Here's the link to the interview I did on KXJZ yesterday:
Insight on KXJZ
It went nicely, this is the third time I have been interviewed by Jeffrey Callison so I know a bit of the routine. The only question that threw me was when he asked me what my favorite picture was: I just turned to a random page and talked about that.
My favorite picture was actually the photo of Sacramento Executive Airport. When I went out to the airport terminal I realized that the photo I was trying to reproduce was not shot from the ground, but in fact from the roof of a nearby hangar. The view from the ground was pretty much just a shot of their loading dock, so I went over to the offices of SacJet and, much to my surprise, managed to talk my way onto the roof of their hangar. They were very friendly and even drove me out to the hangar in one of their little golf carts. I got a nice, slightly death-defying view of the hanger and got the shot. So, at least in terms of my favorite modern photo, that was the answer I should have given yesterday.
What's my favorite historic photo from the book? I'll give that some thought and hopefully I'll be able to narrow one down by the time the book signing rolls around.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Then and Now: Sacramento
On Monday, September 29, my new book, Sacramento: Then and Now, will go on sale.
This new book is a bit different from the other Sacramento books in the Arcadia series, part of Arcadia's Then and Now imprint. This book juxtaposes historic photographs with modern photos taken from the same location (or at least as close as I could get to the same location.) The book covers the entire city of Sacramento, including a final chapter on "The Uncity," places outside the Sacramento city limits but whose presence is important to our city's history, like Mather and McClellan Air Force Bases, the towns of Freeport and Florin, and even Town & Country Village.
The historic photographs in the book were provided by SAMCC, the Sacramento Archives and Museum Collection Center, and SAMCC staff provided invaluable help in putting the book together. 50% of the royalties from this book will go to SAMCC to help them continue their mission of preserving artifacts, images and documents of Sacramento's history.
I will be interviewed on Insight, hosted by Jeffrey Callison, this coming Monday the 29th at 2:00 PM. KXPR can be heard at 90.9 FM in Sacramento, or via the Internet using the link above.
The grand book release event is scheduled for Thursday, October 16, at Time Tested Books, 1114 21st Street, Sacramento, at 7:00 PM. I will be there to sign books and give a short talk. Some of the SAMCC staff will also be present to talk about their mission. Hopefully you'll come and join me.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Did I mention the street fair?
I mentioned the SOCA Home Tour in the last post, but I figure I should spotlight the street fair because I'm the guy who runs it.
The home tour portion is nice, but it's my job to create a big ol' street party atmosphere and also provide a place where Home Tour visitors can spend some time before and after the tour. Sometimes we block off a street, last year we set up in a park, but this year we have permission to set up on the front lawn of the Fremont Adult School, a historic building in its own right, on N Street between 24th and 25th. Having two convenience stores across the street gets me off the hook from having to find a food vendor, although I still got one because I have wanted to have Josh Ploeg selling his vegan goodies at the SOCA fair for a couple years now, and he was finally available to do so.
We have some very diverse choices for vendors this year--here is a still-incomplete list:
Sacramento County Historical Society
SAMCC (Sacramento Archives & Museum Collection Center)
Towe Auto Museum
Mickey Abbey (stained glass)
Loftworks (one of their Sutter Brownstones units is part of the home tour!)
Green Sacramento
LJ Urban
49 Mile
Joshua Ploeg (baked goods)
Vintage Properties
The Pampered Pet
Dave Clark (I Do Windows & Doors)
B Line Construction
Tim White (home repair)
Sister Sheba Naturally
Isabella Corsetry
Thomas Enterprises
California Watchable Wildlife
Atelier
It's about an even mix of crafter/vendors, developers/designers/builders, and history groups. I'm pretty happy about how diverse the offerings are.
Oh yeah, and there's music too! Here's the entertainment line-up:
Dead Western
The Hell-Outs
Mickie Rat (of The Secretions)
Andrew Surber (aka Chopstick)
Aaron Brown
...and possibly a couple of others.
