Who's 1st Thursday is it?
Yesterday, I had the privledge of attending the 1st meeting of the newly formed 1st Thursday Committee of the Business Improvement District. Mike Cacavalla of Downtown Subs and Boca Activewear was chair, and there were a suprising number of folks there. James Allen of the Random Lengths, Andrew Silber of the Whale & Ale, Derek Takeuchi of THM Gallery, Dar Horn from Union Artworks, a whole bunch of other local business folks and myself, wearing my Walled City hat.
Noticiably absent were members of the Chamber of Commerce 1st Thursday Committee, as well as Elizabeth Brazil, Chamber Executive Director. Also notably absent was any sense of order or agenda, although a printed one was provided. The meeting centered around a lot of focused shouting, broken up occasionally by well spoken points, mostly by Andrew Silber & James Allen. The basic conflict here is the artists & restarunts VS. the Street Fair. From an informal vote taken it looks like the artists and restaurants have the support of the commitee, with the Street Fair aspects being almost univerally disliked and viewed as a failure.
I also found out why the booths at the Street Fair are so shitty. We think (no accurate info was available, no financials, at all!) that the cheapest booths are $15 and the most expensive are $35. When you reach for the bottom...
Noticiably absent were members of the Chamber of Commerce 1st Thursday Committee, as well as Elizabeth Brazil, Chamber Executive Director. Also notably absent was any sense of order or agenda, although a printed one was provided. The meeting centered around a lot of focused shouting, broken up occasionally by well spoken points, mostly by Andrew Silber & James Allen. The basic conflict here is the artists & restarunts VS. the Street Fair. From an informal vote taken it looks like the artists and restaurants have the support of the commitee, with the Street Fair aspects being almost univerally disliked and viewed as a failure.
I also found out why the booths at the Street Fair are so shitty. We think (no accurate info was available, no financials, at all!) that the cheapest booths are $15 and the most expensive are $35. When you reach for the bottom...
21 Comments:
Define "shitty." Also, why does there have to be a conflict between the artists/restaurants and the street-fair aspect of the event?
As to the booths, you seem to be making the argument that providing affordable access to small vendors somehow lowers the quality of the booths, when it may simply be that there are no, erm, "higher" quality vendors (what does that mean to you, anyway?) who want to display their wares at this particular street fair. Would raising the prices somehow increase the quality? Meaning, if the committee started charging $50 a throw for the cheapest booth, would these (possibly imaginary) upscale exhibitors who (if your argument is to be believed) have been holding back up until now change their minds?
That tears it. I'm totally getting a booth now. I can just imagine it... "Step Right Up, Ladies & Gentlemen! Welcome To The Crapatorium!"
The current booths are shitty because they sell junk, cheap trinkets, made in China stuff that does nothing to show off the arts community in San Pedro. The quality of their goods brings down the quality of the whole event. The foood vendors compete directly with the restaurants that started the event, quality restaurants that are trying to showcase themselves on 1st Thursday.
The conflict lies in the quality of the booths. Most of us in the art & dining crowd have seen the quality of the event go downhill, and we connect the booth action to that phenomenon. The demographic of 1st Thursday wanderer that we want to attract is art knowledgable, who has come to Downtown because it is an arts destination.
When we talk about the quality of the booths, a large part of that responsibility goes to Flo Poncetti, who was hired by the Chamber as an independent contractor to manage the street fair aspect. I view the quality of the booths as a reflection on her professional abilities as well as a reflection of the lack of guidance that she has recieved either from the Chamber or the previous 1st Thursday committee. As far as I can tell, no one has actually made any attempt to contact professional artists who do booth sales at other art events. No one made efforts to engage local businesses to be the outdoor food vendors. Most big art events with booths charge $500 and up for a booth for the day, I'm sure that we could attract a much higher quality of vendor, and bring some class back to the event, while raising vendor revenue (not as high as $500 a booth, maybe $100), giving the event more dough to play and market with. Quality artists would flock to an opportunity lke this, with our low booth rates and some proper oureach.
