Archives Open House this Saturday October 3

Via the Sac For Tourists blog:
There will be a California State Archives open house this Saturday from 4-8 PM. Definitely worthwhile if you're into old pieces of paper and unusual relics of California history; I will be there representing the Sacramento County Historical Society and selling some of our own old pieces of paper. The Archives are on the top floor of the California Museum building at the southeast corner of 10th & O Street, admission is free.

Sacramento Old City Cemetery Tour Sat Sep. 26

The Sacramento County Historical Society presents its Fall Social & Barbecue Under the Stars in the Old City Cemetery

When:
Saturday, September 26, 2009 5:30 PM - 10:00 PM
Where:
Sacramento Old City Cemetery, 1000 Broadway

Sacramento's city cemetery was established in 1849 with a donation of 10 acres of high ground by John Sutter. Among its first internments were the victims of Sacramento's 1850 cholera epidemic. Some notable residents of the old city cemetery are city founder John Sutter Jr., our first mayor Hardin Bigelow, and Central Pacific founder Mark Hopkins. Thousands of other Sacramentants inhabit the cemtery, from all walks of life. Tour guides will introduce you to some of the cemetery's fascinating inhabitants, and explain some of the history of the cemetery, on two guided tours through the property. Bring a flashlight!

The evening will also feature musical performances by Agent Ribbons, Dead Western and The Freebadge Serenaders.

Admission for non-SCHS members is $10, FREE for SCHS members.
Dinner is an additional $15 for members or non-members; there is limited availability for dinners, please ask at the front gate.
Menu is BBQ brisket and chicken (veggie burgers on request), potato salad, cornbread, beans, coleslaw, soda and cookies, provided by JR's Texas BBQ.

The event will take place inside the Old City Cemetery; please park in the parking lot across the street near 10th & Broadway, as the cemetery's main gates will be closed by the time the event lets out and cars parked inside will not be able to exit! Gates will close at 6:30 PM so please arrive promptly.

This event is open to all ages.

Funds from this event will benefit the Sacramento County Historical Society (a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit) and the Sacramento Old City Cemetery Committee. For more information about the Old City Cemetery Committee, visit their website and for more information about SCHS, visit the SCHS website.

Note: This is not the same tour as the popular Lantern Tours given by the Old City Cemetery Committee in October. That tour is already sold out, so if you want the chance to experience the Old City Cemetery after dark, this is your opportunity!

SOCA Home Tour in Boulevard Park Sep 20

On Sunday, September 20, the Sacramento Old City Association will hold its 34th annual historic home tour in the Boulevard Park neighborhood. Tour hours are from 10:00 AM until 4:00 PM.

The SOCA Home Tour is an annual event, and the main fundraiser for the Sacramento Old City Association. This home tour includes an inside look at eight restored historic homes in Boulevard Park. Tour visitors can walk through each of the homes on the tour to see how the workmanship of historic homes is often as beautiful on the inside as the outside.

The Home Tour also includes a street fair, including artisans and craftspersons specializing in historic home repair and restoration, local artists, crafters, photographers and artisans, and community organizations. Live music will be provided by Julie the Bruce, Andrew Surber and "Drum Polygon." The Sacramento "Capitol A's" Model A Club will display their restored antique cars throughout the tour. CLUCK (Campaign to Legalize Urban Chicken Keeping) will raffle a chicken coop and other prizes at their booth.

Tickets for the Home Tour cost $20, but you get a $1 discount if you arrive on a bicycle. Tickets for the fair can be bought at the site of the tour: the SOCA tour booth will be located on the corner of 21st and G Street, directly in the street median. Visiting the homes requires a ticket, but the street fair is free, and will run along 21st Street between F and H Street.

This year's tour is located in the Boulevard Park historic district, a neighborhood that is visually distinct due to the landscaped street medians running down 21st and 22nd Street. These medians were part of a real estate development project dating to 1905. Located on the site of the old Union Park racetrack, Boulevard Park was the first planned development of the Wright & Kimbrough real estate firm. The development's boundaries were from B Street to H Street between 20th and 22nd, with a portion of 23rd.

