By Gary Gordon MSMA staff
While I greatly appreciate the long hours your reporter Carolyn Sackariason put in at the Planning Commission meeting last week and the front page coverage of the “Boulangerie” project, I need to correct one item in the story and comment further on another.
I am not the president of the Main Street Merchants. I am the staff. Dave Lackman (Library Alehouse) is the chair; and Leslie Paonessa (World Cafe); Lois Cunningham (Patagonia); Joe Pipersky (Joe’s Diner and Holy Guacamole); Matt Schuppel (Shoop's Deli); Frank Strauss (Fedora Primo) and Judy Abdo (neighborhood appointee) serve on the board.
Regarding the point I made to the commission on the diverse architectural styles and colors on Main Street, in response to the Architectural Review Board decision that the project “did not capture the DNA of Main Street” and the Commission’s concerns that it did not “reflect the design” of Main Street, you reported accurately that I said the cities many of us love have jumbled styles: New York, Boston...”
Unfortunately, your coverage did not include my mention of Chapel Hill and Santa Barbara. I want to clarify that because I don’t want anyone thinking that Main Street merchants want Ocean Park to look like downtown Boston.
But the significant point is this: The notion that the building proposed by Howard Jacobs and designed by Howard Laks after numerous hours of community input over several years has a design or color that does not fit on the same street that includes Schatzi, the Flinkman Building, Ashland & Hill, Lula's, Wildflour Pizza, the New Orleans Building, LaVechhia Cucina right next to the Victorian, the Public Library, the Galleria Di Maio (Merle Norman Building), Edgemar, the two large buildings at the north end of Main, the buildings that house A/X and Patagonia, and all the other buildings on the street is, well, absurd.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 27, 2002. Read the original PDF.