The street fair starts at around 10:00 AM, music starts at noon. It's free, so if you are anywhere near midtown, drop on by.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
2008 SOCA Home Tour
The 2008 annual SOCA Home Tour is Sunday, September 21st in the Winn Park Historic District and Capitol Mansion area in Midtown Sacramento. Each year SOCA showcases some of the finest architecture the old city has to offer, both historic and contemporary - a tribute to our heritage and a celebration of our future. Some of the homes featured on this years tour can be seen in the 2008 home tour gallery, accessible by clicking the gallery link at the SOCA homepage. One of the Sutter Brownstones by Loftworks will be open as well. Tour homes are open from 10 AM until 4 PM,and the historic Saint Francis of Assisi Church will be open for viewing by tour guests from 2 PM until 5 PM. Tour guests will receive a printed brochure with a tour map and illustrated histories of all the sites on the tour.
A street fair featuring home restoration specialists, energy efficiency experts, stained glass and woodwork artisans, craft persons and musicians will be held a the Fremont School at the corner of 24th and N Streets from 10 AM until 4 PM. The street fair is free.
Tickets are $20 on the day of the tour, and can be purchased at the street fair beginning at 10 AM. Advanced tickets are $18 and are available at Joannes Elegant Gifts -1019 L Street, Collected Works -4524 Freeport Blvd., The Avid Reader -1600 Broadway, and the 57th Street Antique Mall -875 57th Street.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Alley Development: Smart Growth or a Blast from the Past?
This week, I attended a presentation put on by Jeremy Drucker of 49 Mile, the architect/developer behind Sacramento's 9 on F project. He came to talk about a potential future series of projects based on expanded use of Sacramento's alley lots.
When downtown Sacramento was originally split into parcels, several standard lot sizes emerged. A downtown Sacramento block is 320 feet by 340 feet, split into two halves by an alley 20 feet wide. Each subsequent 320x160 block is split into eight 40x80 foot lots (about 1/13 of an acre) along the numbered streets and four 40x160 foot lots (about 1/7 of an acre) along the lettered streets.
Drucker's idea is to build alley-facing units in the back third of the 40x160 lots. Now, for anyone familiar with midtown alleys, this is nothing new. Many property owners built "granny flats" on the alley facing of their lots. Sometimes these units were built in place of a garage in back of the unit, or built above a garage, while others were built in place of a garage or parking spaces. Building these flats had many benefits: it provided a source of extra income for the property owner, or allowed residents with large families to have a little more elbow room. Generally, an alley apartment is inexpensive, which helps maintain the central city's affordability. As zoning laws changed and the central city emptied out in the mid-20th century, the practice of building alley apartments generally faded out.
One point I tend to repeat again and again is that most "new urbanist" ideas are simply the way that we used to build cities a century ago, and alley units, as we see, are no exception. However, Drucker wants to add a few twists to the concept that make the idea a positive one in many areas, including urban infill, energy conservation, affordable ownership, and historic preservation.
Currently, there is an interest in urban infill in the central city, placing new projects on vacant lots. However, the number of these lots is limited. Exploring the use of alley lots could potentially mean hundreds of new units, integrated into existing neighborhoods. Drucker's current 9onF project provides a model for what these units might look like. The concept drawing I saw featured a three-story design, with a garage for four vehicles facing the alley on the ground floor. An ADA-accessible ground floor unit takes up the front half of the ground floor unit. Two more units occupy the second and third floor, both of which have patio areas atop the garage, facing out towards the alley. Each unit would have one parking space, and the fourth parking space would belong to the house that occupied the front portion of the lot.
Unlike the historic role of alley units as rental housing, these would be for-sale units. Because of their small space footprint and alley frontage, they would potentially be affordable to buyers that would otherwise not be able to afford central city housing. The other economic advantage of alley units is that the owner of the original 40x160 lot would make a nice chunk of change selling the back 60 feet of their lot: potentially, about $100,000!
This brings me to the portion of this idea dearest to my own interests. One of the problems with all of the attention on midtown development is that owners of central city homes face great pressure as land values rise. Some developers engage in lot consolidation, buying several adjacent lots with the intent of demolishing the buildings. When demolition permits are too hard to secure via normal channels because the buildings are historic, occupied and/or intact, many buildings fall victim to "demolition by neglect": buildings are allowed to remain vacant, decay and fall into disrepair until either the city can be persuaded to allow demolition or an "accidental" fire simply eliminates the house.
