My Town Monday: Gina's Santa Monica, California

My husband and I are getting ready to pull up our roots and move away from Southern California. It's an exciting time full of hopes and boxes and logistics and more boxes and practical considerations and trips to the Goodwill. In the midst of all that, it's also a time to start saying our good-byes.

Each of us lived in Santa Monica for more than twenty-five years--together we were there for more than fifteen of them. Our children were born there, learned how to walk there (ate sand on the beach there), were schooled there, and so on. Even though we haven't lived there for the past ten years, we're not far away and I have to say, it's the part of SoCal I'll miss the most.

But before I go on much longer, let me clarify one thing. My Santa Monica is what became termed the People's Republic of Santa Monica, also known as Ocean Park. It's the southern part of the city that for a long time was occupied by lower income folks, artists, bikers, and freaks. With gentrification and the demise of the rent-control laws that kept people like us there, much of the area changed. But not all of it. Today I went in search of my Santa Monica.

First stop was Wildflower Pizza on Main Street. This building and I go back to at least the eleventh grade when some friends of mine opened an Indian Restaurant there called Bharatiya Bhojan, which means "truck stop" in Hindi (or so they told me). Their tiny restaurant was open for dinners only. You ordered the meat version or the vegetarian version of whatever they'd made that day. There was no menu and it was lovely. And spicy. And they gave me beer (after all they were my friends) and I always had a lot of fun. And yes, I'm sure the beer helped.

Next up is the California Heritage Museum. This building was built in 1894 for the son of Santa Monica's founder, Roy Jones. By the 1970's it was falling apart and it was slated to be torn down. There was a public outcry and the building was saved. It and another were moved about two miles south to a public park where it lives today. I remember watching them moving the buildings down Main Street to it's current location. From the lovely condition of the buildings you'd never know how decrepit they had become.

When I first moved to Ocean Park one of my favorite destinations was this building: the neighborhood library. This is one of the Carnegie Libraries, I believe built in the 20's. I spent a lot of time there with my daughter when she was very little. I can remember struggling to get her stroller up the stairs and wondering how a person like me who could organize a television crew and bring in a show on budget couldn't get a damn stroller up a flight of steps. Since then they've remodeled the place and now there's a ramp at the side door. :)

Just a block south of there is this building, and the store Jadis. As I recall it was a second hand store that started to specialize in props for the film and TV industry. If you click on the image it should blow up big enough that you can see the interesting items they have for rent. I probably walked by that building hundreds of times over the years. For a long time they had one of those amazing Tesla coils that was fun to watch.

A mere two blocks away is the beach, and from there (of course) we walk to Lifeguard Stand 26 where we return time and time again like homing pigeons. That is because my children's school would have regular beach days (I don't think they do now--more's the pity) and they always congregated at Lifeguard Stand 26. This way--as a parent slipping away from whatever important thing we were supposed to be doing--we always knew where to find the fun. Now my children have grown and those days are long gone but we still always make for LG26 and you know what? It's quite common for us to find familiar faces from those school beach days also making for that destination.

Not far north from there you can make out in this picture the Santa Monica pier. For those who have never been to this part of the world, the famous carousel (which you can't see in this photo) was where Robert Redford sought out Paul Newman in the movie The Sting.

And here, pictured, is one of the very best reasons to go to the beach: to get sand in one's toes. It's a lovely prelude to actually getting them wet in the splashy, splashy water.

Just up from the beach--and on the way back to Main Street--is a rather unassuming grass patch. What you can't see from this picture is the spiral path that winds around leading to the top. It's a gradual incline that's just perfect for a two-to-four year old who is playing "catch me if you can" which my son did endlessly. We always called it Turtle Hill. I don't know if that's the real name for it or not.

Finally, just on the edge of Venice, I couldn't help grabbing a shot of this building. It's the old Firehouse Restaurant that had a featured role in the movie Speed. Anyone remember Keanu Reeves getting a cup of coffee, then answering a pay phone outside and seeing a bus blow up? Yup. That was here.

In L.A. you gotta always be ready for your closeup.

In spite of all that, the glamour, the sand, and the pyrotechnics, I am glad to be moving on. I've been here a very long time. Still, there are many places I'm going to miss and a lot of wonderful memories.

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Gina Black's Restoration set historical romance, The Raven's Revenge, is available in paperback from Amazon.com, and it can be ordered from your local bookseller.