A Toast To The Corner Store

Design Trekking friend Dave and I adventured aimlessly through an old downtown Sacramento residential neighborhood Friday, and marveled at the capital's proliferation of small "corner" stores. It reminds us of life before the massive modern proliferation of drive-to "convenience" stores.
Sam's Market, not far from the state Capitol building, is one of those corner stores. By all appearances this building is original "mixed use," long before the concept became newly popular in architectural and planning circles. The store is downstairs, the owner lives upstairs.

Bonus: There's a California-theme mural painted on the side wall:

Big Box: Target steps it up a notch

Of all the architectural designs to see on this earth why do we bother here to check out Target? Maybe it's because this is what we see day in and out in most cities. In 21st Century America, there aren't many Eiffel Towers, Chicago Water Towers or evocative Flatiron commercial buildings to marvel over. We count our blessings when a big-box department store does incrementally better than usual.

Consider this "big box" retailer in Davis, California. Davis, population about 64,000, is a University of California town, where even having a Target was a huge political divide. Many true believers didn't want it. They believed Target was an corporate abomination that would shred their cohesive little downtown district. Eventually, when Target won a popular vote to open up shop in town, it went the extra mile to design something less offensive than standard suburban strip.

I may be a pushover, but I like the lone palm tree and red brick facade below. It says to me: California.


I like the tower here, too, and the glass-fronted entrance. It looks like walking into a multiplex movie theater. Not architectural genius here. But for department store shopping it's not bad. (Note the glass corporate logo in the tower).

Bridges to Nowhere

Millions ask, "Design Trekker, where do you go to get away from spanning the globe, viewing the world's architectural treasures and felonies?" The answer is Cosumnes River Preserve in Northern California. It's a huge wild place south of Sacramento where millions of birds spend the winter and humans walk pedestrian footpaths and bridges into the middle of nowhere. I live 10 minutes north of the parking lot, where all urban cares fall quickly silent.

The place is designed for humans viewing birds. So the bridges are built to pedestrian scale, a gift to those who like to slow down and stroll. These small, lovely feats of iron and wood below span marshes, creeks and wetlands.

Through the cottonwoods:


Across the sea of reeds:



(Back from the hunt. I met this enjoyable gent from San Jose, out shooting with his son-in-law's Nikon):

American Ruins

People come and go, cities rise and fall, economies stumble and leave in their wake these boarded-up windows and yesterday's signs. This morning I stumbled across this forlorn little scene while motoring into the California Delta for fresh produce from R. Kelley Farms. This is on River Road in Sacramento County, just north of Hood-Franklin Road in tiny Hood, Calif. I don't know the story of this restaurant. A lot of local publications online still list it as active. The building is cinder-block crappy and the town isn't much to look at. But there's something authentic about it, an Old West ghost-town look that surely tells some larger American story.

There is also a ton of Chinese history in this area. Here is a story written from Hong Kong about the nearby Delta town of Locke, which offers a flavor of the region's Asian heritage.

Centers Of Our Highest Aspirations

Years ago in Fresno I used to roam the city's architectural scene with a retired art professor, the late Ara Dolarian, who especially liked churches. He said churches are often designed with our highest human aspirations in mind. Hence the great cathedrals of Europe, the soaring spaces in even the most humble of worship centers and the design lines often pointing heavenward.
Raised as a Catholic, I am often in awe of great older churches in the older parts of older cities. One of those in Sacramento is St. Francis of Assisi Church, dedicated in 1910. That's a century ago. It's still one of the loveliest places in Sacramento, a pioneer city with several majestic pioneer churches in its downtown district.


I found this description in the church's Web site:
The church’s architecture is modeled after that of the Old Mission of Santa Barbara. The interior is a blend of Renaissance and Baroque styles; over 40 stained-glass windows and numerous murals decorate the ceilings and walls, portraying saints and Biblical scenes. The beautiful carved wooden staircase and railing to the second floor organ loft came from the 1906 remodeling of the State Capitol. Installed in the loft is a 1915 Austin electro-pneumatic pipe organ. The church’s bell, cast in New York in 1859, was initially placed in the tower of St. Rose Church in 1895, and later transferred to the belfry of St. Francis of Assisi Church, where it continues to toll daily.

I should mention that St. Francis has also done some of the best-looking affordable housing projects in Sacramento. It's near the church and called St. Francis Terrace. It's 48 apartments for very low-income people, often retirees, Here's a couple of views:




Here's another antique classic in the same old neighborhood, the Pioneer Congregational Church opened in the year of the California Gold Rush, 1849. It is still very much active. This picture was taken just as sunrise broke over the city.

Monuments to Our Ancestors

The Midwest where I grew up and started my newspaper career (Ohio and Indiana, specifically) is chock full of pioneer statues, cannons and great orators and politicians in courthouse squares. We have so little of that in the West. Most of the great statues are in old city cemeteries, or historic old squares of San Francisco and Portland.

What a pleasant surprise then this week in downtown Sacramento to find a statue of the city's founder, John Augustus Sutter.


Old John looks west toward the site of his original settlement, Sutter's Fort, and now a California State Park. It's at the corner of 28th and L streets, prominently parked at the hospital that also bears his name, Sutter General.

Birdwatching the Sky Crane

Of all the birds in all the world, none steps up the heart rate like the Sky Crane. Yes, it's the worst cliche in the world to say, as so many cities did in the 1990s and early 2000s, that the sky crane is the city's official bird. But when I see one in the evening hovering over a major construction project I know something powerful is up.

On a recent trip to Asia I saw dozens of sky cranes above the skylines of booming Singapore, Taipei and Hong Kong. But in busted California they've become what the condor used to be: an endangered species. This rare sighting hovers over the top of Sutter Medical Center, which is doing a $700 million expansion in downtown Sacramento.


Here is its twin sister, with the moon on its wings: