New York City

[KingsFan#1]

Speaking of hideous,
You know what building is hideous?
925 L Street, that's what's hideous. I mean seriously, it was built in '83, and yet it looks like someone poked holes in a cardboard box

[Ghost of Econgrad]

Originally Posted by wburg

My attitude hasn't changed that much in the past four years, but I wasn't talking about the past four years.

I think you despise me so much you will argue with me if I say it is a rainy day...

[ThatDarnSacramentan]

Originally Posted by KingsFan#1

Speaking of hideous,
You know what building is hideous?
925 L Street, that's what's hideous. I mean seriously, it was built in '83, and yet it looks like someone poked holes in a cardboard box

I don't mind that. It's kinda tall, and there are other buildings on the block just as tall. That's my idea of density for Sacramento: not necessarily Midtown Manhattan tall, but more wall to wall.

I'll tell you the real ugly parts: the 300 and 400 blocks of Capital Mall (the north), the 500-700 blocks of Capital Mall (the south), and especially those two blocks between 7th and 8th Streets between P and N.

[wburg]

7th and 8th between P and N? You mean the "Bunker" (the mostly underground building with the green roof, at least the half that is still landscaped) and the Heilbron mansion? Admittedly the parking lot that takes up the rest of the block is fairly underwhelming--the block was once fully built out, purchased during the redevelopment era and leveled except for the mansion.

[rampant_jwalker]

Originally Posted by ThatDarnSacramentan

Yes, and look at the hideous 50's government buildings lining Capital Mall.

Sacramento is still maturing as a city, and finding it's own identity. Some would say that its identity lies with its Gold Rush origins, railroad history, old sac, etc... But what often gets overlooked are these redevelopment-era modernist government buildings. What if these became the new heart of Sacramento's identity? How appropriate it would be for our city to use its more recent history to define itself!

Many people complain that Sacramento tries too hard to imitate places like Portland and Denver as it develops. What if instead of imitating these hyped up cities, we simply imitate ourselves, but with ten times the intensity. You know those "ugly" modernist government buildings on capital mall? Imagine hundreds more of them... closer together... taller... They could be places where we all live, work, dine, shop, play. It is the government town on steroids. No other cities are doing this, we can be the first.

[wburg]

There was roughly a century between the Gold Rush/transcontinental railroad era and the coming of the modernist state buildings. That period is the largely unexplored era when Sacramento was a city in its own right. We have been around as long as Portland and Denver, we are a mature city with our own past to draw from. The state buildings of the stretch between K Street and O Street, focused on Capitol Mall, are largely the result of an active effort to destroy Sacramento's most densely populated neighborhood and its real legacy as an urban place. We were a manufacturing town that produced everything from canned goods to steam locomotives. During the era when "city" was a four-letter word, we leveled a large chunk of the city by declaring it "blighted," destroying what was then our entertainment district in the process. People lived, worked and played there.

We are an old city, with our own urban legacy to draw upon. People seem to ignore it--like it's a giant blind spot in our past. But it was a very interesting time.

[Ghost of Econgrad]

Originally Posted by wburg

7th and 8th between P and N? You mean the "Bunker" (the mostly underground building with the green roof, at least the half that is still landscaped) and the Heilbron mansion? Admittedly the parking lot that takes up the rest of the block is fairly underwhelming--the block was once fully built out, purchased during the redevelopment era and leveled except for the mansion.

Side Note:
I Re-read our back and forth, I missed the part about when you returned from College. I do agree with you about the new life on the streets in Sacramento, and I will extend it further to the surrounding areas, Folsom life is more eventful and many other areas as well. Sacramento DT and MT are most improved in events and night life (IMHO). To me it all came to appearance in the last 4 years.

Question: How old is the "Bunker" Building? I thought it was from the late 60's.

