By Frank Durham Santa Monica
As an Englishman who has commuted to and from Santa Monica since 1978, I feel I must write and ask: What on earth are they doing to our town? Santa Monica used to be a funky little beach community, full of character. There were bars with personality, second-hand bookshops by the score and momma and poppa businesses in abundance.
When the new Third Street Promenade opened, it carried on the tradition of the town, with bars, eating places and little stores with individuality.
Who remembers the old Santa Monica — with Rosie McHaugh playing at Sterling’s Steak House, Nature’s Power Station selling fresh fruit juices and a mysterious lady telling fortunes on the pier?
Now that great old family restaurant, Bob Burns, is being replaced by a chain restaurant. It looks as though the Boathouse on the pier will go the same way. Mr. B’s and Soper’s Wind and Sea are just rather disreputable memories. The little husband and wife cafe towards the end of Broadway is now just a lingering memory of delicious breakfasts.
In the Promenade, we have a plethora of bland and ritzy chain clothes stores. It could be Main Street, Anywhereville.
Poor old Morris, veteran of M & R, has been driven into a bolthole on Santa Monica Boulevard. Teasers has sold its last beer. No more fish and chips at George and the Dragon.
Rents, we hear, have soared and driven out the little traders who gave the place personality and charm.
Only Chez Jay’s on Ocean battles on, a warrior of the old days. I expect that, one day, this great institution with the peanuts and sawdust on the floor will be swallowed up by “progress.”
When every trace of the charming and slightly eccentric little beach town is erased, the residents will wake up one morning and find they are living in somewhere like Beverly Hills on the sea.
Can someone do something, before it is too late? Saving the Boathouse would be a good start.
Incidentally, the launching of the Santa Monica Daily Press is a great ray of hope. At least we now have an individual voice. R.I.P. The Outlook.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 28, 2002. Read the original PDF.