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Posts Tagged ‘the movement’

This morning the Board of the San Luis Obispo Council of Governments (SLOCOG) unanimously adopted the feasibility study over the Corridor that will eventually contain the Edna Price Canyon trail between San Luis Obispo and Pismo Beach.  This will eventually become a segment of the Anza Historic Trail.  This study has been ongoing for the last year or so and is the result of a CalTrans Community Based Transportation Planning Grant.  It was developed by Questa Engineering.

Next steps are the creation of various Environmental Impact Reports (EIR’s) that will cover the various segments of the trail.IMG_2603

The Feasibility Study identified  opportunities and and constraints along various trail segment options.  There are preferred routes… secondary options etc… all of which need to be analyzed in great detail taking into consideration all the various constraints so as to be able to create the best ultimate alternative given the constraints.

It has been about 8 years of work so far.  I started chatting with stakeholders circa 2008.. and that work led to an initial mapping outlined in previous posts… and then advocacy work with the various communities and stakeholder groups along the route.  There are many steps still to go… but we have started… and we are well along the way.

thank you to all the jurisdictions, individuals, and groups that have lent their support.

Eric

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So I have a staircase fetish.   As fetishes go… this is not so bad I suppose.  I also love books.  So naturally  I especially like staircases and bookshelves… and have written about them in the past on this blog.  So today I found this picture of this staircase in a Portuguese Bookstore.  Holy crap this is a nice staircase.   I am totally in awe of this thing. Other crazy staircases can be seen at…

www.stairporn.org

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So… I was standing on the pedals of my bike while on the sidewalk… leaning against the back wall of the Mission San Luis Obispo… waiting for my botany professor buddy Matt Ritter…to take a picture of a street tree for his new book about the trees of California… and this extra few inches of height offered me a view of something I doubt I ever would have known about otherwise.  I was able to look over the 6′ 6″ wall toward the the exit door behind the Pulpit… and next to where the nuns live… and what do I see????  A Jacuzzi!    That’s it there with the Turquoise cover on it!

Hmmm.   Hot Tubs aren’t what I normally associate with the Church.  Actually though… I think I like the church better now!

Below is better view of the wall I was peaking over… on Palm St. just west of Chorro.

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Here’s an interesting view of the intersection of US highway 1… and Los Osos Valley road. Circa 1972.  Check out how wide San Luis Creek is in this shot!  Parts of Dalidio’s farm are covered  on the left of the freeway… and the right hand side of the highway… where the sewer treatment plant is… well that’s basically underwater! The creek is more of a RIVER.  If you click on the photo… it will get bigger… there’s more to see when it’s bigger.

and this shot above… well that is san luis creek… you are looking southwest… towards Nipomo st. from mid block… behind the buildings on Higuera where the creekwalk is now.  Today that white building in the foreground is “the Burrito wagon” I think… you are looking at the back side of it and Nipomo st. is out front….you can see the railing on the bridge…. the Children’s Museum would be in the upper right of the shot in a photo taken today… behind those bushes and rightmost telephone pole sorta.

This is a shot of Higuera st.  taken from near the corner of Higuera and Osos.  Looking down Higuera.  The B of A on the left is now First Bank.  What happened here… is that the creek overwhelmed the tunnel under the downtown… and started spewing out from behind the Firestone Building (now Firestone Grill).  So this water then travelled west down to Osos… and splashed up against the B of A… and then made it’s way down Higuera… through the middle of town.

This shot above is Marsh st.   I am pretty sure this shot is from Nipomo st… looking west.  Directly to the right of where this shot was taken is the Foster’s Freeze.  Hazels Pet Shop would be on the left…. except they are out of business now.

A different view taken from the intersection of Higuera and Osos… looking south on Osos.  Firestone building on left… Arco in the background is now a big two story bank building on the corner of Marsh and Osos.  New Times is now in the basement of the Maino building on the left behind the Firestone Grill.  Wouldn’t want to be down there in this shot… totally flooded to the ceiling I imagine.

This shot above is Monterey st… between Johnson and Toro… looking west towards the Fremont Theatre.  Westside Auto on the right… Currently Smith Volvo is on the left here…  Notice the raft in the water!

This shot above is on Marsh st.  near where the Napa Auto Parts store is… roughly Beach st. I guess.  Looking west.  Budget motel down there on the left.  It was a few feet deep down there on mid Higuera.  You couldn’t really get down there.

pretty sure this shot is of Oceanaire… just off Madonna Rd.  Looking northwest on Oceanaire… just west of Laguna Lake… not positive about this location though.