Alley development reduces this economic pressure by making lot consolidation and demolition less appealing. It allows a great increase in overall density in the central city: potentially, five total units could be placed on a 40x160 lot (about 36 DUA.) So a lot with a single-family home could add 4 units in the back, a duplex could add 3 units, and so on--a lot with an existing fourplex could even add a fifth single-unit "granny flat" in the back. But all this density could be achieved without demolishing a single existing structure. And because of the economic benefit for the owner of the property, projects like restoration of existing properties becomes much more economically feasible: an extra $100K goes a long way to restoring a faded Queen Anne or Craftsman bungalow to its original grandeur, money that would otherwise have to come from other sources. It makes historic homes a lot easier to preserve, and reduces reasons to knock them down.
It's a "triple win" from a development perspective: it increases density and walkability (and thus urbanity), it makes home ownership in the central city affordable to more people, and it promotes preservation of existing historic neighborhoods.
When downtown Sacramento was originally split into parcels, several standard lot sizes emerged. A downtown Sacramento block is 320 feet by 340 feet, split into two halves by an alley 20 feet wide. Each subsequent 320x160 block is split into eight 40x80 foot lots (about 1/13 of an acre) along the numbered streets and four 40x160 foot lots (about 1/7 of an acre) along the lettered streets.
Drucker's idea is to build alley-facing units in the back third of the 40x160 lots. Now, for anyone familiar with midtown alleys, this is nothing new. Many property owners built "granny flats" on the alley facing of their lots. Sometimes these units were built in place of a garage in back of the unit, or built above a garage, while others were built in place of a garage or parking spaces. Building these flats had many benefits: it provided a source of extra income for the property owner, or allowed residents with large families to have a little more elbow room. Generally, an alley apartment is inexpensive, which helps maintain the central city's affordability. As zoning laws changed and the central city emptied out in the mid-20th century, the practice of building alley apartments generally faded out.
One point I tend to repeat again and again is that most "new urbanist" ideas are simply the way that we used to build cities a century ago, and alley units, as we see, are no exception. However, Drucker wants to add a few twists to the concept that make the idea a positive one in many areas, including urban infill, energy conservation, affordable ownership, and historic preservation.
Currently, there is an interest in urban infill in the central city, placing new projects on vacant lots. However, the number of these lots is limited. Exploring the use of alley lots could potentially mean hundreds of new units, integrated into existing neighborhoods. Drucker's current 9onF project provides a model for what these units might look like. The concept drawing I saw featured a three-story design, with a garage for four vehicles facing the alley on the ground floor. An ADA-accessible ground floor unit takes up the front half of the ground floor unit. Two more units occupy the second and third floor, both of which have patio areas atop the garage, facing out towards the alley. Each unit would have one parking space, and the fourth parking space would belong to the house that occupied the front portion of the lot.
Unlike the historic role of alley units as rental housing, these would be for-sale units. Because of their small space footprint and alley frontage, they would potentially be affordable to buyers that would otherwise not be able to afford central city housing. The other economic advantage of alley units is that the owner of the original 40x160 lot would make a nice chunk of change selling the back 60 feet of their lot: potentially, about $100,000!
This brings me to the portion of this idea dearest to my own interests. One of the problems with all of the attention on midtown development is that owners of central city homes face great pressure as land values rise. Some developers engage in lot consolidation, buying several adjacent lots with the intent of demolishing the buildings. When demolition permits are too hard to secure via normal channels because the buildings are historic, occupied and/or intact, many buildings fall victim to "demolition by neglect": buildings are allowed to remain vacant, decay and fall into disrepair until either the city can be persuaded to allow demolition or an "accidental" fire simply eliminates the house.
Alley development reduces this economic pressure by making lot consolidation and demolition less appealing. It allows a great increase in overall density in the central city: potentially, five total units could be placed on a 40x160 lot (about 36 DUA.) So a lot with a single-family home could add 4 units in the back, a duplex could add 3 units, and so on--a lot with an existing fourplex could even add a fifth single-unit "granny flat" in the back. But all this density could be achieved without demolishing a single existing structure. And because of the economic benefit for the owner of the property, projects like restoration of existing properties becomes much more economically feasible: an extra $100K goes a long way to restoring a faded Queen Anne or Craftsman bungalow to its original grandeur, money that would otherwise have to come from other sources. It makes historic homes a lot easier to preserve, and reduces reasons to knock them down.
