The redwood trees surrounding the Town Clock are slated to be cut down to make way for a high-rise development. (Ross Eric Gibson Collection)
As for the 1899 Town Clock, which was removed from the Odd Fellows Building in 1964, some advocates proposed a scenario of returning it to Downtown. However, the declaration of this as an official project of our nation’s Bicentennial in 1976 seems to have been the only motivating deadline for the Town Clock to be rebuilt and for the clock’s historic chimes to chime freedom. And the 1776 juncture of American democracy seems to have destined Town Clock Plaza to be a stage for democratic activities such as protest, demonstration, celebration, humanitarianism, activism and advocacy.
Clock Tower Plaza had a unifying effect linking the Lower Plaza’s landmarks: the 1911 General Post Office, the 1932 Veterans Memorial, the 1859 Flatiron Building (old courthouse), the World War I Memorial, the 1866 Lulu Carpenters Building, the 1899 Bookshop Santa Cruz Building (old library), and the 1886 National Register Landmark McHugh & Bianchi Grocers (demolished by Golden West Savings). A 1976 commemorative plaque depicts the historic district and the Clock Tower.
The clock tower image became iconic and was used to identify the National Downtown Historic District, and appeared on signs, circulars, and in the Santa Cruz Adult School catalog, and also inspired information kiosks on Pacific Avenue. A commemorative pewter plaque depicts the new clock tower surrounded by historic buildings. The clock tower was also used in the 1982 Downtown District Plan, which solicited broad input from merchants, organizations, and the public to identify needs and guidelines for the downtown.
Pacific Garden Mall was successful because its historic architecture made it a downtown tourist attraction, a popular gathering place for locals, and a source of pride for the community. In September 1989, several events were planned to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Garden Mall. I realized that this was a double anniversary, as it was the 100th year since electricity was brought to Santa Cruz in 1889 and the downtown area first opened. For the Mall’s anniversary project, someone had the great idea to paint an outline of the clock tower in lights, just as the Odd Fellows Building and clock tower were painted in lights when Swanton’s 1896 hydroelectric plant opened. I produced a music and history show called “Pacific Garden Mall Electric Centennial and 20th Anniversary” as entertainment for the event.
But before the celebrations could begin, on October 17, 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake struck, reducing downtown to rubble. The clock in the clocktower stopped at 5:04 p.m., the time of the quake. The Flatiron Building and the Bookshop Santa Cruz Building were destroyed. But the Town Clock, the pinnacle of mall improvements, was the most conspicuous survivor. Pacific Garden Mall celebrated its 20th anniversary with a parade through the ruins of our beloved downtown, but it was more funeral than celebration, eliciting more tears than cheers. At sunset, the clocktower was lit, glowing like a beacon in the darkness, with a banner that read, “Together we are working to keep downtown alive!”
protest
Saddam Hussein was a key player in destabilizing the Middle East. A Ba’athist assassin with a violent past, he seized leadership of Iraq in 1979 and then carried out a bloody purge of his rivals before invading Iran in 1980 and bankrupting Iraq in an eight-year war that saw him use chemical weapons against Iraq’s Kurds in 1988. Saddled with debt, Hussein invaded Kuwait, his lender, to seize its oil wealth, claiming that he was stealing it. When Hussein ignored calls from the UN Security Council to return Kuwait’s sovereignty, he feared Saudi Arabia would be next and asked the Security Council for help. So the UN formed a 42-nation coalition led by the US to prepare for the Gulf War.
Santa Cruz residents were divided over whether to stop the tyrant or sacrifice the lives of American troops to secure the oil reserves. In 1991, peace rallies were held at Town Clock Plaza and continued for several months until the war ended with the liberation of Kuwait. After the demonstrators left, some remained, insisting that they would camp out at Clock Tower Plaza indefinitely until world peace was achieved.
But as the Mercury News reported, peace wasn’t on the agenda; it was a way to get around the city’s camping ban. The square’s condition deteriorated, with the fountains filling up with trash and the square littered with wet blankets, clothes, discarded signs, and human waste. City cleanup crews, including special needs workers, felt insulted at having to clean up the unsanitary mess.
Jim Lang, the city’s parks and recreation director, saw it as simply a maintenance issue, but the parks commission did not approve his idea to keep the park open “from dawn to dusk.” The issue was brought before the city council, where a council member suggested the park should be fenced in. When a surprised council member became infuriated, the council member responded, “I don’t think there should be a fence.” [concrete] Initially, it was not a “highway fence” but simply a “chain-link fence,” which sparked angry reactions from both protesters and the general public, with one person calling it “the Berlin Wall of Santa Cruz!”