One more thing:

This is a great article, I am sure many of you have read it and already know much about the History of Sacramento. I recently found it, and decided to post it.


http://www.sacramentopress.com/headl...ity_of_Saloons

Excerpt:
Talking to people who grew up in Sacramento in the 1930s-1950s exposed me to an aspect of Sacramento that I never expected. Despite its reputation as a place without much nightlife, Sacramento has a long history as a town that stayed open late, played as hard as it worked, and was seldom short of musical entertainment. At some point Sacramento got a reputation for being stodgy and unexciting, and most of us who grew up here assumed that was the case, but the historical evidence simply doesn’t back that up.

[wburg]

The bunker was a legacy of the first Jerry Brown administration--it was built in conjunction with the "solar" building next to it, so it would not block sunlight hitting the solar array. The bunker was supposed to be demolished to make way for a new "West End" state office building complex, but the latest state budget crises kind of put the kibosh on that. I personally think it's kind of neat, and wish they would re-landscape the other half of it. The landscaped part is a neat place to have lunch or just sit around downtown, and was an early example of the "green roof" that you see in every other projects these days. The building's mostly-underground construction also means it is superbly well insulated, and needs very little energy to heat or cool. I'm not horribly attached to it, but it's an interesting building and often overlooked.

I have been doing more and more research about the West End and its entertainment venues--it looks very much like we were starting to turn into the west coast's answer to Bourbon Street.

[KingsFan#1]

Originally Posted by rampant_jwalker

Sacramento is still maturing as a city, and finding it's own identity. Some would say that its identity lies with its Gold Rush origins, railroad history, old sac, etc... But what often gets overlooked are these redevelopment-era modernist government buildings. What if these became the new heart of Sacramento's identity? How appropriate it would be for our city to use its more recent history to define itself!

Many people complain that Sacramento tries too hard to imitate places like Portland and Denver as it develops. What if instead of imitating these hyped up cities, we simply imitate ourselves, but with ten times the intensity. You know those "ugly" modernist government buildings on capital mall? Imagine hundreds more of them... closer together... taller... They could be places where we all live, work, dine, shop, play. It is the government town on steroids. No other cities are doing this, we can be the first.

You gotta be kidding me, Sacramento would be the ugliest city in the world, besides, we wouldn't get any big companies to move in, because they too would like to work in a building that is not brown and square. We need architecture, and besides, even government buildings should look nice

[BrianSac]

Originally Posted by wburg

There was roughly a century between the Gold Rush/transcontinental railroad era and the coming of the modernist state buildings. That period is the largely unexplored era when Sacramento was a city in its own right. We have been around as long as Portland and Denver, we are a mature city with our own past to draw from. The state buildings of the stretch between K Street and O Street, focused on Capitol Mall, are largely the result of an active effort to destroy Sacramento's most densely populated neighborhood and its real legacy as an urban place. We were a manufacturing town that produced everything from canned goods to steam locomotives. During the era when "city" was a four-letter word, we leveled a large chunk of the city by declaring it "blighted," destroying what was then our entertainment district in the process. People lived, worked and played there.

We are an old city, with our own urban legacy to draw upon. People seem to ignore it--like it's a giant blind spot in our past. But it was a very interesting time.

I agree with you Wburg. Seems like sometime after WWII, in conjuction with suburban development and and the destruction of the west end /riverfront , Sacramento sort of developed its sleepy gov’t-agriculture image.

Up until that time Sacramento sounds like it was a lively place, a true river town sort of like Kansas City, Memphis, St. Louis, New Orleans. Our built environment was rich in stately new Victorian architecture built mostly with corporate money: Railroad money, Gold Rush money. We were a transportation, banking, and manufacturing town as opposed to a gov’t and agriculture town. At the same time gov’t (both state and fed) and agriculture were growing Sacramento was becoming suburban and destroying its lively urban areas.

[Ghost of Econgrad]

Originally Posted by rampant_jwalker

Sacramento is still maturing as a city, and finding it's own identity. Some would say that its identity lies with its Gold Rush origins, railroad history, old sac, etc... But what often gets overlooked are these redevelopment-era modernist government buildings. What if these became the new heart of Sacramento's identity? How appropriate it would be for our city to use its more recent history to define itself!

