willmore · 2019-09-29 · lines, for items specific to a particular historic dis-trict, and the...
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the newsletter of the Willmore city heritage association OCTOBER 2019
October General MeetingOctober General MeetingOctober General Meeting PLACE: PLACE: PLACE: Drake Park Community CenterDrake Park Community CenterDrake Park Community Center DATE:DATE:DATE: October 16October 16October 16 TIME: TIME: TIME: 7:00 p.m.7:00 p.m.7:00 p.m.——— 9:00 p.m.9:00 p.m.9:00 p.m.
Thinking about planting a tree? Not sure how to care for the one you have? And what about
that Magnolia disease? Have no fear, attend
our October meeting and ask your questions
from our very own local, certified arborist, Ben
Fisher of LB Holistic Tree. Light snacks from Willmore Baking Company will be served.
Can’t attend but need an arborist?
562-270-KIND (5463) [email protected]
Jazz continued on page 3
SIZZLING SUMMER JAZZSIZZLING SUMMER JAZZSIZZLING SUMMER JAZZ
The final event for the Willmore Season of Live Arts
and Music (SLAM) 2019 featured some of our favor-
ite people. Back for the fourth time, and framed by
a beautiful Long Beach sunset, Alex Iles and
Friends, in collaboration with the Long Beach Sym-phony, filled the Amphitheater at Cesar Chavez Park
with their usual—some of the best music to be
found in our City.
These superlative musicians played a wide variety
of that All-American form of music, Le Jazz Hot.
Loosely structured as a history of jazz, there were a wide variety of cool tunes played, including such
favorites as “Basin Street Blues” “Shiny Stockings”,
“St. Louis Blues;” and “In Your Own Sweet Way;.”
From ragtime to the jazz influenced “Sir Duke”, it
was such a pleasure to hear world class musicians
Tea With Alice and MeTea With Alice and MeTea With Alice and Me
WCHA was proud to participate in the Long Beach
kickoff of the 100th year of Women’s Suffrage cele-
bration by engaging Zoe Nicholson to perform her
one woman show, “Tea With Alice and Me” for Will-
more Season of Live Arts and Music. A weaving of the story of Miss Alice Paul, author of the ERA (no it
is STILL not ratified), and the history of women’s
rights from the early 1900’s to the present, includ-
ing Ms. Nicholson’s own activism, it is an eye-
opening view of women’s suffrage. Historical, theat-
rical and educational, it fulfills all the goals of the Season of Live Arts and Music.
The event began at our new City Hall, with a Cele-
bratory Parade, by the Long Beach Suffrage 100, a
group formed to observe a year long celebration of
Women’s Suffrage. The Suffragists and Suffragents
Suffrage continued on page 2
Nicole Kubis takes the stage
Photo credit Jose Cordon
Photo credit Jose Cordon
2
wore their best white outfits and marched to The
Amphitheater at Cesar Chavez Park for the perfor-
mance. With a background of music from women composers and musicians, complimentary tea and
treats from the Willmore Baking Company were
served. Ms. Nicholson was available to sign the new
edition of her book, The Hungry Heart ~ A Woman's
Fast for Justice .
For more information on how you can celebrate with the LB Suffrage 100, go to their website:
https://lbsuffrage100.com/ or Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/lbsuffrage100/ .
There will be fun, educational, and spectacular
Suffrage continued from page 1 events throughout Long Beach until the culmination
with a gala in August of 2020.
Photo credit Jose Cordon
JEWEL BOX CHILDRENS THEATERJEWEL BOX CHILDRENS THEATERJEWEL BOX CHILDRENS THEATER We all know that the children are our future, so
prior to Tea With Alice and Me, Jewel Box Chil-
dren’s Theater, with directors Anna Kate Mohler
and Andy Zacharias presented an event with crafts,
communal singing, and a performance of historic
songs from the Women’s Suffrage Movement, cour-
Children continued on page 3
Photo credit Jose Cordon
Children continued from page 2
3
in our neighborhood!
Led by the wonderful Alex Iles, the rest of the band
featured Chris Eblé on trumpet and cornet, Brian Scanlon on sax and clarinet, Tom Hynes on guitar
and banjo, drummer Jamey Tate, bass player Trey
Henry, and keyboardist Barbara Catlin-Bergeron
Nicole Kubis, added her voice to the concert, round-
ing out this swinging group. Besides being part of
various film and TV scores, the musicians can also be seen around town—in the Long Beach Sympho-
ny, the LB Symphony Pops!, and as part of the Mu-
nicipal Band.