Judging from her planning of the actual implementation of the booths, I also see a lack of attention to detail. Putting a booth for an out of town Mexican restaurant (who's only paying $35 to be there) directly in front of Jolly Burrito is an insult to the businessperson who has been spending thousands of dollars a month to be there, who is active in the business community. Putting a fun bounce (with it's mega fan) in front of the Warner Grand, drowning out any event inside, is poor planning. The whole street fair aspect just comes off as half assed, which is not good for the long term survival of the event.
You still haven't explained why charging $500 (or $100) for a booth would make the "quality" vendors appear out of the ether, where presumably they are hiding because they just can't bear the idea of paying $35. I guess I'll just have to assume that you know what you're talking about. But then, why not charge $1500? By your logic, that should really attract the super-duper quality vendors. Then the thousands upon thousands of "art knowlegdable" San Pedrans (as distinct from the usual philistines) who have been laying low because of all the icky downscale booths and Fun Bounces would have a reason to come down, because, hey, expensive stuff!
Not to mention that this would present a perfect cross-marketing opportunity for all those exciting new unaffordable condominiums we're being given. At least a few of the yupp--erm, art-knowledgable wanderers who would show up to buy costly tchotchkes at the newly gentrified First Thursday might have the means to sign up for one of them. Surely Urban Pacific Builders and the Phoenix Realty Group can afford fifteen hundred bucks for a booth. Am I a genius, or what?
I have never suggested that we should charge $500 for a booth. A number that has been tossed around is $100 for a booth, possibly cheaper for non-profits and non-food vendors. The $500 figure was mentioned to show the dramatic difference between the booth rent as it currently stands, and the booth rental rates at a successful, well known event. Remember, the booth operators don't pay for advertising, BID assessments, street lighting assesments, rent, liability insurance, electric bills, etc... If the booth rentals bring in more cash, then the event can be better marketed, to the benefit of everyone.
I believe that the quality vendors aren't there at any price level, because of the lack of looking for them. I think that the person in charge of the vendors currently isn't working very hard to coordinate the vendor activity with the quality of the surrounding businesses. I've asked around, and the professional artists I know who do shows for a living or as a side business have never been contacted. One of the issues we discussed at the meeting was the possiblity of having a qualified (as in has experience working with artwalks & artists) person be the contractor that coordinates the vendor activity.
I don't have any problem with art-knowledgable folks being called out as yuppies. The condos can be critisized day and night, but some of those buildings & lots have sat dead and empty for almost 30 years. If someone wants to take an eyesore and try and make a profit off of it, good luck to them. There are lots of people already in town who have the dough to move into those condos, they are called Longshoremen, and they are currently buying condos in PV and up on Western as starter homes, often in their first few years of full employement. I think it would be great if that population would move closer to downtown, and be more involved in the businesses there, instead of "as close to PV as possible."
Folks in San Pedro have always seemed to be more art knowledgable than one would expect, regardless of their income level. I've never tied income level or yuppieness to being art knowledgable/interested. Pedro is dripping with folks with a stake in the arts, who cherish the arts, who are amateur and professional artists, and the Artwalk was envisioned as an event marketed to that population, regardless of their yuppie/hipster/richie rich status. As the existing booths have come in, revenue on 1st Thursday has dropped for many businesses. A lot of the restaurants are looking at the booths and saying "folks are eating over there" and the galleries are saying "no one even knows 7th Street is here and open for business."
I think you and the First Thursday committee had better figure out once and for all just what this event is supposed to be. I probably don't have to tell you that a lot of the people who go down there aren't going for the art. Cut out the street fair, and a lot of them won't come at all. On the other hand, there's no good reason why the shops/galleries/restaurants who are putting this thing on in the first place should be upstaged by a bunch of booths, either. Why not just cut the number of booths down, rather than worry about what they're selling or how much money they are or aren't bringing in? There's no sense fuming over the out-of-townness of a food booth that's taking business away from The Jolly Burrito; fewer booths would mean that more people would actually see The Jolly Burrito and be tempted to walk in.