Many people complain that Sacramento tries too hard to imitate places like Portland and Denver as it develops. What if instead of imitating these hyped up cities, we simply imitate ourselves, but with ten times the intensity. You know those "ugly" modernist government buildings on capital mall? Imagine hundreds more of them... closer together... taller... They could be places where we all live, work, dine, shop, play. It is the government town on steroids. No other cities are doing this, we can be the first.

I can only find one response to this that is resonable:

WTF!?



From BrianSac

Up until that time Sacramento sounds like it was a lively place, a true river town sort of like Kansas City, Memphis, St. Louis, New Orleans. Our built environment was rich in stately new Victorian architecture built mostly with corporate money: Railroad money, Gold Rush money. We were a transportation, banking, and manufacturing town as opposed to a gov’t and agriculture town. At the same time gov’t (both state and fed) and agriculture were growing Sacramento was becoming suburban and destroying its lively urban areas.

From what I am understanding by more and more research of Sacramento's history, from 1850 to 1950, Sacramento was a lively, developed and still growing city. I even heard a historian say that Sacramento was more eventful than Paris in the late 1800's (Gold Rush, etc). I like the pictures at CSUS showing a lively Downtown with street cars and crowds (as I have discussed before). I would like to know the Economic reasons that made the city decline so much, precise unapinionated reasons.

[wburg]

Originally Posted by BrianSac

I agree with you Wburg. Seems like sometime after WWII, in conjuction with suburban development and and the destruction of the west end /riverfront , Sacramento sort of developed its sleepy gov’t-agriculture image.

Up until that time Sacramento sounds like it was a lively place, a true river town sort of like Kansas City, Memphis, St. Louis, New Orleans. Our built environment was rich in stately new Victorian architecture built mostly with corporate money: Railroad money, Gold Rush money. We were a transportation, banking, and manufacturing town as opposed to a gov’t and agriculture town. At the same time gov’t (both state and fed) and agriculture were growing Sacramento was becoming suburban and destroying its lively urban areas.

Agriculture in the Valley grew up along with Sacramento--but we were never a farm town. Like Chicago, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Seattle and other cities, we were an agricultural processing center. Chicago's stockyards, Milwaukee's breweries, Kansas' grain mills and Seattle's lumber mills would all be useless if they were not surrounded by huge resource areas--cattle ranching, hop farming, wheat and corn fields, huge forests, etcetera. Sacramento's surrounding country had all of the above.

This was very deliberate. By the time the Central Pacific was built, the Gold Rush was already over, but people were discovering how ridiculously productive the soil of the Central Valley was (an after-effect of millenia of alluvial flooding.) Six months after the railroad was complete, it was made obsolete for its intended purpose (shipping from the east coast to India and China) by the completion of the Suez Canal. The Associates of the CP realized they had better find something to ship on their new railroad, or go broke in a big, big way. Their solution: sell their massive land grants to emigrant farmers, ship the farmers' products east, and ship eastern products from the east coast to the farmers in exchange.

But shipping agricultural products back east isn't that easy. You need railroad cars that can keep produce fresh and grain dry during a two-week trip through freezing mountains and scorching deserts, and locomotives to pull them. You need facilities that can can and freeze and dehydrate and mill and slaughter and ferment and pack it all up for shipping. And Sacramento did it all.

We had some bank headquarters, but San Francisco pretty quickly took over as the center of banking and finance in California. Typically, people who got rich in Sacramento moved to San Francisco, unless, like E.B. Crocker, they died before they could move. But for farmers throughout the valley between Redding and Stockton, Sacramento was the Big City, where all their product went, and where they went to shop, visit and gawk at city lights.

In addition to its role as a Gulf port, New Orleans had its own "agricultural product"--the slave markets, where human beings were bought and sold. Sacramento, on the other hand, was an early hotbed of abolitionism that helped tilt the national balance away from slavery.