We plan on another Sizzling Summer Jazz event
next summer, and hope that Alex Iles and Friends will grace us with their music again and we hope
that you will be there to enjoy it! For now, it is
adieu to the 2019 season of Willmore SLAM, and on
to Winter in Willmore! tesy of Christina Wilson. The children dressed up in
historic costumes, and made their own old-timey
treat of cotton candy, with Willmore resident, Di-anne McNinch. The afternoon culminated with in-
structions on how to vote.
This is the first year that Anna Kate and Andy have
participated with us for SLAM. We look forward to
more events partnering with this wonderful local
children’s theater company.
Photo credit Jose Cordon
Buildings continued on page 4credit
Jazz continued from page 1
Photo credit Jose Cordon
Its not just about the buildingsIts not just about the buildingsIts not just about the buildings Article courtesy of the LA Times
Editors note: Preservation is not just about buildings, it deals with cultural icons, like the VIP Record sign,
or significant places, like Zaferia, a rural community located near the intersection of Anaheim Street and Redondo Ave, that housed a large Mexican popula-tion of sharecroppers. Most of Southern California’s agricultural past is a distant memory, including ours, and another important one in the San Fernando Val-ley is on its way out. Fifteen thousand acres of citrus groves once
blanketed the San Fernando Valley, but now just a
Photo credit Jose Cordon
4
A New Appointment to theA New Appointment to theA New Appointment to the Cultural Heritage CommissionCultural Heritage CommissionCultural Heritage Commission
By Cheryl Perry
If you have never applied for a Certificate of Appro-priateness (C of A) for a major project on a property
located in a Historic District, you may not be famil-
iar with what the Cultural Heritage Commission is
and what its role is.
The Cultural Heritage Commission (CHC) is com-prised of seven members appointed by the Mayor
and confirmed by the City Council. They are from
various professions and have a knowledge and inter-
est in the City’s heritage and landmark preservation.
They volunteer their time and expertise to help pre-
serve Long Beach’s historic character. The mission of the CHC is to protect historic struc-
tures that help define the history, diversity and cul-
ture of Long Beach. The 7-member Commission ad-
vises on best practices related to historic preserva-
tion in order to assist owners of historic residential and commercial properties in the renovation, reha-
bilitation or reuse of their property. This includes
residential and commercial properties that are non-
contributing or non-historic structures within the
historic districts. Structures are considered historic
at 50 years of age. Smaller projects, such as re-painting, re-stuccoing,
and installing fences can often be approved by the
Planning Department staff, “over the counter”.
Larger projects are referred to the CHC for approval.
Interior alterations are not reviewed, nor is ordinary
maintenance and repair with no physical changes. The CHC utilizes the City’s Historic District Guide-
lines, for items specific to a particular historic dis-
trict, and the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards
for Historic Preservation to guide their decisions.
Kathleen Irvine, President of Willmore City Heritage Association, was appointed to the Cultural Heritage
Commission in 2017 and was recently elected as
Vice-Chair of the CHC.
Congratulations Kathleen and thank you for contin-
uing to volunteer to help not only our Willmore City
Historic District, but the City’s other historic dis-tricts and landmarks as well.
single commercial citrus grove remains, a half-mile
from the 101 Freeway on the border of Tarzana and
Woodland Hills. At 14 acres, Bothwell Ranch represents less than
one-thousandth of what once was, before the or-
chards and ranches of the Valley gave way to tract
housing, cul-de-sacs and two-car garages. Citrus
production amid the multimillion-dollar homes is far
from a viable occupation, and the Bothwell family put the property on the market earlier this summer.
The $13.9-million real estate listing boasted of the
potential for constructing 26 single-family homes on
half-acre lots. Less promoted but nonetheless im-
plicit was the end of a way of a life, albeit a vestigial one.
But a sale has yet to be brokered, and the fate of
the property remains uncertain. On Wednesday, the
Los Angeles City Council took steps to preserve the
property as a Historic-Cultural Monument. The
city’s Cultural Heritage Commission still has to con-sider that proposal, in what will undoubtedly be a
lengthy process, but setting the designation in mo-
tion has essentially hit pause on any potential devel-
opment.
“It’s part of what makes the identity of the San Fer-nando Valley,” Councilman Bob Blumenfield, who
represents the area and first proposed the landmark
designation, told me over the phone. “When you
think about the San Fernando Valley, you think
about aerospace, you think about the indigenous
past, you think about ‘The Brady Bunch,’ and you think about our agricultural history. And there’s not
that many signs left of it.”
Surprising as it may sound today, Los Angeles was
actually the top agricultural county in the nation for
four decades, from 1909 to 1949, according to Ra-chel Surls, author of “From Cows to Concrete: The Rise and Fall of Farming in Los Angeles.” Citrus
crops were integral to that success, but equally if
not more integral to the branding and selling of
Southern California into being.