It's a "triple win" from a development perspective: it increases density and walkability (and thus urbanity), it makes home ownership in the central city affordable to more people, and it promotes preservation of existing historic neighborhoods.
Friday, August 15, 2008
National Register Properties at SOCA Website
An online listing and narrative of Sacramento's National Register historic properties is available via the Sacramento Old City Association's website:
http://www.sacoldcity.org/?page_id=83
An interactive map, photos and brief narratives for each gives a comprehensive look at structures in Sacramento that are currently listed with the National Register.
http://www.sacoldcity.org/?page_id=83
An interactive map, photos and brief narratives for each gives a comprehensive look at structures in Sacramento that are currently listed with the National Register.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Urban gardening, past, present and future
Lately I have been poking through my old issues of Mother Earth News and some of my cheap-living library, gleaning ideas for a class on frugal living for work, as well as inspiration for the ever-present desire to save money at home with fix-it tips and homegrown edibles.
About 10-12 years ago I had a brief interest in backwoods homestead type living, and picked up quite a few old early-1970s issues of Mother Earth News and similar materials from that era. I read quite a bit of it, but ended up deciding against that sort of lifestyle--partially because a friend (Xeney) shared quite a few horror stories about growing up with hippie back-to-the-land parents, and partially because my wife and I, despite our grumpy and independent nature, are pretty much city people.
Over the years, I channeled my interest in self-sufficient lifestyles by doing things like baking bread from scratch (including grinding whole grains) and other low-cost/high-reward eating strategies. I also got interested in backyard gardening. My first couple of attempts were fairly dismal, due to lack of sunshine, but my last house had enough sunshine and a tiny backyard (around 250 square feet,) enough to grow quite a lot of vegetables.
Since i moved to a new place two years ago, I had a fresh palette to work with. Tearing out all the grass from my monstrous 20x40 foot backyard proved to be too much for my social calendar, so instead I planted a few tomatoes and squashes on top of a pile of dirt in the backyard that used to be the front yard before I xeroscaped it. It's fun having a garden to take care of, and hopefully I'll get some nice tomatoes and such as the summer wears on.
So yesterday, this story on urban farming appears in the Bee. Now, urban gardening is nothing new--anyone who followed the story of the Mandella Garden near Fremont Park (and the resulting, albeit smaller, community garden that is there now) knows that. But urban gardening is a traditional city activity, especially during rough economic times.
City neighborhoods occupied by working-class folks often become the site of urban gardens. Immigrants from farming backgrounds carried their knowledge and lifeways with them, and industrious families used their backyards as tiny farms to supplement their paychecks by lowering the food bill or even offering goods to trade or sell. If you wander through the alleys of Southside Park, quite a few homes still have backyards entirely turned over to gardens. During World War II, the United States government encouraged Americans to turn their yards into "victory gardens" to supplement large-scale crops, save gasoline, and help stretch ration cards.
Sometimes, backyards garden were for drinking as much as eating: my old friend Jack Davis told me stories about growing up in the neighborhood around the Newton Booth school in the 1930s. At the time, the neighborhood was mostly occupied by Italians and Slavs, many of whom grew grapes in their backyard to make homemade wine. In the fall, the whole neighborhood would stink of rotting grape skins!
Backyard (and front-yard) gardening fell out of favor in the 1950s, and city ordinances were enacted to discourage city farmers from growing crops on the front lawn. Fortunately, that ordinance was ejected last year, much to the delight of contemporary urban farmers.
Which brings me back to the present day. Part of why city residents were so eager to run to the suburbs (and why 1970s "Mother Earth News" readers were so eager to run to the rural backwoods) was because cities were perceived as unhealthy, dangerous, polluted places where people ate plastic food and had no connection with nature.
Urban farming--past, present, and future--provides a chunk of the solution. It connects the urban resident with a little chunk of the natural world, every vegetable grown in a city backyard is one that doesn't have to be trucked in from elsewhere, and they taste good. And it's just one of a baker's dozen other strategies for cities that are liveable, sustainable, preservable, walkable, and lots of other "ables..." including "vegetable."
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