teaching people how to ensure that the remainder of their lives are rewarding and meaningful. What the article doesn’t point out is that the one unit of PE is just one out of 39 units of general education associated with transferring colleges or 60 units of work associated with graduating from a junior college. That’s about 2% of the class time dedicated towards the leisure and recreation that will ultimately dominate an average lifespan.

And let’s not forget that these activities are also inherently vocational for a great many careers. Unless of course you think the following run themselves: municipal parks and recreation departments, after-school programs, physical education classes, boys and girls clubs, recreation programs for special needs populations, and (you probably know by now that I’m going to say this…) golf courses, bowling alleys, and tennis clubs, amongst the vast array of recreational programs and businesses that exist in our communities. In a state that relies so heavily on recreational activities and related tourism, it’s amazing to think these classes are considered superfluous.

The irony is that it’s exactly this kind of attitude that makes running businesses and agencies in the parks, recreation, tourism, and hospitality fields so difficult – people treat them as though they are disposable or unnecessary when they are often the things that add meaning and value to lives that are otherwise bleak and unfulfilling. Building an appreciation of these activities is not only valuable on an individual level but is beneficial at a societal level and the more active and confident people are in such pursuits, the less likely we are to throw ever larger amounts of money at public healthcare, problems such as obesity, and related diseases and conditions.

If the great fear is that students will simply repeat these classes, time after time, on the taxpayers’ dime, then cap the number of times they can be taken under state subsidy – we do that in other ways for other classes. Let them take three one-unit classes if they want to – a single three-unit class in any other topic, whether degree or vocation-related or not, wouldn’t even attract the attention of the bean counters. Indeed, one could take several classes in other subject areas or even repeat them without anybody questioning those choices. But if they’re going to start labeling which classes are inherently worthwhile and which aren’t, I think we’re going to have a much deeper discussion about a far wider range of subjects.

Old Sac a destination and meeting place for cyclists

2009-01-02T17:51:23Z

Working downtown out of Old Sacramento I am noticing a significant rise in bike traffic here. Be it a meating place and/or hub for riding the American River bike trail. Many do not know that this gem known as the American River Bike Trail ends or begins here depending on your POV. Rumours on the club scene are an organized ride from Old Town Folsom to Oldtown Sacramento are being planned.

It behooves the planners for old town to cater to cyclists as they bring cash and credit cards to old town. Cyclist by and large are quiet adding to Old town ambiance, dont polute and love Oldtown charm. Steamers coffee, a popular destination and resting spot for area cyclists have no outdoor seating as the price for permits are too steep at this juncture.

Why are the powers that be making it so hard on the businesses of oldtown to draw in tourism? There are also a few choice vacant buildings that wouldbe perfect for a bike shop. Anyone interested let me know here.

How do sports impact Sacramento?

2008-10-14T02:06:18Z

How should sports impact a city? Since Sacramento is the capital of the state, should sports play a more central role in its economy, community and priorities?

The California International Marathon is approaching in December, this year's race will end at the Capitol. In 2006, Sacramento saw 6,000 delegates and $1,893,312 in economic impact as a result of the California International Marathon. Next year, the AMGEN tour will draw thousands to see the largest bicycling tour race through the streets of midtown. Parking and traffic will be affected with street closures and limited parking in a huge chunk of downtown Sacramento. However, one positive aspect of the AMGEN tour was that it brought 5,000 delegates and $1,052,454 in economic impact last year.

The Capitol hosts the start and end of many important runs and walks. Just this month, two major fitness events will grace the steps of the Capitol. On October 11, hundreds of people will participate in the Step out Walk to Fight Diabetes, and just over a week later (October 19) walkers and runners will join the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer of Sacramento race.

Sacramento does not have a Major League baseball team, nor does it have a National Football League team. Plans to build a new arena for the Kings where the Union Pacific railyard is were derailed in the past.

Is it fair to say that midtown and downtown Sacramento favor more community involved sports - where anyone can participate and enter, rather than sports that only a select few, many from all over the country can participate? How much money do Sacramentans spend to travel out of city or out of state to see their favorite sports teams play at other venues? How much of a crowd do we draw from other states to see our events or our teams play? Should Sacramento spend more on the development of sports teams and venues? How much of a presence should sports have on a city?