Your argument about the condos actually sort of exemplifies the biggest problem concerning them, to wit: it never seems to occur to the politicians and other professional hand-wringers who support these projects that there's anything in between "dead and empty" and "ridiculously overpriced condominiums and boutiques." Is the word apartment even in their vocabulary? Is there any room at all in their circumscribed little minds for the notion that urban spaces can be revived by means other than turning large swaths of land over to developers? And don't get me started on phony pre-fab "lofts"...
By the way, I'm a longshoreman and I'm nowhere near being able to afford a $400,000 "luxury" condominium. And here's a little secret: not too many other longshoremen are, either. The ones who are buying houses and condos in their first few years after being registered are doing it the same way everyone else is--by going into massive, massive debt and then working themselves to death trying to keep on top of it. Many of them would be much better off renting, as I keep trying to tell them.
As far as eyesores are concerned, please remember that that's entirely subjective. Personally, seeing this town overrun by yuppies (or worse, hipsters of the sort who now plague Brooklyn), however "art knowledgable" they may affect to be, would make my eyes a good deal sorer than any empty building. Watching rents climb and working-class people being edged out, East Village style, wouldn't do much for my retinas, either.
As a side note, what's the "arts and dining crowd"? Can anybody join? I can't paint worth a damn, but I'm a pretty good eater.
Thanks to the persistance of Andrew Silber, the first task that the committee will be tackling is writing a mission statement for the project/event. As far as I am concerned the whole enchilada is on the table for re-design. We are talking about moving the booths, changing the character and number of the booths, working with local restaurants who might want to have a booth (sort of a monthly mini Taste of San Pedro), etc... I don't think anyone at this point has their finger on the final form of the event. There is even some talk about having the "Street Fair" booths on another night of the month, having an event that specifically caters to families, without an arts focus.
I worked on a project to put in low income artists lofts at the La Salle West back in '02 and I looked at the numbers for redeveloping several of the downtown sites. The costs involved & the totally depressed business environment really lean towards mixed-use retail/residential. From my perspecitve the big issue in the failure of downtown is density, and from the numbers I've seen, mixed-use retail isn't a bad plan for downtown. I'm not saying it's what I would do if I had the reigns of a major development company, but it is a viable option.
Going into massive debt to finance the purchase of a home is not an issue that development in Pedro is going to solve. Most people don't even have the option to go into debt to purchase property. I totally understand your frustration at the lack of options for homeownership. Finding a place for under $400K in Pedro is a challenge already, in what has become a disturbingly overheated housing market. It's a big issue in a place like Los Angeles, which is one of the most expensive place to purchase property, on Earth, regardless of market conditions. That's the downside of living in our beautiful city, and it's a situation that affects all of us. I have a feeling that most of the units in the buildings are going to end up as rental units (for lack of buyers), at least for the first 5-10 years of the projects.
The hipsters have already started moving in downtown, they are just keeping a low profile, but I'm beginning to see them wandering around, attracted by low rents and a "rustic, cool" neighborhood. As I said one doesn't have to be a yuppie to be art knowledgable, being interested or involved with the arts is not a privledge for the rich and shallow. Besides, if you were to compare incomes and spending habits you might find that yuppies resemble Longshoremen (or any other well paid worker) more than you might think. This isn't going to be like the East Village or like the Mission in San Francisco (where I briefly lived during the class war that was the dot com boom). San Pedro doesn't have anywhere near the density or income bases to force rents that high. Yes, rents will rise in San Pedro, as the community recovers from a terrible economic slump, but I'd consider that more of a sign of recovery and growth than a sign of gentrification. I haven't seen any indications that any of the projects in town have any intentions to force existing tenants out, and I would be on the front lines of any fight to maintain the affordability and character of San Pedro.
Anyone who enjoys art and culture and enjoys eating out, having a drink in a local bar, would be the demographic of the art and dining crowd. It's not some elusive club, or a class line. A 16 year old who has a taco at Jolly Burrito and likes to cruise the galleries, looking at cool art and eating free cheese is the art and dining crowd, just as much as a Whale & Ale customer looking for a painting to go over their $2000 couch is.