City Council members Katherine Beyers and Scott Kennedy immediately opposed the plan. Beyers had just returned from Washington, DC, where she was impressed with the public use of the monument. “I think Lincoln would be the most angry person in the world at the thought of putting a fence around it,” she said. The issue was brought before the Parks Commission, which quoted Robert Frost, who spent his youthful summers on a farm in the Santa Cruz Mountains. His sentiment that “some things don’t like walls” epitomized the commissioners’ feelings about the wall, and instead approved closing the square from 1:00 am to 8:00 am.
On New Year’s Day 1993, late-night vandalism was common in downtown, still barely recovered from the earthquake. The ingenious solution was not a curfew, but a First Night gathering that offered appropriate family-friendly activities and showcased the diverse talents of Santa Cruz. The Town Clock took center stage, counting down the hours to 1995. But it was to be the last First Night at the Clock Tower, as fire flickered in the tower’s windows on the night of August 6 as smoke billowed from above, recalling the 1899 fire that had ravaged the Odd Fellows Clock Tower. Firefighters burst into the landmark with chainsaws, their hands blocked by recently installed electrical work that prevented them from reaching the stubborn flames. But the fire was contained, and no trace of it was to be seen at First Night 1996.
‘Collateral damage’
Sculptor E. A. Chase’s “Collateral Damage” monument was designed to be Santa Cruz’s “Guernica,” evoking Picasso’s famous 1937 anti-war painting, with its agonizing, distorted images of Fascists and Nazis bombing an unarmed Spanish village. But “Collateral Damage” was designed to commemorate the unarmed dead of all wars. From 1996 to 1997, the monument was searching for a site. Supporters suggested placing it on top of a pillar at the World War I Memorial instead of the Eagle’s Nest statue, or in the middle of the new Sister City Compass Plaza.
As a historic preservation commissioner, I told the sculptor that I like the sculpture, but that it needs to stand on its own. Placing it among other monuments would change its meaning. Putting it in a World War I memorial, which commemorates soldiers who gave their lives for freedom, would seem to imply that the soldiers were perpetrators. Also, the Sister City program is about extending a hand of friendship to people all over the world, but putting a tragic statue in the middle of Compass Square would seem to blame them for something. When I said, “It’s better to express your opinion than to change someone else’s work,” the sculptor said that the problem was finding a place where people could see the sculpture, and he worried that Town Clock Plaza was too far away. But in the end, it was displayed on a low pedestal, which was the perfect place for the sculpture to be more accessible and easier to see.
In 1999, a proposal was floated by a peace advocate to build a concrete wall inlaid with remnants of all American battlefields, including 9/11. They were so sure they could provide Santa Cruz with a section of the Berlin Wall that they bragged it would literally be Santa Cruz’s Berlin Wall. At the Arts Commission hearing, Clark Schultz and I represented the Historic Preservation Commission. I said the idea was very interesting, but it didn’t fit with the park, which was a green space in the middle of an intersection where five roads meet. Building a six-foot-high concrete wall on a traffic island would look like a crash barrier and would prevent free access to the site from all directions.
compatibility
Since Clock Tower Plaza opened, adjacent buildings adopted compatible brick styles: the bank adopted an Old West style with basket-handle arches, while to the east of the “Rush Inn” bar, architect Bill Bagnell designed a brick insurance building with a colonial look next to a low brick flatiron.
But Senate Bill 330 overturned local guidelines and building codes for apartments, proposing to build a modern building on the historic Lower Plaza as a backdrop to the clock tower. The Workbench project calls for cutting down the two redwood trees that surround the Town Clock and replacing them with either a 16-story or eight-story building. Most of the 200 viewers polled during the webinar felt both options were too expensive.
The opening of this new high-rise will likely be a repeat of the demands made when the Palomar Hotel opened that the Town Clock’s chimes be turned off; this time, the complaints may also include lighting the clock. Residents overlooking the park may view it as a “private” front yard and be less tolerant of activity or individuals. The Workbench proposes abolishing Knight Street and integrating the Town Clock Plaza with its own open space.
The shocked face of the “Collateral Damage” sculpture looking upward may reflect the fear of many local residents who tremble at the thought of monstrous skyscrapers being built because the local building guidelines we created no longer make sense.
“Some things don’t like walls,” especially high ones.