Wanna see something cool? Go to http://www.historicaerials.com/ and navigate to Riverside. Pan over to Magnolia Center and click on the 1948 aerials. Select “dissolve on” and then click to the 1967 aerials. The changes you see fade into view are astonishing. I think I have a new favorite website!
Back on the 2nd, the Press Enterprise ran an article refuting an email being circulated about the Fox Theatre renovation project. While I was certainly curious about how the project is coming along, I was a little dismayed by the article’s lack of nuance. I didn’t receive Mr. Leonard’s email (nor do I know his sources), but I have heard little things here and there about the project that have made me concerned, and given the City’s recent lapse in respect for process one might understand such trepidation over what is arguably one of Downtown’s most important historic landmarks. <rhetoric> If City officials can’t be trusted to follow legally mandated public process, how can they be trusted to handle matters of the public trust that are not overtly legislated? </rhetoric>
One of the things I had understood was that the City had tried to make the project work as a Certified Historic Preservation Rehabilitation, which is the same tax credit-based incentive Duane Roberts used in rehabilitating the Mission Inn. (Generally, a City can get the benefit of tax credits by partnering with a for-profit company) I was very happy to hear this because in order to qualify you have to meet the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation. Unfortunately, I’ve since heard that the tax credits didn’t pencil out for this project. I have found in my work life that sometimes a property owner thinks that since they aren’t following the tax credit program that they don’t have to follow the Standards after all, which is tempting to believe but not true.
I think it is also important to point out that there are two architects on the job - Richard McCann of RFM Architecture and Peyton Hall of Historic Resources Group. Richard McCann is not the historic preservation architect - he is the theater architect. While he has experience rehabilitating historic theaters, the architect who is professionally qualified to evaluate whether the project continues to meet the Standards is Peyton Hall. I make this point because the PE article quotes McCann as visiting weekly and being very engaged, while Hall is only mentioned once, tacked on to the end of a sentence in which the main subject was McCann.
Gentle reader, if you’ll indulge me this thoroughly non-mod post a bit longer, I believe it is super-important for all of us Riversiders to keep a critical eye on all aspects of the Riverside Renaissance. Such a huge undertaking in your hometown deserves more attention than American Idol, and even if the City is moving on schedule accomplishing all the projects they sold us - in the way they sold us, we are a key arbiter of the checks and balances that make local government responsive, transparent, and in tune with the public interest. I think the paper has room to improve their role in this as well. How about more proactive reporting on what is happening with the Fox Theatre rehabilitation project? The last time a substantive PE article about the Fox Theatre appeared was over six months ago. If the rumors are baseless, let’s get some real information behind the City’s statements, like Peyton Hall assuring us worrywarts that the City is indeed adhering to the Standards.
I dove past Tuxie’s the other day and noticed that the for lease sign was down and the place was open for business. It appears to be a smoothie place now, at least that’s what they’ve stuck on the neon sign. I wonder what it would take to persuade them to light up that sign every once in a while…
Once I’ve had a chance to sample the merchandise I’ll be back with a full report. It’s good to see Tuxie’s occupied again.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation dedicated most of their recent issue of Preservation Magazine to trumpeting the virtues of modernism. Next to a dramatically multifaceted shot taken inside the USAF Academy Cadet Chapel, the Trust has included articles called, “The Modernist Manifesto,” “Palm Springs Eternal,” and “Air Age Gothic.” They have snuck the regular features in between these feature articles but this month they all have a modern theme.
Someone who is really leading the charge in raising the profile of modernism in historic preservation is Anthea Hartig, who, coincidentally, was once the historic preservation specialist for the City of Riverside. She is now the Director of the Western Regional Office, which covers six western states, Alaska, Hawaii, micronesia, etcetera. In the introductory article she dispenses with the notion that embracing modernism somehow falls into a special category of historic preservation,
“This work is the natural progression of the Trust’s congressional charge in 1949 to save really important examples of our heritage, in this case of the 20th century. … Some places are humble, others are majestic. We’re fortunate that we still have so many wonderful examples of different design impulses and movements that have shaped place and space in our own lifetimes.”
I couldn’t have said it better.
I just read an article in the Press Enterprise about the City Manager’s proposal to move the Marcy Library to a building on Magnolia Ave near Arlington Ave. This set off alarm bells in my head because the Marcy Library is absolutely one of my favorite buildings in Magnolia Center. It was designed by Herman Ruhnau in 1956 (permits say ‘58, whatever), the same popular Riverside architect who gave us the Press Enterprise Building (1954), the Riverside Police Department (1965), Probation Office (1960), City Hall (1973), countless postwar elementary school buildings and more. Check out the portfolio on the website for Ruhnau’s old firm, now Ruhnau Ruhnau Clarke.
As you can see from the photograph below, this building cries out for a fisheye lens. I just can’t fit it in my 90mm large format lens (28mm in 35mm format). Yeah yeah, I could have set up across the street, but what fun is that? Maybe I’ll try to get an oblique shot from an upper story of AAA.
