Newest articles on The Sacramento Press tagged as "walking tour"

"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.

Ghost Tour

2010-10-26T01:09:57Z

Do you like history? How about ghosts? And puns? What about historically significant (and knowledgeable) pun-loving phantasms?

I, for one, am a glutton for punishment. In this case, incorporeal punishment.

I received all that I wanted and more on Friday night at the Old Sacramento Ghost Tour.

Put on by The Historic Old Sacramento Foundation, the Ghost Tour is an hour-long guided stroll around Old Sac that begins and ends at the Eagle Theater.

I arrived at the theater about 10 minutes before the tour was to begin and joined the crowd that was already milling about. Holding court on the theater steps with the rapt attention of a young family was a gentleman who looked eerily similar to the ghost of Charles Crocker, whom I had met on the Old City Cemetery Tour a few months earlier. He assured me that any resemblance was merely coincidental.

At 6:30 we adjourned into the theater itself, past a trio of exceedingly pleasant poltergeists seated in the lobby. One of them was kind enough to point out that the beautiful wooden bar, which he'd caught me admiring, was an original Gold Rush-era piece.

Once we were all seated in the venue, the Charles Crocker doppelganger came rushing up the aisle toward the stage, hollering for what I soon ascertained was his assistant.

It turned out that our friend sold cemetery plots in the New Helvetia Cemetery, and as he frantically informed his mortician/assistant, the New Helvetia Cemetery had just flooded. His assistant looked at him, nonplussed.

"Well, it's not like anyone's going to drown," he offered.

True enough, but it seems that, in order to save a buck, these two hucksters had been burying folks in shallow graves.

In watertight wooden boxes, in very shallow graves.

"It seems our clients have deserted us," the plot seller lamented to the mortician. The formerly (if superficially) interred had taken leave of their plots and been set adrift all over the city. It didn't take long, of course, for our unscrupulous saleswraiths to realize that this cloud had a silver lining. Uninhabited plots are far easier to sell, you see.

The flood took place in January of 1850, and many of the bodies were never recovered.

And thus, the stage was set for the tour. We took a cue from Snagglepuss and exited stage left. On our way out, an exceedingly patient young blond girl provided some further comic relief when she exclaimed to her mother, "That wasn't too long!" To her credit, she took the knowledge that the tour hadn't started yet quite well for a wee one who thinks that she’s done with something.

Outside the theater we met our young tour guide, Ashley. The ghost tour tour guide has to be equal parts historian and straight (wo)man, and belying her youth, she performed admirably on both counts. It's not easy being Bud Abbott to an ethereal Lou Costello, or Larry Appleton to a banshee Balki Bartokomous, but Ashley pulled it off.

Along the way we learned a lot about the colorful, if tragic, history of Old Sac and met myriad specters, many of whom had found their way there from the inconsiderable depths of their not-so-final resting places at New Helvetia Cemetery.

In general, the apparitions are an affable lot, although they have a lot of issues among themselves. (This is the true story...of eight ghosts…picked to haunt Old Sac…to find out what happens...when ghosts stop being polite...and start getting real…)

All in all, the tour was a real treat – fun, funny and informative. And it's a rare event that is legitimately suitable for the whole family: all ages – 3 to 103. And, of course, any family members who may have passed on are especially welcome.

You have a few more chances to catch the Historic Old Sac Ghost Tours. They are offered on Friday and Saturday, and the hour-long tours begin at 6:30 p.m. and run every half hour until 9:00 p.m. Advanced ticket reservation is required.

All images are the "work" of yours truly. If you wish to lavish praise, feel free to send me an email- lindol@gmail.com

History of Oak Park told through new walking tour brochure

2010-10-13T16:55:14Z

On Thursday, October 21st, the Center for Sacramento History (CSH) and California State University, Sacramento (CSUS) will unveil a new self-guided walking tour of Central Oak Park. The brochure highlights the community’s architectural and historical significance. The evening will include an address by the brochure’s author, Dr. Robin Datel, a professor in CSUS’ Geography Department. The lecture will be held at the historic Guild Theater in Oak Park (2828 35th Street at Broadway); doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the presentation begins at 7:00 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

The 32-page walking tour brochure includes historic photographs of nearly forty selected locations with interpretation of their change over time. The tour highlights the development of an early suburb with its own Main Street (“smart growth” long before the label existed); racial transitions; the civil rights movement; cycles of investment and disinvestment; nurturing of the arts; redevelopment; and neighborhood activism. These themes are embodied in such buildings and places as the 40 Acres Building, the Guild Theater, the Citizens’ and US Banks, the old Post Office/Observer Building, Joyland/McClatchy Park, the Women’s Civic Improvement Club, and more.

