Folsom: Old West Chic

Not along ago, on a Sunday trek we went to Folsom, California's old recently-redeveloped Sutter Street strolling and entertainment area. My wife and have gone there -on and off-  for years, taking visitors through the antique shops and hippie crystal shops that used to fill the street. It was getting a little ratty, admittedly, and I don't think the antique shops actually ever sold anything. Year it and out they seemed to have the same Look Magazine covers and china cups on the same shelves. But City Hall apparently realized there were bigger possibilities here and spiffed up the streetscape (dozens of good photos in this link) the last couple of years. It's already bringing in more restaurants and bars, and even a couple nice new buildings built to look like old ones. 

 This old Folsom Hotel and saloon (A.D. 1885) especially caught my eye.

 I like the bold color and authentic Old West style. (If you like ghost stories, the hotel has one). 

Folsom's become heavily suburbanized during the recent housing and retail boom. But it has this one special oldtown setting, the kind of thing people like after work and on weekends. I am betting on more restaurants and hangouts in years ahead.

Crocker Modern

My wife and I made our first visit this morning to the new addition to Sacramento's Crocker Art Museum. It's one of those architectural projects that's supposed to define Sacramento in a bigger way. Usually, that means you're obligated to like it - to go with the civic flow and avoid death by a vote of your peers.
  We know what we like - and often it's not modern design - and we liked this museum.

(See the guy taking a self-photo with his girlfriend and the Crocker name) 

The Crocker has forever been housed in an old Victorian mansion belonging to Edwin Crocker, attorney for the Central Pacific when it built the Transcontinental Railroad across the U.S. in Abraham Lincoln's time. The new addition opened in autumn 2010 to stories like this in The San Francisco Chronicle and Los Angeles Times and another in the Architecture Reviewed Blog.  Project architects Gwathmey Siegel & Associates have their own Crocker page.

Here's more pictures from inside: (I didn't take any in the galleries, which were open and spacious. The place was crawling with security who looked like they'd frown on that. The links above, though, have plenty).

Monuments To Our Ancestors Revisited: The Pony Express

The weather has been great here in Sacramento in recent days, allowing for long lunch-time treks in search of exercise and sightings. Yesterday, a co-worker and I walked to the river, trekking past the city's monument to our Wild West ancestors who rode on the short-lived, historically-resonant Pony Express.

Sacramento was the end of the trail - or the beginning, depending on the direction - to and from St. Joseph, Missouri.  A year ago I wrote about loving monuments to our ancestors. These statues give a nice flavor to cities. Below is the monument in Old Sacramento. Cheers to 18 months of crossing the West at top speed with the mail. (Brings to mind that famous line from Seinfeld's Newman (the Postman) : "When you control the mail....you control Informattion)."

235 Years of Federal Architecture

Here in the United Sates it's July 4 - the 235th birthday of our young nation. It is still a rather terrible economic time here, an era when it's almost insanely popular to criticize the federal government.

But this is also a holiday to celebrate our federal government's historic good taste in architecture. The country is filled with federal buildings that add to the ambience of many a downtown. They're not all gems. But this one, in particular, in downtown Sacramento, makes my day each morning I trek past it on the way into the California EPA building.

   This is the city's federal post office, stately in its park-like setting, a great old 1933 building now listed on the Register of Historic Places. Any government that could build like this is something worth celebrating today. I turn again to Dan Flynn's 2000 "Inside Guide to Sacramento" for a description:

"This building's blend of Neo-Classical and Renaissance architecture, suggesting government strength and stability, must have been a reassuring sight in a city wracked by the Great Depression. Gladding, McBean & Co. provided the terra cotta ornamentation, as well as the simulated granite veneer above the first floor. The exterior lion heads appear to be roaring at the lion heads facing from the library across the street. The long lobby features shiny terrazo floors and a gilded, coffered ceiling."   

 Here are some more scenes that look especially soothing in the soft daily sunlight of 7:30 a.m.

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