Reflections & Observations

Finally…Some Good News

   It had not been a good week for people who love this idiosyncratic old beach town.
   The Midnight Special, the city’s longtime independent bookstore, announced that high rents were forcing it off the Third Street Promenade, and probably out of the city. The Aero Theater, perhaps L.A.’s last neighborhood movie theater, went public with its money woes. The Museum of Flying said it was leaving town and taking Santa Monica’s unique aeronautical history with it. It was as if Santa Monica was literally being dismantled before our eyes.
   Then, it happened. Very late on Tuesday night, July 23, a group of residents appeared before the City Council and presented a plan for saving a shotgun house on Second Street from the wrecking ball. Immediate action was necessary, they said, because the house, one of the oldest in the city, was scheduled to be torn down the next day. The plan covered everything but a place to put the house until a permanent site was found.
   City Hall is not notable for its speed. And unusual requests tend to make it uneasy, But the residents were organized, determined and eloquent, and, to the astonishment of almost everyone, the City Council and City staff, led by City Manager Susan McCarthy, made a temporary site at the Santa Monica Airport available, and staff spent the following day cutting through a thicket of red tape and clearing the way for the house to be moved from Second Street to the airport on Saturday morning.
   Among the speakers were Rick Laudati, co-chair of OPCO, arguably the oldest neighborhood organization in the city; Tom Cleys, the brand-new president of the brand-new Santa Monica Conservancy; Pam Vavra, head of WILMONT, the Wilshire/Montana Organization; Sherrill Kushner, one of the Conservancy founders, and architect Mario Fonda-Bonardi.
   On Thursday, an anonymous donor put up the requisite front money. On Friday, movers prepared the house for the move. And on Saturday, the house rolled through the streets of Santa Monica and was set down on its new site at the airport at precisely 7 a.m.
   Having saved the house, the group will now conduct a fund-raising drive, under the OPCO banner, to pay for the move, restore the house, find a new site and a devise an appropriate and useful new role for it.
   For a change, the good guys won, and a vital piece of history was saved. It was a dazzling demonstration of community spirit, brains, heart and guts, and, perhaps, a turning point in the effort to prevent Santa Monica’s slide into mediocrity.