These streets were made for walking | Ross Eric Gibson, Local History

Pleasant weather and summer holidays make it a good time to check out Debbie Bulger and Richard Stover’s book “Secret Walks and Staircases in Santa Cruz.” It provides 28 self-guided walking tours that give you a pedestrian’s view of Santa Cruz. For Santa Cruz was actually created for walking, even back to its beginnings. Before there was a town, trails became beaten paths, sometimes established by migrating deer or Indigenous residents. The earliest streets are seldom straight, established by foot or hoof as the avenue of least resistance.

While early businesses congregated around the Mission Plaza and School Street, there was little room to expand. Most people entered Santa Cruz by the two downtown fords crossing the San Lorenzo River, with the Soquel Avenue ford bringing travelers from the south and the Water Street Ford bringing travelers from the mountains. So downtown businesses grew up around these two gateway fords. Even after bridges were built on these sites, they had to leave access to the fords so travelers could water their horses and fill their canteens.

Horses were the engine of choice for getting around, but they needed their own infrastructure. If you left them at the streetside hitching post while doing your downtown shopping, horses needed a water trough for long stays. You wouldn’t want to leave your buggy for more than an hour with the horse attached, so you needed a livery stable to tend your buggy and horses for several hours to several days. Life moved to a slower pace to accommodate horse culture. Yet towns were set up for the convenience of pedestrians, to make everything in walking distance.

Because the downtown basin sits in an amphitheater surrounded by steep cliff terraces, it was a longer trip to drive from the hills and terraces into downtown by a circuitous route than to take a more direct line. Local merchants enjoyed building their homes on the bluffs above Rincon Street overlooking downtown. While their carriage entrance was at the top of the hill, the row of mansions also had long staircases down their cliffside yards so the merchants could walk the quarter mile to work downtown. When the railroad came to Santa Cruz in 1875, the bluffs were cut back, held in place by granite retaining walls. Pedestrian amenities were important to early Santa Cruz, providing public sidewalks, pathways, alleys, staircases, foot bridges, drinking fountains, all things to shorten distances between places and support pedestrian uses.

However, after the 1955 flood, the freeway movement came in to redesign towns for the convenience of automobiles only. Blocks were demolished for parking lots. And with towns decentralized along freeway corridors, pedestrian connections were lost and amenities being removed. Yet Santa Cruz still retained considerable pedestrian infrastructure which would suddenly become an unexpected focus.

The 1989 quake

After the 1989 earthquake, the town was in a state of emergency, to make roads passable, fence-off or mitigate quake-caused dangers, with landmarks either being repaired or demolished. I was on the County Landmark Plaques Committee when one of our members asked if I had heard about the sudden disappearance of the town’s last Victorian drinking fountain. This masonry gatepost had an arched cove that looked like a baptismal font, sitting at the foot of a pedestrian pathway up the back of Beach Hill, running from the junction of Pacific and Front Street, up to the historic Jordan House. We were informed Santa Cruz Public Works had carted it away. They hadn’t asked the Historic Preservation Commission if they should, simply because it wasn’t an historic building. It appeared to be in a marginal roadside area, not associated with any private property.

We started to realize that there were marginal areas streetside that contained important features without historic oversight. I said I noticed a cast-iron horse hitching post on Mission Street, which I used to secure my bicycle as a kid, had disappeared before the earthquake. And what about the handmade historic granite walls, and the hidden neighborhood public stairs? It would seem these too only exist at the discretion of Public Works, subject to vanishing without notice. Judith Steen remembered seeing a list of Santa Cruz hitching posts and brought it out. It was a 1978 survey conducted on behalf of the Historic Preservation Commission, where Ken Houston compiled a list of 16 posts. Afterward, city planning staff expanded the list to 26 posts. These showed us that while no official designation had been ascribed, the Historic Preservation Commission considered them worthy of special notice and oversight.

I had been appointed to the City Historic Preservation Commission in 1992, so I brought the matter to the commission’s attention, concerning the vulnerability of historic streetscape features not protected by Historic Building status. The commission wasn’t sure if protections were available but acknowledged the early Historic Preservation Commission had already been concerned about certain features. We decided if we made lists, we can at least be consulted should these features be scheduled for removal. We specifically wanted to list handcrafted retaining walls, public stairs and walkways, hitching posts and fountains. I was assigned to write the “Santa Cruz Streetscape Survey.”

