Greensite… on the Design Guidelines Community Engagement Meeting this week Steinbruner… BESS, Community Matters… Hayes… Mints … Patton… Who’s His Boss? Matlock… on break… Eagan… Subconscious Comics and Deep Cover … Webmistress serves you… lumps and bumps… Quotes on… “Vacation”
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If you want to pitch in to
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VACATION. Having grown up in Sweden, I’ve never understood the American attitude towards vacation… or rather, I’ve never understood how americans put up with so little of it. Sweden had 6 weeks paid vacation, along with a year and a half parental leave with 80% of your pay. It’s just a different world.
I don’t really have anywhere in particular that I’m going with this, so I’m going to let you at the rest of the column. See you next week!
~Webmistress
MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE. PrimeTV. Movie. (6.8 IMDb) 
Masters of the Universe (2026) was a genuine surprise. Rather than forcing the franchise into a dark, gritty reboot, it embraces the colorful, larger-than-life spirit of the original. It balances action, fantasy, and humor without winking at the audience, making the whole adventure feel sincere, fun, and delightfully goofy.
This isn’t trying to be the next great fantasy epic—it’s trying to be a Masters of the Universe movie, and it succeeds. Ignore the toxic nostalgia crowd complaining about the diverse casting of characters like Man-At-Arms, Triclops, and Ram Man, and you’ll find a tonally accurate adaptation that answers plenty of questions longtime fans have had for years (particularly namings). Stick around for the mid- and post-credit scenes. Well worth the watch.
~Sarge
QUICK LOOK AT NETFLIX. Netflix. Series, Movie. 
Here’s some stuff that’s not necessarily current, but currently on Netflix:
Veronica Mars think Buffy, but with no vampires, and lots of class conflicts, roofies … and the result … and murder in a small California coastal town. Young Kristen Bell (The Good Place) lives with her disgraced cop/now PI father, and is determined to solve the murder of her best friend, and the case that tanked her father’s career. A fun watch.
The Dead Don’t Die think Night of the Living Dead directed by Wes Anderson. Only in this case, it’s Jim Jarmusch. Zombies in a small town, with Bill Murray and Adam Driver starring. Tilda Swinton is a samurai. Much more like his 80’s films.
Mindhunter was pretty amazing, on and off; the casting for Big Ed Kemper was spot on. Period piece that follows the building of the FBI’s “profiling” division, focused on this new thing: serial killers.
The Enola Holmes movies: Sherlock (Henry Cavill)’s little sister, Enola (Alone backwards), breaks free of an attempt to ship her off to a deportment school, and takes up the family business on her own. There follow adventures, romance (on her terms), and occasional visits by her anarchist mother, Helena Bonham Carter. The first is a lot of fun, growing less (for me) as the sequels went on.
Marty: Life is Short, let’s hope it’s not for him! I love Martin Short, so this was a gem. An autobiographical history, chock full of familiar clips, as well as previously unseen personal movies, and of course a tremendous group of cameos.
~Sarge
SUPERGIRL. In theatres. Movie. (6.1 IMDb)
Supergirl is 67 years old.
In that time, she’s been through a LOT of attempts to give her her OWN story instead of just being Jr. Girl Superman. She suffers here from 1) the Manosphere complaining that she’s not cute or “feminine” enough, and 2) people stuck on an older version of her, like comparing Super Friends Aquaman to Jason Momoa.
Loosely based on Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow by Tom King, and honestly drawing from True Grit too, Supergirl stars Milly Alcock (House of the Dragon) as Kara Zor El, who leaves Earth to escape the shadow of her cousin, Superman, and the expectations piled on her while still dealing with PTSD from the destruction of Krypton. She ends up caught in a child’s vendetta and a race against time to get medical help for Krypto (played by Krypto, from Superman).
The pacing isn’t the sharpest, but the soundtrack is a banger, the effects are great, and Jason Momoa as Lobo is a role he was born to play. Despite haters and Rotten Tomatoes, well worth a watch.
~Sarge
GOOD GIRL’S GUIDE TO MURDER. Netflix. Series. (6.8 IMDb)
Think Nancy Drew meets True Detective. Five years after the apparent murder of a popular high school student, aspiring journalist Pip Fitz-Amobi decides the case doesn’t add up. What begins as a school project quickly turns into a deeper investigation, uncovering secrets, lies, and long-buried resentments in a town convinced the mystery was solved years ago.
