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In This Issue...
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History
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A Casual Walk with a Sidewalk Companion
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A Casual Walk with a Sidewalk Companion
A Popular Architectural Guide Gets a New Makeover
By Sarah Weston
Judith Steen knew that something didn’t add up about her Mission Hill home. The chain of titles for the property went back to 1885, but the house was obviously (to her, at least) much older. She finally determined that it had been built in 1853 a couple of blocks away and later moved to its current site.
Migratory dwellings were only one problem the retired UCSC librarian faced during her year and a half of research as editor for the third edition of The Sidewalk Companion to Santa Cruz Architecture. Nonexistent building permits, fathers and sons with the same names and a morass of conflicting dates in various records all contributed to the confusion as to who built what, and when. One common source used by historians is the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, but those can pose their own problems.
“Street names changed,” said Steen. “Escalona Drive was formerly Davis Street.”
Also, the numbering on some streets varied over the years.
“It is a nightmare on Pacific Avenue, which has been renumbered many times. Originally, the numbering began at Mission Street and ran south to the beach. Then they switched, and the numbers began at the beach and ran north to Mission Street.”
Though the updated version of Sidewalk Companion finally appeared in print around Thanksgiving, Steen said she could have spent 10 more years on it. Someone who was writing a history of the Jewish community in Santa Cruz had a question for her about a house on Mission Street, and she had been working on answering him for six weeks.
“I’m one who tries to keep going to the nth degree,” she said. “At that point they have to come and wrestle the book from me to take to the printer.”
The book’s author is John Chase, whom Steen knew during his student days at UCSC. The original edition was published in 1975. Chase is now the urban designer for the city of West Hollywood, but he made numerous trips back to the area to work with Steen on updating his book.
“I have known John for 33 years,” said Steen, who also worked with him on the first edition. “It was very enjoyable to be working with him again. He’s a very creative and dynamic person.”
As Much about People as Places
Chase has written other books in the interim which Steen characterized as idiosyncratic and witty, two traits which show through in the houses he selected for Sidewalk Companion.
“John loves stories either about the people who built the houses or lived in them,” said Steen.
Unlike most architectural surveys, Chase profiles not only people but what a particular block or neighborhood looked like, although some of the buildings in the book no longer exist.
For example, Rafael Castro’s adobe used to be just down the block from Steen’s home. Castro and his family were deeded much of the territory that is now Santa Cruz County prior to California’s statehood. While nothing is left of Castro’s home anymore, knowing where it was once located gives a richer sense of the neighborhood. Similarly, Steen noted that the Mission tannery had been a few houses down while the home of early Santa Cruz feminist Georgiana Bruce Kirby is half a block away.
[i}The Sidewalk Companion is published by the Museum of Art and History. There was a second edition of the book in 1979, but the last copies were destroyed in the Loma Prieta earthquake.
“The MAH publication committee decided to republish it,” said Steen. “They initially decided they would mostly do a reprint of the second edition, but bring it up to date by indicating which of the buildings in the second edition had been destroyed by the earthquake.”
However, the project quickly exceeded that limited scope. Besides buildings destroyed by the quake, the third edition includes new ones erected since then, especially the burgeoning UCSC. Steen said that people were forever asking her about their own neighborhoods, so she drafted new paragraphs which were included. Also, Chase and Steen wanted to include more information about women, who are often neglected in history.
Lots of Work to Research Homes
They started out with the significant problem of collecting the original research. Chase had loaned out his 3,000 note cards arranged by subject, street and architect. These had to be reclaimed and verified. But that was only the beginning to the third edition.
“I accumulated about six file boxes of new sources,” said Steen. “It just went on and on. ... I have one entire file box full of information on Chapter Four, because I live in Chapter Four [Mission Hill].”
Steen noted that there were many other contributors to the project. Data was gathered from newspapers, previous owners and residents, genealogical sources and the local planning department. Members of the Museum’s publication committee read over the drafts. Everyone involved with the project, from book designer to indexer, was an unpaid volunteer.
“There were other members of the committee and the community who offered a lot of helpful advice on particular chapters,” said Steen.
For instance, Frank Perry, author of Lighthouse Point: Illuminating Santa Cruz, provided information based on his research, which is used in Chapter One, “West Cliff Drive.” Many other sources are listed in the bibliography.
Sidewalk Companion is intended for use either on walking tours or for the armchair reader. Steen said that roughly half its initial print run has sold already, and “it is steadily moving closer to the counter” at the Bookshop Santa Cruz. It is also available at the Museum shop and other local bookstores.
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