The round floorplan is so fanciful and creative - just the kind of place you’d imagine taking a young child to story time. From Google Maps it looks like a carousel or the wheel of a ship. Look at that swell font - sad to see it missing a few letters but you can still get a real sense of place just from the metal lettering on the stack bond bricks.
According to the article, this library gets the highest visitors per square foot in the City. Nobody doubts it’s cramped, and as a neighbor of this library I can understand why Councilman Bailey, the City Manager, and the Library Trustees are proposing a move to larger quarters. However, I’m concerned that this wonderful piece of mid-century architecture is going to get lost in the shuffle and it will be relegated to a use that is grossly incompatible - or worse, demolished.
Perish the thought! I have a better idea. We currently have a blue ribbon committee out pondering the expansion of our awesome Main Branch Library. Space is an issue there, and part of the basement is currently taken up by the Riverside Local History Resource Center. If you’ve ever done research in the Local History Resource Center you know how incredibly valuable it is to our City - and it’s stuck in the basement next to the romance novels. Why not give local history fabulous new digs at the Marcy Library building? That would free up space for the Main library to reprogram, it would give the Local History Resource Center a higher profile, and it would ensure a compatible re-use of what is in my opinion the most playful mid-century design in Mag Center. It’s a win-win-win! Well, counting the consolidation the City is proposing with a new Marcy library and the parks department, it’s really a win-win-win-win-win…
The pe article (again):
http://www.pe.com/rss/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_R_rmarcy29.4359527.html
I’ve added a new page to ModernRiverside.com portraying modern resources in the Eastside and University neighborhoods. Most of the commercial resources are concentrated along University Avenue, which was part of the old route 60 business loop. These include motels, stores, and restaurants, like the IHOP at University and Iowa:
Resources in the neighborhood are typically schools and churches, with many outstanding examples of each.
Enjoy!
I find it very encouraging that the World Monuments Fund has placed “Main Street Modern” on its 2008 Watch List. In their write-up, they focus on Institutional properties and I find their justification compelling due to my recent research on the downtown Fire Station and the Main Branch Library.
“More than residential or commercial buildings, it is the civic architecture of post-World War II America that retains the early Modernist agenda-as conceived in Europe in the years between the wars- to democratize design and society.”
Whatever symbolic associations seem appropriate to ascribe to Institutional Modernism, I think we can all agree on the punchline:
“The greatest threat, however, is perhaps public apathy- a lack of consensus or confidence- that buildings of the recent past can be important enough to be preserved for the future. There are a number of significant “Main Street Modern” buildings currently threatened with demolition or degradation … It is hoped that this Watch listing will encourage these and other communities to consider alternatives to the demolition of these buildings, which are important pieces of American architectural and social history. “
People on different sides of the political spectrum will still argue over whether government ought to have the power to protect historic residential and commercial properties. But a public institution like a City or a school district has a clear mandate to respect past public investments in infrastructure.
Before there were sign ordinances, there was classic neon. Larger-than-life beacons for restaurants and motels glowed into the evening, beckoning motorists from the open road for refreshment. A few of these signs remain along the main roads of Riverside, namely along Magnolia and University Avenues. A new “signs” page has been added to ModernRiverside for your enjoyment.
Do you have pictures of classic neon in Riverside? Please email me and I’ll post them!
I have learned that the Googie façade on the Orange Street parking garages are being covered over rather than removed. This is the cause for some relief, though I hope they don’t damage the facade in the process of obscuring it.
Back in 1962, the owners of the former Citrus Belt Savings and Loan building (located on the west side of Market street south of University) decided to cover up their Churrigueresqe façade (designed by LA Architect Stiles Clements) with a modern curtain wall. There is a hole in this curtain wall where you can see part of the old façade peeking out. Who knows if it’s all intact under there or if only a little of it remains. I wonder if in forty years we’ll be peeking under the crusty stucco cover of these parking garages to gleefully rediscover the Googie façades. It’s a sad fact that architectural styles go through an “ugly phase” where popular opinion is against keeping them. It happened to Queen Anne and other Victorian styles, Art Nouveau, and to Art Deco. The Mid-Century Modern styles have gone through a similar phase, but I think popular opinion is rapidly moving towards a greater appreciation of this long-misunderstood aesthetic. I hope the pseudo-Mission style coverup applied to these inventive, fanciful parking structures serves as a time capsule for the delight of future generations, rather than a tomb where they lay forgotten until the City decides the 2008 remodel is too blighted and stale to save.
In 1961, the City of Riverside commissioned L. Ferranti to design two identical super-Googie parking garages on Orange. I don’t have permission to post it directly, but HERE is a picture of one of these garages not long after it opened.
Here is a picture of the garage between Mission Inn and University taken in late 2007.
Sadly, you won’t see this design in duplicate anymore. One of our Googie Parking Garages has fallen victim to the McMissionInn phenomenon. I fear that the best examples of Modern Riverside will be destroyed by the time most people will realize what they have lost. And for what?
If you are looking for a more tactful editorial about this, look no further than Raincross Square.
Quick, somebody designate the other parking garage before the McMissionInn crowd hauls out more scaffolding!