[wburg]

Originally Posted by Ghost of Econgrad

From what I am understanding by more and more research of Sacramento's history, from 1850 to 1950, Sacramento was a lively, developed and still growing city. I even heard a historian say that Sacramento was more eventful than Paris in the late 1800's (Gold Rush, etc). I like the pictures at CSUS showing a lively Downtown with street cars and crowds (as I have discussed before). I would like to know the Economic reasons that made the city decline so much, precise unapinionated reasons.

I wouldn't agree with the suggestion that Sacramento was more eventful than Paris in the late 1800s (Haussmann's city planning, invasion by Germany, the Paris Commune, etc) but we were a lively place.

You'll like half the reasons why the city declined so much, but not the other half:

It's the government's fault, because they subsidized the creation of suburbs.

[Ghost of Econgrad]

Originally Posted by wburg

I wouldn't agree with the suggestion that Sacramento was more eventful than Paris in the late 1800s (Haussmann's city planning, invasion by Germany, the Paris Commune, etc) but we were a lively place.

You'll like half the reasons why the city declined so much, but not the other half:

It's the government's fault, because they subsidized the creation of suburbs.

I wasn't thinking about WW1 or WW2 events! Hahaha!

I know the standard Nu-Urbanist belief is that the Suburbs were subsidized by Gov. I have posted much that discounts this (if anyone had the time to read them). If I find new evidence that supports your theory or supports mine, I will post it. Even if it proves me wrong I will post it...which I do not think will happen...I hope!

[ThatDarnSacramentan]

I have an entire shelf in my bookshelf of historical photo books on Sacramento I bought at Avid Reader (support the local guys!). I look at a lot of those pictures, and I can only think one thought: what the heck happened?!

As for those ugly government buildings (I suppose that one that goes over 9th Street has to stay put), perhaps that proposed new courthouse where the Towers were supposed to go could start a revolution for Capital Mall and the government buildings in this city.

[rampant_jwalker]

Originally Posted by wburg

There was roughly a century between the Gold Rush/transcontinental railroad era and the coming of the modernist state buildings. That period is the largely unexplored era when Sacramento was a city in its own right. We have been around as long as Portland and Denver, we are a mature city with our own past to draw from. The state buildings of the stretch between K Street and O Street, focused on Capitol Mall, are largely the result of an active effort to destroy Sacramento's most densely populated neighborhood and its real legacy as an urban place. We were a manufacturing town that produced everything from canned goods to steam locomotives. During the era when "city" was a four-letter word, we leveled a large chunk of the city by declaring it "blighted," destroying what was then our entertainment district in the process. People lived, worked and played there.

We are an old city, with our own urban legacy to draw upon. People seem to ignore it--like it's a giant blind spot in our past. But it was a very interesting time.

Excuse me??? Sacramento is NOT an old city by any measure. Rome is an old city. Lisbon is an old city. Sacramento is a baby that was born overweight less than 200 years ago. Don't get sad about it loosing its baby fat. The best is still to come.

[ThatDarnSacramentan]

I think he meant old for West Coast standards, compared to a place like Elk Grove. That's the way I read it.

[BrianSac]

Yes, when I said agriculture, i meant the ag processing center for the valley. What you describe is a Sacramento that capitalism built. Also, the city seemed “urban” with a eye on culture. It took pride in having theaters, grand theaters. Some of our best architecture was built before 1940, and for such a small and young city Sacramento had a big city attitude and was not ashamed of it.

Yeah, I would have to disagree regarding the comparison with Paris, the late 1800’s was when France and Paris was at its height. Paris is like the French London, the French New York, nothing like Sacramento in terms of pace, wealth, and impact.

To the Orignal Poster (OP), kudos for the NYC pics!

I was there twice this summer. June and July. We rented an apt near Madison Sq. Park. Pretty much covered Chelsea, Meat packing district, Greenwich Village, Soho, and all of lower Manhattan. We found an old book from 1979 that described “great walks” in gritty dangerous NYC of 1975 and could compare it with gentrified NYC of 2010. We followed the route mostly through lower manhattan. It described Central Park as a place where a murder occurred every night, a far cry from Central Park today.