When the neighborhood was built, a streetcar line ran along H Street from downtown to McKinley Park. Many of the most elegant Boulevard Park homes were located facing H Street, with more modest but still beautiful homes closer to C Street. C Street had its own streetcar line, but freight trains also ran on the same tracks until 1953! In addition to the landscaped medians, three blocks in Boulevard Park have small central park areas located in the center of the block, in a space normally occupied by backyards and alleys. Covenants on property deeds required minimum setbacks, prohibited high fences and noxious uses, and made provision for shared tenancy of the alley parks. These features gave the neighborhood a pleasing, park-like look that is still apparent a century after its construction. The current Boulevard Park neighborhood includes an area beyond the original development. Homes in the neighborhood are a mixture of Craftsman and Prairie, Classical Revival, Colonial Revival, Spanish Revival and other revival st yles. Elsewhere in the neighborhood are Victorian homes of the Queen Anne, Stick, Shingle and Italianate styles.

Boulevard Park is one of Sacramento's most beautiful and well-known neighborhoods, and this year's SOCA Home Tour provides a unique look at the architecture, culture and creativity that make our city a great place.


SOCA's Web site can be found at: www.sacoldcity.org and includes membership information, details of SOCA activities and events, and updates about planning and preservation issues in Sacramento's central city.

Photograph taken by Randy Lum.

Sacramento History Bike Ride Sunday August 30

This summer, a group of Sacramento State graduate students and local history enthusiasts began gathering once a month to take a bike ride through Sacramento's historic neighborhoods and share their knowledge about local history, historic architecture and cultural heritage. Two rides have occurred so far. The next will take place on Sunday, August 30, at 9:00 AM, in the Southside Park neighborhood. Riders will meet at the site of the Robert E. Callahan Bandstand in Southside Park, near the corner of 7th and T Street, at 9:00 AM.

Built on a former slough, Southside was inhabited by generations of immigrants and working-class families. The neighborhood's many ethnic communities, including Portuguese, Italian, Mexican and Japanese, came together in Southside Park, the neighborhood's namesake. Whether for fireworks displays on the Fourth of July, for a trip back to Gold Rush days at Roaring Camp, or simply to paddle the lake in a rented boat, Southside Park provided a place of respite and recreation in this bustling city. The neighborhood surrounding the park faced many challenges as Sacramento grew, but its residents faced these challenges with a tradition of political activism, community participation, and a strong sense of civic pride that is still evident today.

The Sacramento Historic Bike Ride is a free-form event: riders will decide where the tour should go. There are several sites I hope to visit in order to tell the story of the Southside neighborhood's diverse history, culture and development, but there is plenty of room for everyone's participation. If you have a story about the neighborhood, a historic site, a significant person, or a good story, please feel free to share it! The tour will run until about 11:00 AM. There is no cost to participate in the tour.

For those that may be interested, I will bring copies of my books, Sacramento's Southside Park and Sacramento's Streetcars, for sale at $20 each, and will happily sign them for you.

800 K hotel/Bel-Vue demolition goes back to City Council

On Tuesday, August 25, the Sacramento City Council will hear a proposal by developers Bob Leach and Parkcrest Development to build a hotel at the corner of 8th and K Street and a parking structure at the corner of 8th and L Street, a project that would require demolition of city landmark the Bel-Vue Apartments and adjacent buildings. The meeting will be held at New City Hall, 915 I Street, at 6:00 PM in the main City Council chambers.

The item was originally to be heard at the August 11 meeting of the City Council (see sacramentopress.com/headline/11884/City_to_decide_on_fate_of_BelVue_Apartments_and_Berry_Hotel_today ) but was taken off the agenda at the last minute. According to the staff report, the "Exclusive Right to Negotiate" between the city of Sacramento and the developers expired on Sunday, August 23, but city staff can still work with the development group while a new RFQ (Request for Qualifications) is being prepared, a process that should take about 90 days according to the staff report. If city staff and developers cannot reach an agreement, the new RFQ will request proposals from other developers and development groups for a different project on the 800 K Street site.

Also according to the staff report, city staff had not fully analyzed the new proposal as of its submittal date of Friday, August 21, and could not provide complete comment. One change from previous proposals is a change to requested exemption from the hotel's "Transient Occupancy Tax": instead of 100% exemption from TOT for 10 years, they are asking for 50% exemption for 14 years. According to the accompanying financial documents, this would add up to approximately the same total subsidy for the project, but over a different span of time.

Another change is that Mohammed "Mo" Mohanna is no longer listed as a member of the development team. The staff report does not specify whether another investor has joined the team in Mohanna's place, or whether one of the existing investors will contribute more funds to make up for Mohanna's financial contribution to the project, or why this change has taken place. Most of the financial commitment comes from the Korean firm Consus, but the city has not yet received a formal commitment with complete terms and conditions from Consus.