The show’s biggest strength is Pip herself (Emma Myers – Jenna Ortega’s bouncy rainbow werewolf roommate on “Wednesday”): smart, determined, and believable as an amateur sleuth. While it never gets as dark as True Detective, it avoids feeling like a watered-down teen mystery, delivering genuine suspense, credible twists, and enough suspects to keep you guessing. Based on the novel by Holly Jackson, it’s a fast, engaging binge that captures the appeal of a classic detective story while giving it a modern true-crime sensibility.
~Sarge
GOOD OMENS 3. PrimeTV. Movie. (8 IMDb)
In 1990, fantasy legend Terry Pratchett and young comic fantasy mavin Neil Gaiman collaborated on a novel built around the question, “What if the Antichrist got switched at birth?” and Good Omens was born.
In 2024, the third season of Amazon’s adaptation of the late Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens was put on hold after multiple allegations of sexual assault against Gaiman surfaced in the news.
The Amazon version of Good Omens thrived on the brilliant chemistry between David Tennant and Michael Sheen as Crowley, a demon, and Aziraphale, an angel, who have spent millennia on Earth in what increasingly resembles a Cold War marriage. Faced with the impending Apocalypse, both come to the conclusion that maybe it might be altogether better … NOT doing that.
Featuring a host of charming side stories that all somehow linked together, plus a simmering relationship between the two leads, the first season felt like a delightful Douglas Adams pastiche. Since season one adapted the novel itself, the second season came as a complete surprise. Crafted entirely by Gaiman, it leaned harder into the Crowley/Aziraphale relationship, along with a gloriously naked and amnesiac Jon Hamm as the angel Gabriel. A great deal happens, and it all ends on a heartbreaking cliffhanger.
Then came season 3 … NOT!
As allegations against Gaiman mounted, stretching from the mid-80s into relatively recent years, comics, films, and television projects tied to him began getting canceled or shelved, including Good Omens 3. Fortunately, Gaiman stepped away from the production, allowing fans to get a third season … sort of. Cut down to a single feature-length finale, it still manages to wrap up a surprising number of story threads, and may even produce a few sniffles.
Gaiman’s problematic history aside, worth a watch.
~Sarge
PANTHEON. Netflix. Series. (8.5 IMDb) 
What if the threat isn’t AI? What if it’s UI: uploaded intelligence. Human brains destructively scanned, living only in the cloud. “Pantheon” explores this idea as exquisite, real science fiction. Not cheesy animated sci-fi melodrama, but a genuine exploration of love, grief, immortality, endless simulations, conspiracies, global politics, and so much more.
The animation is restrained, there to serve the story rather than distract from it. The characters are rich, not cardboard cutouts, whether good or bad. No supervillains. No Mary Sues.
It’s a dense story, so if science fiction concepts tend to lose you, this may not be for you. But if they don’t, this absolutely deserves a watch.
~Sarge
STRANGER THINGS – TALES FROM ’85. Netflix. Series. (5 IMDb)
Stranger Things exits stage left…then pops back out for one more bow.
Set between seasons 2 and 3, this animated take brings back the core crew without sanding things down for kids. It’s not anime or cheap knockoff – dipping their pens in the Spiderverse/Arcane inkwell, with a creative, stylized look. It’s also more focused than the later live-action seasons, trimming most of the adults and zeroing in on the kids. Best of all, Will Byers actually gets to be a character instead of a punching bag, helped by the addition of Niki, an Amazonian punk rocker who connects with him over their shared outsider status. The recast voices are a little jarring at first, but you should settle in. Rough reviews aside, it’s worth a watch.
~Sarge
STRANGER THINGS (final season). Netflix. Series. (9.3 IMDb)
Final season, and once again Will Byers gets absolutely brain-fracked. For the uninitiated: Stranger Things is steeped in the early ’80s, following a quartet of young teens (I was all of 20 when it’s set) doing the usual – playing D&D, blasting a killer soundtrack, biking everywhere unsupervised… and occasionally getting snatched by nightmare creatures from the Upside Down, a vine-choked mirror of their hometown.