Dr. Datel’s lecture, “Local Places Tell Big Stories: A Walking Tour of Sacramento’s Central Oak Park,” will address how she acquired the walking tour content, the key themes of the tour, and details of the individual tour sites. The lecture will be supplemented by photographs documenting the tour sites and Oak Park history. Finally, the address will report on current projects to produce other walking tours in Sacramento, as well as to develop a driving tour of Sacramento places with significance to (mostly 20th-century) African-American history.

The brochures will be available at locations throughout the Central Oak Park area after October 21st and at the CSH website, www.centerforsacramentohistory.org. For copies of the brochure or to serve as a public distribution site, call (916) 808-7072.

Dr. Datel is an Associate Professor and Geography Department Chair at CSUS. With the help of her urban geography students and Oak Park residents, she developed the walking tour. Dr. Datel’s published research has largely been on historic preservation in American and European cities and the social geography of Sacramento, particularly aspects of ethnicity and immigration. She teaches an Urban Geography lecture/discussion course and an Urban Geography field course.

This project was made possible by financial support from CSH, CSUS, and the Sacramento County Historical Society.

CSH’s mission is to foster, stimulate, and promote the study and appreciation of Sacramento’s regional history. Since 1953, it has served the community by acquiring, preserving, exhibiting, and providing access to the documentary and material culture of the region. CSH is administered by the City of Sacramento and is jointly funded by the City and County of Sacramento.

Downtown walking tour offers snapshot of local music history

2010-05-13T03:11:36Z

Yes, that really did happen here.

The complaints and rumblings about music in Sacramento have been mounting for years: a perceived disconnect between the local music scene and the community, the glaring lack of consistent all-ages music venues in the downtown area and a debilitating middle child syndrome caused by big name touring acts that often pass the Capitol City over for gigs in the Bay Area.

In the face of the retrospective on local music provided by Downtown Sacramento Partnership’s newest walking tour, it becomes hard to find anything to complain about.

Entitled “Locally Grown, Internationally Known: The history of the Sacramento Music Scene,” this hour-long tour offers not only several nuggets of information on Downtown’s musical past, but a sense of where the Sacramento scene is now, and where it wants to go.

The tours run every Friday afternoon beginning at 4 p.m. The walk begins at Cesar Chavez Plaza at the corner of Ninth and J streets, travels east to 15th and J Street, then back up L Street, ending back at Cesar Chavez Plaza at approximately 5 p.m., right at the beginning of the Friday Night Concerts in the Park, a series that runs through Aug. 13. The cost for the tour is $10. As always, the concerts are free.

“Locally Grown, Internationally Known” is the latest offering in the Downtown Partnership’s stock of themed walking tours, a series that also features tours on early Sacramento history, architecture, public art, kid-friendly spots and more.

According to tour guide Shawn Peter, these specialized tours have been running for about a year and a half, ever since the Partnership decided to break up its large-scale walking tour in favor of shorter, more specifically concentrated jaunts.

“Me being a musician, I pretty much know the history (of the local scene) like the back of my hand,” Peter said. “I’ve been sneaking out and going to shows since about 1990, so that’s 20 years of history.

“Mike has been going to concerts since the late ‘60s. We thought, ‘You know, Mike would be the perfect guy to do the rock and roll tour with me,’” he added, referring to fellow tour guide Mike Becklehimer, who joins Peter in leading this newest tour.

Having been with the organization since 2000, Peter is the Downtown Partnership’s original tour guide and is credited with authoring its Early California History tour, according to the organization’s website.

“There’s so much information between the two of us, so it was like, ‘What are we going to talk about, and what would be the basis of the tour?’” said Peter, who has been game-planning this musical stroll with Becklehimer since January.

The tour embarks on J Street with some snippets about Prohibition-era Sacramento music and a bit of retrospective on topics like the KFBK Radio band, which would back up the likes of Frank Sinatra, Glenn Miller and Duke Ellington when they would roll through town.

Peter and Becklehimer will point out several spots of sonic significance that are now masked by retail facades like FedEx Kinko’s, which was once a booming music store, and McCormick & Schmick’s Restaurant in front of the Elks Lodge, which used to house the “free form rock and roll” of the KZAP 98.5 (now 98 Rock) studios.

The tour provides a heavy dose of history on acts that have come through Memorial Auditorium at 15th and J Streets, where Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards once electrocuted himself (it really should be no surprise that he survived it) in 1965 and Ted Nugent made the ceiling rain chips of plaster in 1977 with the teeth-rattling guitar riffs of “Stranglehold.”

There is even some history at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church across the street, where the Grateful Dead once played an impromptu concert in 1968 after a gig at Memorial was cancelled.

If any well-connected tape traders out there have a recording of that show or know where to get one, the folks at DSP want to hear from you.

Peter and Becklehimer also dish up plenty of info on more recent happenings as the tour moves through the corner of 15th and L, the former home of downtown’s most thriving all-age venue, Capitol Garage.