The staff report does mention that the original "Exclusive Right to Negotiate" for this project occurred as a condition of a lawsuit settlement between the city of Sacramento and Mohanna, in addition to the city's payment of about $18 million to Mohanna for the land.

The total subsidy for the project is estimated at $31.5 million in land and tax exemption (both transient occupancy tax and tax-increment fund exemption.) This amount does not include the money previously paid to Mohanna for the property as a result of the lawsuit settlement.

The staff report does not address the issue of a potentially competing hotel project planned for the corner of 10th and K Street, nor does it address the issue of the demolition of the Bel-Vue landmark.

The staff report for this item can be found here.

The agenda for this week's City Council meeting can be found here.

sacramento.granicus.com/ViewPublisher.php

The Bel-Vue on the chopping block, but hope for the Berry

My new Midtown Monthly article, on the Bel-Vue

On Tuesday, August 11, the Sacramento city council will decide whether to give away the half-block containing the Bel-Vue to a group of developers, who would raze the remaining quarter-block and the underground sidewalks on 8th & K to build a new hotel at 8th & K and a parking lot where the Bel-Vue stands. Full staff report is visible here:

http://sacramento.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=8&event_id=94&meta_id=182207

In slightly brighter news, at the same meeting the City Council will hear (and hopefully approve) a plan to restore the Berry Hotel, just across the street from the Bel-Vue.
http://sacramento.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=8&event_id=94&meta_id=182203

They will also hear an updated plan regarding development along Sacramento's alleys (focusing on architecturally interesting alleys like the one behind the Bel-Vue.)
http://sacramento.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=8&event_id=94&meta_id=182205

On the consent calendar, the Council will add three buildings to the official list of Sacramento landmarks, including the Coloma School in Elmhurst, 1210 H Street in Mansion Flat, and "The Trap" (aka Pimentel's Ingleside Cafe) along Riverside near the Pocket.
http://sacramento.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=8&event_id=94&meta_id=182179

So there's hope that these items might make the appeal of reusing the Bel-Vue, and not giving our treasures away, more immediately apparent.

This Wednesday, August 5, Sacramento's Preservation Commission will hear an update on the "Underground Sidewalks" survey project. This survey has explored much of Sacramento's surviving underground sidewalk structures, and is preparing a detailed report on their current condition and historic context. An earlier meeting, held in March, outlined what the survey would do(as discussed in this Sacramento Press article) and this meeting will present the initial findings of the survey team and report their progress. The final report on the underground sidewalks should be completed by September of this year.

The meeting will be held at Sacramento's City Hall, 915 I Street, in the City Council chambers on the first floor. The meeting starts at 5:30 PM and the Underground Sidewalks survey will be the first of several staff reports presented at the meeting.

A complete agenda of the Preservation Commission meeting can be found on the Preservation Commission's Web site.



Sacramento's underground sidewalks are a side effect of a massive street-raising project, executed from the 1850s to the 1870s and intended to keep downtown Sacramento above water during the region's frequent floods. Brick walls about 12 feet high were built at the street edge and filled with dirt, but the spaces between the buildings and the street were left open, and were the building owner's responsibility to cover and fill. Over the past 130 years, many of these spaces have been filled in or demolished by subsequent development, construction and sidewalk repair.

This survey, funded by a local nonprofit and a matching state grant, is intended to document all of the surviving "Underground Sidewalk" spaces in downtown Sacramento and research the methods used to build these structures. The survey will have many potential uses, possibly including the creation of a historic district, or facilitating an "Underground Sidewalks Tour" program similar to that found in Seattle and other cities. The public will have an opportunity to ask questions and provide comments to the Preservation Commission and the consultants conducting the survey.

The City Preservation Commission was created by the City Council. Its powers and duties include: to develop and recommend to the City Council preservation policies appropriate for inclusion in the General Plan and other regulatory plans and programs of the City and to provide oversight relative to the maintenance and integrity of the Sacramento Register of Historic and Cultural Resources; to review, nominate, and make recommendations to the City Council on properties eligible for listing in the Sacramento Register as Landmarks, Historic Districts and Contributing Resources as set forth in the Historic Preservation Chapter, Title 17, Chapter 17.134, of the City Code; to review and approve preservation development projects of major significance and appeals of Preservation Director decisions per the Historic Preservation Chapter, Title 17, Chapter 17.134, of the City Code.

Meeting location: New City Hall
915 I Street- 1st Floor, Council Chambers
August 5, 2009 - 5:30 P.M.