I want to say, I am extremely concerned about the gentrification potential downtown, as well as the potential that one day I'll look out my front window and see a Gap looking back at me. That's why those of us who are concerned have to go to community meetings and planning meetings for these developments and ask hard questions of the folks who are coming to our town. I've seen the ILWU, IBEW and a host of other trade unions go to the mat to demand that these projects get built with adequate union labour (development=jobs for union workers) and I think that that is one of Pedro's strongest cards in the fight to maintain the quality of our town as it changes and grows.
I must not have made myself clear enough. I'm not frustrated at all by the lack of home"owning" opportunities in San Pedro, although it would be nice if property were more affordable to working people, because I'm not terribly interested in becoming a home"owner." Note the quotes--generally what is being sold is the illusion of ownership, for a very high price tag. This is even more true in the case of interest-only mortgages, which essentially function as rent while the value of the property remains stable (with the potential to realize a profit if the value goes up, or to find oneself "upside down" on the mortgage if prices go down).
Anyway, my point was that as real estate prices, in San Pedro as elsewhere, have gone far, far beyond what is reasonable for working people to pay (or get themselves tangled up in debt for), the time has come for people to have serious second thoughts about the cult of homeownership that reigns in Southern California, and to think about renting as a way of life. But the politicians in charge of reviving San Pedro are, sadly, about as dull-normal intellectually as most of their constituents, and so none of them seem to show any capability of breaking out of the luxury condos/hip boutiques paradigm for economic recovery. Look at downtown LA; nobody's trying to provide market-rate apartments up there, either. According to the prevailing political mindset, in Downtown and in San Pedro, the only things to do with an old building are: 1) tear it down and erect a Wal-Mart or a parking lot, or 2) "renovate" it at astronomical expense and sell portions of it off as condos at astronomical prices.
And so people who don't want to play the home"owner"ship game, or who couldn't afford to even if they wanted to, are locked out of the movement to reclaim decaying downtowns and build livable urban spaces. It's not fair to the working poor, or to the young pioneering types who don't happen to have trust funds; and it's not fair to the downtowns themselves, which suffer from the lack of a true urban fabric. Unit after unit, block after block of young, mostly Caucasian managerial types does not a neighborhood make.
Oh, and why not "Every Thursday," or better yet "Every Friday," instead of "First Thursday"? If you want to make downtown SP happen in a real way, you have to get people to come down more than once a month. Having an event of some sort every week would really get people into the habit of using their downtown as a...well, as a downtown. And there'd be room for everybody--shitty booths, "quality" booths, local businesses, out-of-towners, lame cover bands...even the arts and dining crowd, which I hereby proclaim myself a member of.
I can't address the various pitfalls that pack home ownership (or the illusion of such. My mother lives in a stand alone townhouse on a shared driveway and I don't understand fully if she even technically owns any "land") for new, and especially low income buyers today. Real estate prices are unreasonable, and housing options for the less than well financially endowed are limited. I totally agree with you. The relationship between work, wages and the price of necessary goods, property and services is totally cocked up at this point in this country.
There are other options for old buildings. Some of the old buildings like the building at the corner of 8th & Pacific or the art deco building on Pacific between 11th & 12th are being restored and are awaiting commercial and residential tenants. Robin & Doug Hinchliffe turned the old News Pilot building into amazing lofts and working spaces for professional aritsts, and I hear that they are looking at doing another project soon. Alan & Liz Johnson put up a good fight to return the Liberty Auditorium to it's orginal role as a nightclub. Dar Horn took the old auto parts store on 5th & Mesa and turned it into a world class glass fusion workshop and business. The old Evergreen building is about to become a charter school, with an empasis on international trade. The Warner Grand is in an ongoing process of improvement and restoration.
But the buildings that are being developed downtown didn't have many options available to them. The old Pacific Trade Center is laced with asbestos and has to be torn down. The bank at 7th & Mesa has all of the classic problems that affect a bank, vault, wierd layout and ceiling height, etc... The H2 lot was an empty lot, upon which ground was broken 2 previous times for commercial projects that didn't turn out. The location, number and condition of the LaSalle West's load bearing walls is a disaster if you want to build anything other than a rat warren or slum apartments.