They cross paths with Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), a runaway lab experiment with psychic powers and a deep love of Eggos. From there: more Upside Down lore, bigger and nastier villains, government conspiracies, a mall food court leveled, peak ’80s fashion, coming out, and a truly unfair amount of trauma for poor Will. Season 5 breaks up the cast in teams who each have their own stories – this season Linda “Sarah Conner” Hamilton pops up to give Vecna a run for his money as a “big bad”. Mike’s little sister gets dragged into things, and his mom finally gets to shine as a badass. It neatly cleans up all the loose threads. It’s both satisfying and a little sad to see it end – but no worries, the Duffer Brothers already have more Strangerverse on the way. Worth a watch.
~Sarge
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Sarge, aka Jeffery Sargent, cut his teeth on the Golden Age of Hollywoood on TV and with regular trips to the Sash Mill. Film classes then, at Cabrillo with Morton Marcus, broadened his scope – he found he preferred Keaton over Chaplin, and Akira Kurosawa was his Yoda. Sarge spent 15 years working in Special Effects, on everything from Starship Troopers to Battlestar Galactica. He is a staunch geek who has a weak spot for Cozy Mysteries and loathes “Reality” shows. While he doesn’t care for the unrelenting banal horror of “True Crime”, he licks his lips over a twist like the end of Chinatown. Email Sarge at JeffLSargent@gmail.com |
July 20, 2026
I took the photo this morning as I walked home along Front St after the bus dropped me off at the Soquel corner. Such boxy, big, multi-unit buildings are beginning to dominate downtown and soon will rise above single-family neighborhoods along Mission, Water, Soquel and Ocean streets. How far they will penetrate the neighborhoods on the eastside is yet unknown. However, with a Planning Department quoted as saying that “reaching the state-required RHNA numbers is just the beginning” we can expect more rather than less. That is, unless our elected representatives heed the pleas of anguished residents who are facing the construction of six story structures one foot away from their fenceline, taking away their privacy and sunshine. While apparently “nothing can be done” to temper the state- required 3,736 new housing units for the city of Santa Cruz by 2031, council can do something about reining in planning staff who have indicated they want to double or triple that number.
It is clear from social media and letters to the editor that the community is alarmed at this featureless, out of scale transformation of Santa Cruz. There’s the occasional letter that urges the community to celebrate all this affordable housing that is providing homes for our teachers, our low-income workers, our baristas etc. but that claim is baseless. The city’s weekly PR column posts that “92% of the latest four affordable housing projects are occupied by people who at lease-up lived or worked in Santa Cruz.” The word “County” is conveniently omitted. Beyond that omission, the percentage is provided by the property manager with no verification or evidence to back it up. Or none that the city can provide despite repeated requests.
Members of the community have expressed concerns about the featureless same-ness of the new buildings. In response, the city is hosting a special Planning Commission meeting this Thursday, July 23rd.at 6pm in the City Council Chambers. Its purpose, they say, is to gather community input– they call it a Community Engagement Exercise– on Design Guidelines that the city claims “will help guide the look and feel of future multi-family development.”
Before you get all excited that this signals a gamechanger you should be aware of the facts. Some are in the Agenda Report fine print. Some are buried in jargon. Some are omitted. I list them below:
- The city can do nothing about the height, scale, mass, lack of setbacks or lack of parking in these new housing projects due to state housing laws. My hunch is that these comprise a major part of the “look and feel.” What’s left? Paint color? Façades? We will find out on Thursday.
- The adoption of any Design Guidelines by the developer is completely voluntary. The city cannot require any changes that increase the cost for the developer.
- The trade-off for a developer adopting any of the Design Guidelines is that there will be no public hearings required as is the case now for many projects (some, such as the Neptune Apartment project, are exempt).
- The community will lose its democratic right to a public hearing and the right of appeal. This is buried in the staff report. In planning jargon, it is called “Ministerial Approval.” That is, no elected body such as the city council or appointed body such as the planning commission will see the project and vote on it. Nor will the public have the right of appeal, as did the neighbors for the 6-story project on Mission St at Dufour recently.
- The decision to approve the project will be made solely by the planning director and staff. This change is put forward by staff as “improvement” and “incentive.”