These shots offer a rare look at a view of San Luis Obispo most folks have never seen.  The Public Works Dept has done an ENORMOUS amount of flood control work since 1972… to help alleviate situations like this.  This is part of the “your tax dollars at work” that nobody ever sees.  Dave Romero was running Public works in this era I think…  Yesterday was his last day as Mayor.   Thank you Dave… for all your years of service to SLO.

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UPDATE… Jan 2012… I’ve discovered that Rudolph Schindler built an A frame house in 1936… So this post is somewhat misleading.  Sorry about that.  Needless to say… Schindler is probably my favorite architect in the world anyway… here is the post from a year ago below.  Click the link just above to see Schindler’s aframe.

 

In 1949/1950 a fellow by the name of Gerald Rupp built this A-frame home in Morro Bay, CA.  It was the first Modernist A Frame house I think.  (A fellow by the name of Andrew Geller often gets credit for being the first to re-introduce the A-Frame style though … as his house built on Long Island in NY in 1955 was published in the New York Times in 1957.)

Gerald (Gerry) also built these homes in Morro Bay… a few lots away in the early 1950’s

and this home… next door to the a frame…

here again below (out of focus)…. notice the early fifties addition to the a-frame house in the background

and this house below… across the st…. mid 1950’s…

another shot… this house below was torn down just last month… sad

a view of the a-frame from high on the hill… before some of the other houses… and before the addition to the front… below:

The other side of the A-frame… below… all in all there were 8 neighboring modern houses… and a few a couple more lots away… 10 all together.  Gerald sold them to artists, writers, musicians… all early modernists.  It was a hotbed of intellectualism and Beat Culture in the 1950’s.  Known then by the local fishermen as “Beatnik Hill”.  One of the first experiments in building intentional community between like minded individuals.  Many Famous beat generation icons stopped through on their way to Big Sur.

neighborhood context 1949 or so I think

The man… Gerry Rupp 1922-2010… with my older brother… circa mid 1950’s:

Rest in Peace Dad

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Look carefully at this wrought iron.  Move around the window view bars if you can’t see the whole image.   It is a small very small fence on a building in Carmel by the Sea, CA.   Awesome work.  Such amazing detail at the top…each little dragon head different than the next.  It is inspiring to think that somebody cared enough to build this grate … that 80 years later still really makes a huge impact.

A simple iron fence that makes you smile.

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This post doesn’t really match up to my stated topic for this blog… so feel free to ignore it and move on…. but my Dad died two weeks ago and I miss him.  He was an interesting fellow… a 1940’s and 1950’s Modernist architect… and a real Beatnik.  (Although he would hate me calling him that… I think he would prefer philosopher or curmudgeon… or intellectual… or most likely a  four letter word said with great emphasis and a big smile).  Anyway… I have never really understood about my distant family history very well… and his passing got me thinking.

So I went to the computer and started looking online at the various genealogy links.  What I found is that they have me on these links… and my mom on these links… but for some reason… these genealogy links have my mom’s ex husband as my dad… whom she divorced years before I was born.  And my dad… is nowhere to be found!   Hmmm…  who writes this stuff!

so I Googled Eric Meyer… looking to see what other incorrect info I might find.  (It turns out there is some internet guru also named Eric Meyer… so I had to refine my search.  )

WOW… I found out that “when he was a young surfer dude” (cough) “Eric went to USCB”.  This was in “the late eighties and early 1990’s”.  I learned that “he also started making his own shoes when he was in college”… and “he made them by hand”… with a hammer and an anvil  I suppose… “all by himself”

Hmmm.  Didn’t go to USCB… Didn’t go to college in the late 80’s and early 90’s… and didn’t make the first shoes by hand when I was in college…. but this is how I’m carved in history by the internet now…. and with the wrong dad no less.

IN FACT… probably at least 50% of what I found on myself was wrong.

I’m not famous… and I don’t have kids… so I suppose it doesn’t matter really.  But it makes me wonder:

How much of history is wrong?

yours truly… in 1966

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Warning… random ego driven post.

Sneaker Freaker Magazine recently interviewed me on my duties as Director of Design for Vision Street Wear (VSW)… back in the late 80’s.  We were the first company to design and manufacture clothing for skateboarders.  Prior to VSW… skaters mostly just looked like surfers.  Today… 25 years later… skate style is well known.

Here is a link to a large PDF of the story they wrote up on the history of Vision.

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Dr. Matt Ritter… a professor at our local university… and my good buddy… sent me this really clear presentation on the state of education in the world… very clear idea on what we as humans should be focussing on with respect to education.

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