I'm helping reclaim a decaying downtown. I don't own the building my gallery is in, I'm a renter, aware of the dangers of gentrification, and I'm carrying more than my weight in helping Downtown recover. The renters in Downtown are doing the lion's share of work in keeping the area alive. Artists (never a particularily well off bunch) are the largest block of businesses in Downtown, and 95% of them are renters. All of the restaurants are renters. Hell I don't know of any single business down there that is actually operated by the owner of the building.
Getting folks downtown every day & every night is a long term goal of the businesspeople in Downtown. I think people should be out every night, getting entertianed, drinking, meeting friends, walking the dog, shopping... I get traffic every evening, but there isn't the kind of business density, nor the type of variety in the businesses that will support a healthy commercial district yet. We need a lot more than 1st, 2nd or any other Thursday to make that happen.
The Pacific Trade Center? That's the old Logicon building, yes? Well, that one was an eyesore even when it was new. 1967 was not a good year for American architecture, to put it mildly. Not that the new Logicon building is any better-looking, mind you.
But one fewer giant crackerbox office building in Pedro is a good thing, regardless of what they replace it with. For once, we have a chance to go back and take another stab at developing a part of downtown in a way that is congruent with the area surrounding it. And this time we can make it affordable to people who already live here, so----
Oops. Maybe we won't. From the September 21, 2004 Daily Breeze:
"The $38 million development is the first of several housing projects planned for the downtown. A groundbreaking for the bank lofts at the corner of seventh and mesa streets is planned for 9 a.m. monday. The old logicon building nearby on fifth street also will be demolished to make way for high-end apartments."
Ah, high end apartments. Better than condos, but doubtless you can see the pattern here. These changes quite clearly are not for us, even though they are presented that way by the likes of our soon-to-be-ex-mayor, his sister, and the various glad-handers who serve on our local advisory committees.
But, like I said, at least these "high-end" [*eyeroll*] apartments probably won't be as fuck-ugly as the office building they replace, so I can't complain too loudly about this particular project.
Funny you should mention the old News-Pilot building, BTW. I actually got to go to a party there a few months ago, and it is amazing in there. Now that's a REAL loft, dammit! Precisely why I gag at the pre-fab, super-duper-costly phony "lofts" that are going up everywhere these days. [*shakes fist*]
Anyway. You're no fun to argue with, damn it. You keep agreeing with me! At least now you know that somebody's reading this blog...
Very interesting comments, a lot of valuable statements being made.
I don't agree with any of the comments about afffordable housing, nor the attraction of renting instead of home ownership. Real estate has beeen a solid growth investment in the entire Western world for a very long time, and provides many people with a federally subsidized way of saving for their retirement.
First Thursday used to attract a very large crowd of purely arts browsers/diners before all the other 'attractions' were tacked on. In fact it was because of the large numbers of people spending in SP on First Thursday that classic cars and booths were added, so that those could be exposed to a crowd that the arts/restaurant community had already established.
In doing so, we damaged the brand of First Thursday quite badly. It might be quite difficult to get back the original shoppers that we have put off.
I agree 100% that we should have expanded this to other nights in the month for other types of attractions. There is no reason not to sell stuff from booths another night, as I have pitched for many years, including telling that to Flo, George and Bordie at a meeting many years ago in Jessie's Records when I was trying to get classic cars moved to another night.
My plea was not popular, as many would like to capitalize on the crowd generated by the branding/image/marketing done by the galleries/restaurants.
I have no data on the booths effect on art buyers, but my gut feel and knowledge of branding/image issues tells me that it can only confue those who come down the hill expecting something else.
If the lobby at the Four Seasons had a Pizza Hut & Macdonalds franchise in it, then more people would stop staying there and move to Regent, Peninsula or Ritz Carlton.
I can tell you for certain that diners/art buyers who used to frequent 7th Street on First Thursday have stopped around the time that 'Classic' Car owners, or their friends/families were drinking Buds from the trunk, smoking weed and cussing; hardly surprising really.