They can tell you where members of the Cramps used to live, direct you to some postage stamp-sized spots where Cake used to play, tell you about the bands that were getting weird with it at Esquire Grill and even show you some footprints made by Kurt Cobain.

It’s a tour that could easily switch gears from a local history lesson to the kind of rock and roll chat session you’d expect to have at a café table or on a barstool with your concert-going buddies. That’s how well Peter and Becklehimer know their stuff.

Using the tour as an interlude to the current happenings in the Sacramento scene, the two guides can also tell you plenty about the bands that will be tuning up their guitars and warming the amps at Cesar Chavez Plaza when the trek wraps up.

“I like to think that people who take this tour will think, ‘Wow, Sac really is a cool place, and it’s not boring,’” Peter said.

“Maybe we can get people not afraid to go to a nightclub that has a live band,” he added. “You may become that band’s next biggest fan. That’s my own personal energy that I’m trying to get across.

“Here’s some bands at Concert in the Park, and they might be playing down the street in a couple weeks - go enjoy yourself.”

For more information on this and other Downtown walking tours, visit the Downtown Partnership’s website at www.downtownsac.org or call (916) 442-8575.

A non-arborist's adventure through "The City of Trees"

2009-10-18T19:14:27Z

Even though autumn had its official start three weeks ago, I had my first foray into fall on Saturday's tree tour through my own neighborhood Arden Park, hosted by the Sacramento Tree Foundation.

The tree tours were started over five years ago by longtime Sacramento Tree Foundation member Fran Clarke. It was Clarke's goal to make the community aware of the many spectacular trees found in Sacramento.

Eighteen resident citizens, from 2 years age to retired, gathered at La Sierra Park for an informational walk-about with Sacramento Tree Foundation stewardship coordinator Luanne Leineke.

"The trees are not only beautiful, they play important roles in our community," Leineke said. "They help clean up pollution. The leaves attract particles of pollution so people don't breathe them in. They also provide shade which helps lower the ambient air temperature which is especially important in a hot location like Sacramento."

Before the mile-and-a-half walk began, each participant was handed a detailed brochure and map entitled "The Magnificent Trees of Arden Park." The handout illustrated the location of 51 mostly deciduous, "leaf-losing" trees spread out over a many-mile radius.

"This particular tour is best done on a bike," Leineke said as the tour started. But there were plenty of trees to see on an abbreviated walking tour.

Starting out in La Sierra Park, we admired the blue atlas cedar with its dominant pyramidal shape, viewed two sickly looking Black locusts and learned to differentiate between a variety of oaks, including the Southern Live oak, the valley oak and the pin oak.

"Oaks have very lobed leaves," Leineke informed us. "But the pin oak's leaves are very lobed and it has crunchy, vertical bark."

This educational adventure continued into the neighborhoods as we ventured down Los Molinos Way, up El Sur Way and over on Castec Drive. Lieneke has an extensive knowledge of hardwood trees and worked hard to inform our group about proper care for a tree, average tree maintenance costs (approximately $9 a month per tree), pruning techniques and basic plant biology. We made special note of the planting differences of east-west streets that strive for shade and the more open north-south streets.

Leineke emphasized planning ahead when choosing a shade tree for your yard. She stressed that consideration must be given to the eventual size of the tree and the importance of a healthy root system.

"Wet soil is not healthy for most trees," Leineke warned. "With wet soil, there is not enough oxygen in the soil for the tree to stay healthy."

During our walk, we stopped to appreciate many trees, including ginkgo, elm, tulip tree (yellow poplar), tupelo — which was starting to get some of its intense red fall color — Southern magnolia, liquidamber and the redwood. Perhaps the most stunning tree on the tour was the wide-branching blue oak that caused many participants to exclaim, "Just beautiful!"

We also learned about the "shade history" of the Arden Park neighborhood. Historically, many streets were lined with the graceful Modesto ash; however, because of its susceptibility to mistletoe and anthracnose (a hardwood tree disease), many of these trees have been removed and replaced with more stable shade providers such as the London plane.

"How do you tell a London plane from a sycamore?" questioned one participant.

"By its balls," answered Lieneke, jokingly referring to the soft brown seed balls that hang from the branches in two-pair clusters. Lieneke indicated that sycamore's seed balls form in clusters of three to five.

Four additional tree tours will be held throughout the fall season and will highlight a variety of community settings. All tours are free and open to the public. The tours begin at 10 a.m. and conclude by noon. Further information can be found on the Sacramento Tree Foundation's website.

The Tree Tours schedule:

Oct. 24: American River College, meet at the administration building, 4700 College Oak Dr.

Oct 30: River Park Community tour, meet at the shopping center, 5493 Carlson Dr.

Nov. 7: Capitol Park tour, meet on the east steps of the Capitol

Nov. 14: Sacramento State campus, meet near the bus stop at the J Street entrance