Three Questions
I've been thinking about posing these for a while. I'll be out of town for the next week or so - I'd love to see everyone's views on these three questions.
1) Downtown - What does it mean to you? How often do you go there?
2) Waterfront - What is wrong with the waterfront as it currently exists - what about the "Bridge to Breakwater" area drives you crazy?
3) Chinese food - Without disparaging my current San Pedro Chinese eatery of choice, I need more satisfaction than I'm currently getting in my local Chinese food. Who's got the best?
1) Downtown - What does it mean to you? How often do you go there?
2) Waterfront - What is wrong with the waterfront as it currently exists - what about the "Bridge to Breakwater" area drives you crazy?
3) Chinese food - Without disparaging my current San Pedro Chinese eatery of choice, I need more satisfaction than I'm currently getting in my local Chinese food. Who's got the best?
Labels: development, planning
13 Comments:
#3 - there is none. Pedro needs a really authentic Chinese restaurant. The closest place that's worth going is a place on PCH called Harbor Palace. But it's in Lomita.
I watched the video from Geraldine Knatz's Executive Director presentation last night (its on the Port of LA website). I think their approach overall is a good one. In the interest of getting some action in the Waterfront redevelopment it make sense to break-up the Bridge-to-Breakwater plan in to smaller projects that can begin moving forward (in our lifetime) while other components continue to be debated.
In their case, they have identified those components ("the framework") that should draw the least contention so that progress could be made on those. As long as the Bridge to Breakwater remains the "master plan" by which these smaller projects are pushed forward, I think that is the right approach. Trying to get all parties on board with a grand, all-encompassing EIR would seem to be an impossible endeavor based on how the Plan has progressed thus far.
I very much agree with kris that moving forward with smaller project components is the thing to do at this time. There is little consensus on a grand master plan for the entire 7-mile stretch, so the port community needs to feel its way carefully. Waterfront development requires excellence in urban design, and the is not really the Port's area of expertise, is it?
In my opinion, the worst thing that they could do would be to industrialize/commercialize our Cabrillo Bay. This is one of the best places we have, serving human scale recreational needs. A 100,000 square foot cruise terminal, cruise ships that are the equivalent of a 15-story building, and large portions of the bay blocked-off for security reasons would destroy what we now have.
As to downtown, I like being able to walk past the cruise terminal (but the port needs to remodel that ancient wreck of a building), the memorial statues, the space in front of the Marine Musuem, and down to and along the S.P. slip to look at the old fishing boats and paraphernalia. I probably do it every 2-3 weeks.
What bugs me is that it is so hard to get to the actual waterfront! There are a few places you can stand to look out over the water, but darn few. One place I really like is the Waterfront One area at the entrance to the Main Channel - unfortunately it is apparently illegal to hang out there. And what about that tank farm - is there any worse place for tank storage than the waterfront?
In regards to Chinese food, I'm afraid banditos yanquis is right. Pedro hasn't had a decent Chinese restaurant in a long , long , time. The best locally would be Szechuan on Oak and PCH, Shanghai Palace (my latest favorite, Xia Long Bao comparable to the places in San Gabriel /Rosemead) on PCH past Crenshaw next to the Porsche dealership. The other is Sea Harbour or something like that in a strip mall off Calle Mayor and PCH, near the Vanguard skate shop. If you have decent tranportation head out to the 10 east past downtown and east LA and get off on the New ave. exit head north and turn left on Valley go two blocks or so west and check out Mei Long village and the other places in that center. Or just go up and down Valley Bl., theres hundreds of Chinese places there. The best are listed on CHOWHOUND.com Hope this helps.
#3. I like Top Wok up on Western. It may not be authentic, and hell, it might not even be in San Pedro proper, but they make some damn good food.
1) I like to remember my visits downtown during the 1960's. That was when downtown meant something more to me. At that time it was the only "downtown" I was familiar with. The wooden walls of Dr. Bramlett's office, the Strand and Warner theaters, the old Y.M.C.A. down on Beacon Street.
Mr first wife took her turn working at Kress' department store in the mid-70's
I spend less time downtown these days than I did when I was a yute.
2)Too many A-frame cranes sit idle. It seems that even in the heaviest of loading times, 75% of the cranes have their arms pointed up and not in operation.
The B2B area could be fine if left with more simple plans that don't stretch out to the far end of the harbor. I feel that something more needs to be done, but only to the end of where Whaler's Wharf used to be. Let's let commerce dictate what will be done south of Fisherman's wharf and we certainly do not want or need a new cruise terminal in the outer harbor.
3) No argument here. Banditos Yanquis is absolutely correct!
MW
Love downtown...am there everyday and am hopeful that as the loft developments start filling in with people there will be more places to eat and drink.
Waterfront...I agree with Redrider that there is very little actual access to the water and am hopeful that B2B creates that. I wonder if POLA is going slow to be prudent or to back off creating a premiere waterfront. There is so much opportunity for everybody to be happy -- ample open space and recreation, shopping and dining (designed in such a way as to link to downtown for more of the same), and getting rid of the horrible tank farms. Good leadership can make this happen, but does POLA have that?
Chinese: I like Top Wok. Can anybody give a rec for good Indian nearby?
grrrr! I finally post something on this blog, and it didn't take. Blogger is all fucked up tonight.
Well, I think I said I liked Top Wok. Decent good.
I also said I never leave my studio, so I'm hardly downtown, but I like to eat at a couple places there. 6th street Bistro, SPBC, the Japanese place, and when I'm flush with money I get my hair done at Fragments. I like Urban Feet too.