Whalenale wrote:
I don't agree with any of the comments about afffordable housing, nor the attraction of renting instead of home ownership. Real estate has beeen a solid growth investment in the entire Western world for a very long time, and provides many people with a federally subsidized way of saving for their retirement.
Oh, you're certainly right about real estate having been a "solid growth investment." In fact, it's grown so solidly that it is now hideously overpriced from the standpoint of folks who would like to own it for other reasons, like...oh, I don't know, shelter or some wacky reason like that.
Just to show that I'm not some rabid pro-renting, anti-owning guy, I'll stipulate that at one time, there were an equal number of good arguments to made in favor of renting (freedom to move; per-month payments often less than a mortgage; if something goes wrong it's the landlord's problem) or owning (every check you write builds equity; no landlord to tell you what to do; something to pass on to your children). But that was back when real estate, even in California, was still priced reasonably in proportion to people's incomes. This is, to put it mildly, no longer the case.
My plea was not popular, as many would like to capitalize on the crowd generated by the branding/image/marketing done by the galleries/restaurants.
Branding? Image? Marketing? Yeesh. In debating whose First Thursday it is--the galleries and restaurants, or the booths and bands--you seem to be forgetting the community itself, at least as it represents something other than a target demographic or (to put it more crudely) a bunch of walking dollar signs. Is it not, in some sense, their First Thursday too? What do people around here want? Maybe the answer really is "hot dogs and '57 Chevys." Only one way to find out...
Nosybody wrote:
Does anybody out there actually think that the yuckiness of the booths actually keeps any art patrons from attending first thursday?
I would like to know if there's any evidence or heresay that the street fair negatively effects art sales or if it is just something that art patrons pretty much ignore.
I don't know either, but my intuitive guess is that people who want to browse art galleries badly enough to venture out of their homes on a Thursday night and come downtown probably don't care too much if they have to walk past a booth full of lesser-quality knickknacks, or even a '57 Chevy on the way to the galleries.
What does seem plausible, though, is that people who might otherwise be interested in coming down to look at art simply don't mentally associate First Thursday with art. I suspect that in a lot of people's minds, including people who haven't actually seen it for themselves yet, First Thursday is just a night when a lot of people go downtown for some reason. In that respect I reluctantly agree with Mr. Whale 'N' Ale. Promote the hell out of the arts aspect of the event, and with any luck all those legions of art-knowledgeable wallflowers to whom Calamari alluded will get the message that there's something for them in First Thursday. It can't hurt to try, right?
Whalenale wrote:
I can tell you for certain that diners/art buyers who used to frequent 7th Street on First Thursday have stopped around the time that 'Classic' Car owners, or their friends/families were drinking Buds from the trunk, smoking weed and cussing; hardly surprising really.
Jeez, guy, welcome to San Pedro. They *did* tell you that this wasn't Santa Monica when you signed the lease, right?
classic cars, friends/families drinking buds from the trunk, smoking weed and cussing -- that's san pedro's culture! that is happening every night with or without the organization of 1st thursday.
i would love to own a home, but it is totally impossible for me. nor can i afford to eat at the whale and ale. the people i know who own property reach vehemently for the rung above, pull muscles while doing so, and don't have the "quality of life" i have being poor - yet they don't want it any other way. people are fucked up like that.
Hey, Snoopy
I know what you mean, and I often feel the same way: part of the charm of San Pedro is that 'rough edge' sort of mentality, and it all combines with many other factors to make this the great town that it is; I would not want to live anywhere but San Pedro.
Having said that, I don't have a problem with trying to make it more attractive to visitors who might not delight in pot-smoking and cussing. My intention is not to keep this community isolated by scaring off others who do not share our habits and culture.
I also see nothing wrong with 'pushing up' San Pedro, rather than dumbing it down.
We have previuosly seen a decline in Pacific Avenue, Ports o'Call village, even 6th & 7th Streets from their heighday, as we have let them fall to a lower denominator. Without wanting to boutique this town, (No such verb, I know, - but you understand what I mean), which I think would spoil it, - there is no harm in appealing to a broad sector of the public who might want to come and discover this unique part of LA. San Pedro has so much to offer which you really cannot find anywhere else.