- Staff dismiss the public hearings as subjective and no longer applicable although they never use the phrase “public hearings.” Public hearings are the community’s only legal avenue to be heard at higher levels, whether they lead to project changes or not. In the long run, such public hearing evidence may lead to changes at the state level. Beyond that, it is the only venue for the community to let its elected representatives know how they feel and suggest objective changes overlooked in the early planning process, such as the location of the dumpster. Small things have big impacts.
- There is mention of project Gradual Transitions to Neighborhoods in the Agenda Report which would be welcome news for impacted neighborhoods. Later in the report this is deemed “economically infeasible” for developers, so it is off the table.
It is important to attend this meeting. Just don’t be fooled into thinking your little sticky notes placed on the Design Guidelines is without a trade-off. Losing the democratic right to a public hearing is maybe not worth a brick façade over stucco, alternating color panels over monochrome or an arch over a doorway.
| Gillian Greensite is a long time local activist, a member of Save Our Big Trees and the Santa Cruz chapter of IDA, International Dark Sky Association http://darksky.org Plus she’s an avid ocean swimmer, hiker and lover of all things wild. |
Do you think the Seahawk Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) project developers should be allowed to keep first responders and the public from knowing about battery safety test results? Shockingly, on July 2, the California Energy Commission agreed to keep that public safety data confidential, acquiescing to the developer’s claim that hiding the information is necessary to “protect trade secrets”.
Appendix 3.16A contains data from Underwriter Laboratories (UL) 9540A test results of the batteries the Seahawk BESS developer intends to use at 90 Minto Road, Watsonville.
Why would the State Energy Commission grant confidentiality for this developer when the same request was denied in the Compass BESS Project in Orange County?
How will local fire jurisdictions be able to sign off on the Project design plans for adequate spacing between modules if they have no information about the flammability test data?
Please enter your comment about the importance of making the UL9540A Test Results public information, for transparency and public safety.
Some in our Community have appealed the issue. The Commission must respond in 10 days. Stay tuned.
WHAT IS SO SPECIAL?
Why is the County Board of Supervisors scheduling a Special Meeting on August 4 at 9am? My suspicion is they will approve placing a new sales tax increase on the November 3, 2026 ballot and have a deadline that must be met before the regularly-scheduled August 11.
Call your County Supervisor to ask what that meeting is about. Otherwise, the agenda may not be publicly posted until 24 hours before the meeting. Transparency, anyone?
Call your elected representative and discuss the matter with him / her. 831-454-2200.
SEND YOUR IDEAS NOW
The new Santa Cruz County Civil Grand Jury is now seated and is settling in to decide what issues to investigate.
Send your ideas now.
Suggest an Investigation / Submit a Complaint
Please see existing Grand Jury reports to get an idea of the types of investigations we do. We may already have investigated your proposed topic!
Anyone may suggest topics for the Civil Grand Jury to investigate county or city departments or special districts. Suggestions should focus on operational effectiveness and efficiency of these entities. Each suggestion will be carefully considered. The number of investigations is limited. Since Grand Jury investigations are confidential, you will not be informed if the Grand Jury chooses your proposed investigative topic.
The Santa Cruz Civil Grand Jury has jurisdiction to investigate only local county and city governmental entities. We are not able to investigate civil lawsuits or criminal cases, state or federal government agencies, the courts, or matters outside Santa Cruz County.
Online suggestion forms are available in both English and Spanish.
You may submit your request via email: grandjury@scgrandjury.org.
Alternatively, paper suggestion forms are available at room 318-I in the County Government Building. Return or mail completed forms to Santa Cruz County Civil Grand Jury, 701 Ocean Street, Room 318-I, Santa Cruz, CA 95060
If you have not yet read the most recent Grand Jury reports, take a moment to find one that speaks most to you.
- Foreperson Letter to Judge and Detention Facilities Statement
- The Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line
Competing Visions, Emerging Realities - County Behavioral Health
Challenges Require More Urgency, Demonstration of Value, and Collaboration with the Justice System - Santa Cruz County’s Housing Crisis
Closing the Gap Between Planning and Production - Walking in the County of Santa Cruz is Not for the Faint of Heart
Can Vision Zero Help? - Election Integrity
An Indispensable System Working Well - Problematic Parking at the County Building
Free means Free
COMMUNITY MATTERS AND FARMING APPLES IN THE PAJARO VALLEY
Can apple growers make a living in Santa Cruz County? Listen to last week’s “Community Matters” interview on KSCO Radio with local horticulturist Freddy Menge, talking about the apples he grows and how, with his partner Ellen, have made Epicenter Farms thrive by selling hard to find fresh apples that are really something distinct from the varieties in the grocery stores.