First, I wanted to find out the origins of the old drinking fountain, which ornamented a popular hillside pedestrian walkway. I learned the walk had been built by Santa Cruz Mayor Gustave Bowman who had a Victorian mansion at the top of the bluff. Before the path was created, the hilltop sidewalk ended at the edge of Bowman’s property, and pedestrians had to walk in the street down to a hairpin turn in the road. The inside of the bend had a drop-off that was hard for pedestrians to negotiate safely, especially while horse buggies were making the same turn on your other side. So Bowman created a path along the edge of his property down to the foot of the bluff and covered it with bitumen (natural tar). At first it had a wood railing.

In the 1890s, the safety bicycle became a popular fad, making it a problem when they took over sidewalks and foot paths. So Bowman rebuilt his wall in Romanesque brick and added a pipe-railing baffle. The first gate had an opening on the right, immediately followed by a second gate with an opening on the left. This was impossible for bicycles to enter. The path was a godsend for many. But it made news during one frosty Easter around the turn-of-the-century, when the bitumen frosted over, and well-dressed ladies in Easter bonnets and gentlemen in top hats found themselves sliding down the icy pathway as if on roller skates! Bowman placed the ornamental drinking fountain at the lower end of the path. As a kid, I remember the fountain was always flowing, and my grandfather speculated it must be spring fed, instead of city water, which made sense due to the natural springs on Beach Hill. A few years ago, a chunk of the cliff gave way near the hairpin turn, permanently closing the path.

When the Streetscape Survey was done, we shared it with the Public Works Department, and they appeared before the Historic Preservation Commission to discuss our issues and to share their plans. They wanted to create a fence along the new pedestrian/bike path atop Blackburn Terrace (between today’s Monterey Bay Marine Sanctuary Visitor’s Center and Depot Park). They wanted it strong enough to stop cars, similar to the freeway fender-style crash barrier they were replacing. Since the city had gotten the Howe Truss Bridge restored, our concern was that the fencing be designed to harmonize with the wooden bridge. We didn’t want a mere concrete barrier that blocked the view. Public Works came back with exactly what we were looking for: an old-fashioned plank fence you could see through, while incorporating a strong iron framework. They were so pleased with the design they created they used it again on the Front Street grade up Beach Hill.

Secondly, they wanted to tear down the granite retaining wall at the foot of Blackburn Terrace. I was sorry to see it go, because of the story I could relate in walking tours. The original railroad line ran down Embarcadero Slot, where a granite wall had been placed on this undulating bluff. Then the train tracks were moved to the west of Blackburn Terrace, while the Embarcadero Slot tracks were converted to a trolley line. To make room for foot traffic to the beach, the bluff was cut back to the granite wall and a sidewalk installed. This creating an undulating wall that looked like a dragon. They told us they could simulate the old design on the new wall, and their work visually reminds us of the wall’s history.

Public Works also restored the granite wall holding up the Front Street Grade. I noticed that granite walls held up better than cinderblock walls. An expert said it was the odd angles of the rubblestone mosaic pattern, whose irregular surfaces grip the hillside like stone teeth. Many of these walls have weep holes, to prevent the prevalent springs coming out of the bluffs from being dammed up behind the wall, that could cause a collapse.

Garden stairs

At the north end of Cliff Street on Beach Hill, is what was once called the most beautiful landscaped staircase in Santa Cruz. It is attributed to architect Edward L. Van Cleeck, who had been hired to design the 1904 Boardwalk Casino, as well as propose sketches to beautify Beach Street with a classically appointed Esplanade, and a railing of obelisk posts and lights (where Front Street climbs Beach Hill to Third Street), were placed atop a granite wall. For the Cliff Street Stairs, it was lit at the top with a three-globe streetlight, began the descent in a circular stair with planted urns and flower beds, leading to a straight stairway descending to the bend in the river, with concrete lamp posts at a middle landing. The landscaped stairway originally sat between the Capt. Wm. Rennie Victorian east of Cliff Street, and the Glaslyn Flower Farm on the west, a beautiful commercial flower field by J. Montroyd Sharpe (site of El View). After the 1989 earthquake, the straight section of concrete stairway became unstable, and was replaced with an industrial metal stairway.

The Historic Preservation Commission learned at a preservation seminar the importance of identifying historic streetscape features to maintain a “sense of place” and continuity, even in a changing world. Santa Cruz cherishes its pedestrian culture, which can be enjoyed by following the 28 tours in Debbie Bulger and Richard Stover’s book “Secret Walks and Staircases in Santa Cruz.”  It’s better than a gym membership and shows the abundant diversity Santa Cruz offers pedestrians.