NYC is amazing, always will be. We went for the closing of a broadway show, (my buddy was the stage manager for the show), and for Gay Pride, the parade was down 5th ave/35th street down into the Village. It was great seeing all those NYC city cops keeping the peace on 5th Ave. New Yorkers are nicer, more polite these days, it almost didn’t seem like New York.
New York was hot, humid, and muggy at 4am everynight when I was there, expect one night the sky exploded with lighting and thunder striking the Empire State Building. Loved it!

[wburg]

Originally Posted by Ghost of Econgrad

I wasn't thinking about WW1 or WW2 events! Hahaha!

I know the standard Nu-Urbanist belief is that the Suburbs were subsidized by Gov. I have posted much that discounts this (if anyone had the time to read them). If I find new evidence that supports your theory or supports mine, I will post it. Even if it proves me wrong I will post it...which I do not think will happen...I hope!

I wasn't talking about WWI or WWII either--I'm talking about the 1870s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Prussian_War

I have posted about this many times over the past few years, and it is not belief or opinion, it was deliberate government policy to promote suburban growth, depopulate urban centers, and create new transportation systems based on tax dollars instead of privately owned railroads and streetcars.

Late 19th and early 20th century civic reformers felt that city living was a great evil--not just due to pollution and disease, but exposure to foreign ways of thinking, proximity between different classes and races, and a way of life they considered antithetical to the American ideal of the yeoman farmer. This resulted in major social movements to relocate people from cities to suburbs.

This policy found application in the adoption of zoning laws, which promoted suburbs and sprawl by separating uses geographically.

It was supported by federal housing policy: the FHA based their loans explicitly on the race of neighborhoods, with nonwhite neighborhoods getting the lowest rating. Because the FHA loans were backed by the government, they set the tone for nearly all other loans. Nonwhite neighborhoods were thus "redlined" and their property value artificially depressed by government fiat, and nobody could get loans to improve or build. These were almost entirely in downtowns, but suburbs (which, after 1920 through the 1960s, had racial exclusion covenants) were white, making them a lower risk. Getting loans were comparatively easy. Loans were even easier with VA loans following WWII--but they were only good in the suburbs, and those with VA loans were disproportionately white.

Other postwar policy included redevelopment acts that gave cities lots of money to demolish neighborhoods if they declared them "blighted"--using eminent domain and tax increment financing, cities had enormous power to demolish neighborhoods of low property value (the nonwhite neighborhoods) and re-zone them as commercial. Because if the nonwhites stayed in town they would just keep property values low, they were kicked out, effectively depopulating the cities. This was deemed a great success--downtown was considered a place to work and shop, but never to live.

Highways were federally funded projects, promoted to some extent during the 1930s but really taking off in the postwar era. The shape and form of cities is driven by their mode of transportation. 18th-early 19th century cities produced dense, walkable foot-traffic cities like New York and Boston. Late 19th and early 20th streetcar/railroad cities, along with technologies like steel building frames and elevators, made broader but taller cities. Interurban railroads and paved streets in the early 20th century produced farther-out streetcar suburbs and the first auto suburbs. Highways and freeways made the suburbs explode and the urban core implode. It was very easy to leave downtown, but very difficult to live there.

The problem is, if you live in the suburbs, you can also work and shop there, as the commercial and business worlds followed the residents. People no longer had any reason to go downtown. So they stopped.

[wburg]

Originally Posted by rampant_jwalker

Excuse me??? Sacramento is NOT an old city by any measure. Rome is an old city. Lisbon is an old city. Sacramento is a baby that was born overweight less than 200 years ago. Don't get sad about it loosing its baby fat. The best is still to come.

By the standards of the western United States, we're as old a city as Denver, Seattle, Portland, Chicago, etcetera. Even the technically older "cities" of Los Angeles and San Francisco were tiny backwaters when Sacramento was founded. By the standards of Europe, New York and Boston are still losing their baby fat. If someone claims Sacramento is a young city compared to cities that were founded in the same decade, no, they're wrong. And cities like Rome tend to cling very dearly to their remaining "baby fat"--if they had not, even when they were only a century and a half old, they wouldn't have any to show off today!