Interview with farmer Freddy Menge, KSCO Community Matters, July 17, 2026
Listen here
MAKE ONE CALL. WRITE ONE LETTER. TAKE TIME TO READ A REPORT FROM THE GRAND JURY.DO ONE THING THIS WEEK AND MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE.
Cheers,
Becky
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Becky Steinbruner is a 30+ year resident of Aptos. She has fought for water, fire, emergency preparedness, and for road repair. She ran for Second District County Supervisor in 2016 on a shoestring and got nearly 20% of the votes. She ran again in 2020 on a slightly bigger shoestring and got 1/3 of the votes.
Email Becky at KI6TKB@yahoo.com |
There are very few plants that most people know and appreciate, but mints rank towards the top. Just the mention of mint evokes a scent and the scent spurs memories. We might think of toothpaste, breath freshener, candy canes, peppermint schnapps, or tea. As I walk through nature, the mints make me want to slow down, to smell them. There are a lot of types of mint along our Central Coast trails.
Yerba Buena
A favorite native wild mint is yerba buena (Clinopodium douglasii). This is a ground-hugging bright green leaved plant with tiny white flowers. In most of California, it is mostly a coastal plant and grows in the understory of shrubby areas or woodlands. Its range extends a long ways northward, including Alaska, Idaho, and Montana. The plant for a long time was in the same genus as summer savory, but has recently been reassigned a name that suggests it is not as closely related as once thought. The scent, however, still reminds me of summer savory but maybe more lemony. Some groups of indigenous people from the Central Coast suggest that goats milk steeped with this plant is useful in treating internal parasitic worms.
Yerba buena makes a marvelous groundcover and is quite hardy. It lives many years, rooting as it spreads. Note that this plant, like most mints, has a strongly angular, square, 4-sided stem.
Coyote Mint
Coyote mint is a more showy native sub-shrub with beautiful light purple flower heads. This is a very drought tolerant species, which seems unusual for mints: they mostly prefer cooler, moist habitats. Coyote mint instead grows in dry and sometimes rocky soils. Its half-inch, furry, round leaves when crushed emit a strong minty aroma reminiscent of beebalm, which is in the Monarda genus. Coyote mint appears like a diminutive bee balm, so it was named “Monardella villosa,” which might translate to small hairy beebalm.”
There are three subspecies recognized. San Francisco coyote mint populations surround the San Francisco Bay including into Santa Cruz County. More to the south, there is San Luis Obispo coyote mint which also likes the coast. And then there’s the just plan ‘Coyote mint” which co-occurs with the other subspecies as well as growing in the much-warmer inland areas where, on hot days, you can no doubt smell it from far away.
I have a patch of coyote mint that has been blooming for 2 months in very dry, poor soil. The colorful bunches of flowers have been attracting many buckeye butterflies. Each year, seedlings appear and it is spreading in my garden not very aggressively.
‘True’ Mint
Spearmint is a non-native mint that has gone feral in California’s rare wetlands. The plant spreads by runners, blossoms profusely, and grows up to three feet tall if given the best soil. This species has a long history of use by humans going back thousands of years. Although few use spearmint as an herbal remedy, it has been shown to have antibacterial properties. Fresh mint leaves make excellent tea and this past week I enjoyed Persian ‘doogh’ – a fizzy yoghurt drink flavored with salt and mint – delicious and refreshing when visiting the Central Valley in 100 degree heat. When growing spearmint, I am discouraged as the plant gets covered with a rust fungus each year – small welts of orange pop up and make the leaves less palatable.
Nasty Mints
Two mints I don’t enjoy smelling deserve mention: hedge nettle and pennyroyal. Hedge nettle is the mint of the redwood or oak woodland understory. It is mildly prickly and has whorls of pale purple flowers. I find the scent a bit on the ‘skunky’ side of mint – not to my liking!