I said something really touching about Duttons books closing. It was nearby me when I was a kid and I got into Bukowski there. I found out they had to shut down via KPCC. Now living in Pedro, I worry for William's Book Store. I wish there were more stores in general like that and fear the coming of the Gap and all that. I lamented the stationary store that used to be downtown. I'd go there more often if it was still there.
What else?.... hmmm. Oh yeah, I like the waterfront fine. It's nice to walk on. I like the lights on the trees, and don't mind anymore that they're blue.
I'm not much of a fan of the Gap, but I think if the Gap were to come to town, it may encourage other new small businesses to open up shop in adjacent storefronts. So while national retailers don't really excite me, I think they serve well as anchors for other businesses. I'll take 1 Gap if it paves the way for a half dozen mom-and-pop ops. Probably won't happen though. The likes of Gap hardly ever lead the pack into new neighborhoods.
Just saw Running with Scissors. There's a scene shot out front of the Warner Grand. They left Renz Wear pretty much the same, but dressed up the windows of the storefronts to the right. Looked nice. Looked very un-Pedro.
Speaking of filming locations, a friend turned on the telly tonight and saw the America's Top Model girls being driven past the cranes ("Ooh, is that the port?") and doing some faux boot camp at Joan Milke Flores park. How did they possibly sneak all those hot women into Pedro?
1) Downtown - What does it mean to you?
That's a tricky question to answer. To tell you what it means to me would probably entail telling you about my happy childhood memories of walking down there with my mom in the 70s and 80s and poking through the thrift stores and the labyrinthine used stacks at Giant Bookstore and all the other cool little places that were still (barely) hanging on at that point...which is totally genuine, but probably not what you're looking for.
What does it mean to me now? I really don't know how to answer that, and I suspect (without knowing) that a lot of people around here wouldn't know how either. And I think that the reason it's so hard to answer is because it's been such a long, long time since the average Pedroid has had any kind of significant relationship with downtown.
Downtown San Pedro and the people of San Pedro started pulling apart from each other decades ago: partly because of the people's regrettable haste in abandoning it for the malls etc., and partly because of some astonishingly dumb and/or greedy actions on the part of local government and business leaders.
And the reason the separation has lasted for so many years, in my opinion, is because city government and many in the business community have failed for decades to understand that the separation is the problem--and therefore the solution is to bring the people back downtown and bring downtown back to the people. Instead, every decade or so we see another massively expensive project aimed at bringing in tourists (the Sheraton) or white-collar workers (Logicon, Northrop-Grumman) to "revitalize" downtown, one sandwich or t-shirt at a time.
Unfortunately, recent events do not suggest that local government or business leaders are ready to give up the fantasy of the tourist/yuppie cavalry coming to downtown's economic rescue. If they ever do, maybe we'll finally see the people of Pedro reunited with their downtown in a meaningful way, and downtown really will mean something to Pedrans besides "that place my grandma used to tell me about." And then you can ask this question again, and I can give you a shorter and less shitty answer.
How often do you go there?
Every day or night, just about. I like downtown; I just can't tell you what it means to me in terms of what is. It's so much easier to talk about what it was, or what I wish it were, or what I hope it doesn't become. Be honest, people, isn't it the same way for most of you?
2) Waterfront - What is wrong with the waterfront as it currently exists - what about the "Bridge to Breakwater" area drives you crazy?
I know this is the part where we're supposed to weep and wail and gnash our teeth about how icky the waterfront is, but really? None of it drives me crazy. Everything I've said before about how it could be improved still stands, but there's something to be said for just cruising around on your bike down there, watching the fishermen and listening to the tugboat engines, and not having to weave through a crowd of people to do it.
The only thing that I actively dislike between the bridge and breakwater is the Cabrillo Marina. Soulless, sterile...and fuck that rich Thurston J. Howell III wannabe douchebag who yells "THIS IS A PRIVATE MARINA!" at you as you quietly paddle your kayak through (yes, this has actually happened to me).
3) Chinese food - Without disparaging my current San Pedro Chinese eatery of choice, I need more satisfaction than I'm currently getting in my local Chinese food. Who's got the best?
China. Or Monterey Park if you're in a hurry. Sorry, that's all I've got.
Dowotown to me means decades of false promises, up to and including the new so called "renaissance" that everybody in the local papers keeps cooing about. Always the same tired refrain: this project will bring outsiders in to save us!Really, thinking about downtown gives me a bad taste in my mouth, and it's sadder because it didn't have to be this way.
What should be in the news is what is going on at the San Pedro YMCA. My friends car was just broken into this week in the parking lot in broad daylight. This is very common there and so is the clipping of locks in the locker room. Wallets and purses are getting stolen frequently and the YMCA is known amongst theives as an easy target. Don't leave your belongings hidden in your car in the backseat under a jacket, that is where my friends was. The lockers are unsafe too. There are no cameras in the parking lot and the staff could give a crap about it. They don't tell their members that this is happening, they are trying to keep it under wraps. I pay $52 a month to go there, you think with the fees and all the fundraising they could afford a camera system from Costco. Non-members are coming in through back doors and the staff knows. Tjoml about that next time you are in the shower there. The worst part is that they have community service workers doing "volunteer work" there. These volunteers have been convicted of a crime and are unsupervised at the YMCA and NOT FINGERPRINTED. Yes, there are seniors and children there. This is something else the YMCA doesn't want us to know about. I actually like the YMCA but am so alarmed at how unsafe it is. It is time for the YMCA to start taking care and protecting its members.
san pedro mom:
have you raised any of this with the administration at the Y?
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