...my gut feel and knowledge of branding/image issues tells me that it can only confue those who come down the hill expecting something else.
with all due respect, fuck those who "come down the hill" expecting anything. they are always crowding the street when i'm trying to get in line at a shitty booth for a 99 cent churro! bastards.
when we ran three. (in the space Walled City is in now), those "come down the hill" types would wander in on first thursday, look around, become confused and disoriented because there were no lighthouse pictures or day-glo painted conch shells, and turn tail and run up the block to the whale and ale. where i assume you calmed their nerves with a couple $10 beers and a $40 plate of pasta.
if first thursday was all old cars and Rancho homies smoking weed, it would really suck. if it was all IMPORTANT ART BUYERS and expensive appetizers it would really, really suck. so no development downtown is bad, but building up a lot of overpriced cells for dotcom assholes or hollywood prop masters is just as bad. so there's the rub. wanting new business to move in is fine, but those businesses love to see those overpriced "lofts" on every corner. and once that retail mass is achieved, the comfortable forever-on-the-cusp-of-something downtown that we enjoy now is gone forever.
or at least for a few decades, until the overpriced lofts start to fall apart and the hipsters move to new "lofts" in palmdale or wherever the LA Weekly tells them to flock to next.
i lived in downtown St. Paul in the late 70's/early 80's, and it was much more down-at-the-heels than downtown San Pedro is now. the geniuses-that-be decided that the cure for all this embarrassing poverty and inaction was development! so they leveled four square blocks and spent years building a downtown shopping mall, complete with theme restaurants and expensive apartments. well, all the artists moved to the other side of the river, and the only thing in the streets around the beautiful new mall after 5pm were tumbleweeds.
well, we didn't have tumbleweeds, per se, but you get the point.
wale n ale guy,
you say it's not your intention to keep this community isolated by scaring off others who do not share "our" habits and culture. but i get the feeling you are not a pot-smoking cusser, so i hardly think you identify with the culture you speak of. especially since you feel that to join in on the fun would be "dumbing things down" hanging out with the "lower denominator."
anyhow, it's not a black and white issue, and not entirely in anyone's control to make things snobby or ratty either way, or san pedro would have been ultra-gentrified years ago. i actually think it's good that this issue is a debate - enough push on each side will hopefully never move things too strongly in either direction. thus the beauty of democracy and the many shades of gray.
Whalenale wrote:
I know what you mean, and I often feel the same way: part of the charm of San Pedro is that 'rough edge' sort of mentality, and it all combines with many other factors to make this the great town that it is; I would not want to live anywhere but San Pedro.
Having said that, I don't have a problem with trying to make it more attractive to visitors who might not delight in pot-smoking and cussing. My intention is not to keep this community isolated by scaring off others who do not share our habits and culture.
"I love you, you're perfect, now change."
Listen, Whalen (may I call you Whalen? thanks). Those of us who are really from San Pedro don't derive "charm" from its "'rough edge' mentality," nor do we find it quaint or adorable, nor do we regard it as a frisson-producing but slightly problematic selling point ("See, hear, and smell authentic proles in their natural environment! Adult language. Exhibit may contain smoke. Please don't feed the Mexicans"), nor do we otherwise condescend to it or spend a lot of time trying to impose a narrative onto it. It just is, you know? And unless gentrification pushes all the native San Pedrans over to Lomita, in favor of the sort of people who can afford to eat at The Whale and Ale, it's going to continue to just be, whether or not it disturbs the sensibilities of people from up the hill (it must be the thin air that makes them so sensitive to smoke...and, erm, cussing).
More to the point, if making San Pedro "attractive" to visitors is more important to you than accommodating the people who already live here, it makes one wonder just how charmed you really are by its rough edges. Perhaps you find them charming, in theory? Or at a distance?
Mind you, if the music and revelry and hemp smoke emanating from the classic cars and their fans are interfering with the contemplative mood that some artists may be trying to foster in their galleries on First Thursday, there's nothing wrong with arranging the setup to avoid this.
...but what are you gonna do about the shitty rock music from Godmothers?
Good design!
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