Pennyroyal is worse. It starts bad because it is a non-native aggressively invasive plant of wetlands. It smells very strongly of sweet mint with a touch of skunk. Somehow, people manage to slather themselves with various ointments and such with a lot of pennyroyal extract in hopes that it repels biting insects. The plant spreads by runners and carpets large areas where moisture is sufficient and the canopy is not too high- it can’t take much shade. The flowers of pennyroyal come out quite late in the summer and so attract many pollinators that otherwise have a hard time finding nectar.
Mint Appreciation Days
I hope you take some time to stop and smell the mints this week. Make a batch of mint tea. Crush some mint leaves and breathe their perfume deeply. Compare mint scents. Humans and mints seem inextricably connected. What’s your favorite mint?
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Grey Hayes is a fervent speaker for all things wild, and his occupations have included land stewardship with UC Natural Reserves, large-scale monitoring and strategic planning with The Nature Conservancy, professional education with the Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, and teaching undergraduates at UC Santa Cruz. Visit his website at: www.greyhayes.net
Email Grey at coastalprairie@aol.com |
Tuesday, July 21, 2026
Vice President J.D. Vance
A headline in the June 1, 2026, edition of The New York Times (I am referring to the hardcopy edition) did readers, and the nation, a significant disservice. Here’s that headline, as it appeared in the paper dropped on my front walkway on Monday, June 1st:
Is Vance Heir Apparent In ’28? His Boss Doesn’t Seem Sure
So, here’s the quiz question: What’s wrong with this headline?
Here’s what’s wrong: The President of the United States of America is not “the boss” of the Vice-President. The Vice-President is an independently-elected officer of the nation, as provided in Article II of The Constitution. The Vice-President is not a direct “subordinate” whom the president is entitled to boss around. Were that the case, Vice-President Mike Pence should have done what the then-president told him to do, after the 2020 elections, and subverted those elections, keeping in power the then-president, who lost his office in the elections held in 2020.
Citizens of the United States – many of whom do not, routinely, read the Constitution, and who don’t, much, research what it says – should not be misled by what is often claimed to be the nation’s most important daily newspaper.
Let’s be clear. Our current president believes that his election as the nation’s Chief Executive is an entitlement that allows him to boss everyone around (including the Vice-President and including the Congress). That’s not what our Constitution says. That is emphatically not what our Constitution says.
Let’s not forget it!
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Gary Patton is a former Santa Cruz County Supervisor (20 years) and an attorney for individuals and community groups on land use and environmental issues. The opinions expressed are Mr. Patton’s. You can read and subscribe to his daily blog at www.gapatton.net
Email Gary at gapatton@mac.com |
Dale is taking a break.
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Dale Matlock, a Santa Cruz County resident since 1968, is the former owner of The Print Gallery, a screenprinting establishment. He is an adherent of The George Vermosky school of journalism, and a follower of too many news shows, newspapers, and political publications, and a some-time resident of Moloka’i, Hawaii, U.S.A., serving on the Board of Directors of Kepuhi Beach Resort. Email: cornerspot14@yahoo.com. |
Each week, I will feature a selection of interesting and historically significant places in Santa Cruz County from the 1986 edition of Donald Thomas Clark‘s wonderful book, “Santa Cruz County Place Names: A Geographical Dictionary“, published by the Santa Cruz Historical Trust.
“Nuggets” If I find something topically relevant, but not necessarily directly related to the week’s selection, you’ll see it under the Nuggets heading. Note: for reasons of brevity, sources are usually dropped when I reproduce an entry. You can always email me if you’re curious, or, even better, buy a copy of the book!
Dateline: July 22, 2026
What caught my eye was the French place name. L’Eau means “the water” in French, which makes sense in context (although the Clark assumes the reader understands this). This entry is also interesting, because of what it implies about the town at the time. A mansion and six acres could be used as the off-season quarters of a traveling circus (the circus in question is widely documented).