“The Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, different
citrus marketers and organizations such as Sunkist oranges were very much a part of basically making
Los Angeles look like this golden, almost tropical,
agricultural paradise where people could come and
get a whole new start,” Surls explained. “That posi-
tioning of Los Angeles as a place where citrus grew was really, really key to the growth of Los Angeles.”
For Southern California, the orange was — as
Charles Fletcher Lummis observed more than a cen-
tury ago — not only a fruit, but a romance. Citrus
crate labels became an art form in themselves, often
crammed with as many elements of local mythology as could fit on one box. The industry rose in tandem
with the railroads: The oranges went out and the
people came in. (It should be noted that this citrus
paradise was, like all Anglo mythologies of Southern
Buildings continued from page 3
Buildings continued on page 6
Calendar of events
Queen Marys Dark Harbor PLACE: Queen Mary
DATE: September 26—November 2
TIME: 5:30 p.m.—8:00 p.m. Brace for impact! It’s all hands on deck as a
rogue wave has hit the Queen Mary, causing
confusion and fear as the ship turns com-
pletely on its side, in danger of capsizing. Will
the Captain right the ship? Or will he lead her
and all souls aboard into a watery grave, nev-er to be seen or heard from again .
https://www.queenmary.com/
Hollywood Cemetery Tour PLACE: Hollywood Forever Cemetery
DATE: October 13
TIME: 9:00 a.m.—11:00 a.m. The Art Deco Society of Los Angeles “digs up
the dirt” on Hollywood’s history---and several
of its scandals---through a walking tour of the
120-year-old Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
Visit the gravesites of early Hollywood stars,
movie moguls, and pioneers, hearing their fascinating tales from historians and living
history interludes. !
http://adsla.org/info/events-view/
LB Historical Cemetery Tour PLACE: Sunnyside Cemetery
DATE: October 26 TIME: 9:00 a.m—2:040 p.m.
Since 1995, the HSLB has conducted an an-
nual living history tour at the Long Beach
Municipal Cemetery and adjacent Sunnyside
Cemetery “home” to more than 20,000 past
residents of the area. Featuring graveside performances by actors who relate the life and
demise of the person[s] lying at rest. The tour
is family-friendly and appropriate for all ages.
There is nothing scary about the vignettes or
the location. https://hslb.org/
Willmore City walking tour PLACE: Willmore City Historic District
DATE: October 26
TIME: 9:30 a.m.—12:00 p.m.
Willmore City was the first residential devel-
opment in Long Beach and contains the larg-est collection of early 1900’s homes in Long
Beach. Meeting at the Victorian Queen Anne
Bembridge House, this tour is designed as an
introduction to a cross-section of early 20th
century residential architecture. www.lbheritage.org
5
6
California, built on the backs of an immigrant work-
force whose lives were far from perfectly sun-
kissed.) In 1939, at the apex of citrus culture, at least six
railroad trains pulling 50 cars left L.A. laden with
citrus fruits every day.
Citrus production in the Valley declined sharply
after World War II and into the early 1960s, as rap-
idly growing suburbs replaced orange groves and commercial production largely migrated to Central
California. By the early 1970s, only a few hundred
acres remained.
And now there is just Bothwell Ranch. The issue of
preservation is made more complicated by the fact that the ranch is private property. Curbed LA re-
ports that the Bothwell family is far from happy
about the potential landmark designation, which
they fear will hurt the resale value and scare away
potential buyers.
Blumenfield mentioned that he had reached out to various conservancies and land trusts to alert them
of the site being for sale, and said an “ideal solu-
tion” would be an entity that cares about the history
of agriculture swooping in to purchase the facility
and preserve it as both open space and historic site. When seen in aerial photographs, the ranch looks
like a lush green anachronism — plucked from the
agrarian past and neatly but nonsensically deposit-
ed into a suburban jewel box of red roofs and tur-
quoise pools and tennis courts.
“We’re overrun,” as the late Bothwell matriarch told a reporter in 1998 with a sigh. “But you can’t
stand in the middle of Ventura Boulevard and say,
‘Stop!’”
No one except the Cultural Heritage Commission
can stop time.
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Willmore City Heritage Association
board members
Kathleen Irvine, President & Newsletter Editor (818) 470-0005
Sheila Gibbons, Vice-President, (408) 375-7485
Hulean Tyler, Treasurer (562) 755-4640 [email protected]
Isaac Salgado, Secretary (562) 972-9778
Jim Danno, Outreach (818) 266 7110
Leslie Holmes (562) 658-7620 [email protected]
Isabelle Avila (562) 508-1434
Ph. (562) 659-9455
www.willmorecity.org
www.facebook.com/pages/Willmore-City-Heritage-Association
Willmore City Heritage Association Membership
Yearly membership/sponsorships due in JUNE.
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