I’ve been in a couple of different conversations recently where the version of Santa Cruz the participants remember is very different. I arrived here late December of 1992, and started a company headquartered downtown at 903 Pacific Ave. when I was 22. My Santa Cruz is the 1990s, immediate post-earthquake version scrappy geeks building pioneering Internet companies and organizations like IUMA, Cruzio, Santa Cruz Internet (and my company, WebCom) and LARPers playing Vampire on Pacific. Other people’s Santa Cruz is the pre-earthquake Pacific Garden Mall version. For others again, it is the 1950s and 1960s version, before the PGM and UCSC. The 1900s era version, with a circus’ winter headquarters on West Cliff Drive on 6 acres with a mansion, must have very different from any of these.
Here’s a photograph of them from the Santa Cruz Sentinel at their “winter headquarters”. Rowe himself, the ring master, is visible in it. A very diverse set of people, including 9 Japanese performers and a variety of “international acrobatic acts”.
I found this article when searching for information about the circus. It appears that the building may have had a history after the circus before burning down in 1925:
“NORRIS & ROWE CIRCUS GOES UNDER HAMMER”
Santa Cruz, Feb. 1. The Norris & Rowe circus, with winter quarters in Santa Cruz, was sold this morning as a result of bankruptcy proceedings. Arch Donaldson of the Donaldson Lithographic Co. a creditor to the amount of $50,000 bid the circus in for $15,000, Ventura Chapter R. A. M. holds regular business meeting this Tuesday evening.”
It appears from the Circus Historical Society that, after the bankruptcy, the equipment was “Shipped to Peru, Indiana, where it was sold in lots by the Peru Trust Co.” Must have been a traumatic experience for the performers, as my understanding was that they had very much a family feel, a home for misfits and oddballs not available otherwise. Their last sequence of performances being in Kentucky is probably why the equipment wound up in Indiana. Unlike in previous years, they “wintered” in Evansville, IN, which may have been a product of the owner’s financial plight, unable to pay to ship them home to Santa Cruz as normal.
Ross Gibson has a column in the Sentinel from 2022 on “The Westside circus colony”] [paywalled], where he dates its founding to 1882, although it appears they may have only started touring after purchasing the Vue de L’Eau in 1905 (at least the Circus Historical Society web site doesn’t list any earlier routes). If you have access, and are curious, the history is fascinating… did you know that Santa Cruz once hosted the “fourth largest circus in the world” (as per the Sentinel of that era)?
Again, the Place Names book is a treasure, not only for its contents, but the rabbit holes it can send you down. Santa Cruz has a rich and varied history to explore.
One of the very few French place names in the county. This was a gazebo type structure with a pagoda style roof that was built along the cliff above Monterey Bay in 1892 as part of a promotion scheme of the Santa Cruz, Garfield Park & Beach trolley line. It was advertised as an “observatory, cliff house, waiting station, and depot.” Nearby was the Casino at the junction of Cliff Drive and Garfield Avenue (now West Cliff Drive and Woodrow Avenue). Vue de L’Eau, with its spectacular view of the ocean (hence, the name), became a popular attraction, but it slowly faded in interest and in 1905 Vue de L’Eau and six surrounding acres were bought for the winter quarters of the Norris and Rowe circus. The building burned in 1925.
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Thomas Leavitt is the husbandy thing to our illustrious webmistress. A resident of Santa Cruz (now part time) since 1993, his interests include history, technology, and community organizing. He started the world’s first self-service web hosting company, WebCom, located at 903 Pacific in May of 1994. He’s been part of too many community organizations to mention, and ran for City Council in the early aughts. Email Thomas at ThomLeavitt@gmail.com |
“Vacation”
“Swedish people live for the summer – it transforms everyone. I don’t want to miss having a Swedish summer vacation for as long as I live. It’s my favorite thing in the world.”
~Elsa Hosk
“L.A. is a vortex. The weather there tricks you into thinking you’re on vacation, even when you’re working fourteen hours a day.”
~Julian Casablancas
“A vacation is what you take when you can no longer take what you’ve been taking.”
~Earl Wilson
“The purpose of a vacation is to have the time to rest. But many of us, even when we go on vacation, don’t know how to rest. We may even come back more tired than before we left.”
~Thich Nhat Hanh
“My favorite place to vacation is anyplace by the ocean.”
~Nina Arianda
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This feels like it’s useful information… |
Direct questions and comments to webmistress@BrattonOnline.com
(Gunilla Leavitt)
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This feels like it’s useful information… |
