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 That's Len with red jacket and cap in front of the one-time Cross Roads drive-in that his family operated. With him are four former carhops: Roxy Newland, Jackie McDow (in the car), Nancy Jellison and Daisy Gandolfi. They all were interviewed in 2001 by the Santa Cruz Sentinel. |
Can a former drive-in diner
be historically valuable?
By LEN KLEMPNAUER
of TheColumnists.com
I tried fighting
City Hall once, the same City Hall that I covered occasionally
as a reporter for my small-town, hometown newspaper from 1961-65.
As a once disinterested reporter, I entered the fray believing
I had real insight into how local government functions.
What I learned was that I didn’t know nuthin’.
It all started when Suzi Aratin, a 20-something representative
of the Santa Cruz, Calif., City Planning Department, contacted
me in June, 2001, about the origins of a dilapidated old building
that had housed a liquor store for the past 30 some years. The
property was to be bought by the city as an addition to the adjacent
Depot Park development. Her job was to determine if the building
had any historical value to be pointed out in the park project's
environmental impact report.
(The California Environmental Quality Act requires public officials
to give certain considerations to buildings at least 50 years
old before they could be altered or demolished.)
When first checking the building, Ms. Aratin noticed its design
closely resembled a Midwestern drive-in restaurant where her
family had once eaten a few times when she was a child. She asked
her mother, a 1950s’ grad of a local high school, about
the building and was told that it indeed had been a drive-in
restaurant back when she was a teenager.
Ms. Aratin’s search--she also talked to neighbors who had
lived in the area for decades -eventually led her to me. That
building was the Cross Roads BBQ & Drive-in, which my parents
had opened a half-century earlier.
I explained that the building exemplified the spirit of the “American
Graffiti” era in its role as a local Fifties’ teenage
gathering place.
Ms. Aratin was doing the preliminary groundwork for a citizens’
committee that was supposed to report to the city council on
what kind of projects the park should include. Subsequently,
in August of 2001, I made a brief presentation to the committee
about the building’s role as a teenage hangout, but its
members didn’t appear to be interested. For months they
had been discussing demolition of the building and replacing
it with a new natural history museum, regardless of whether it
had any historical value.
Ms. Aratin’s research was turned over to Susan Lehmann,
a historical resources consultant on retainer with the city,
for the official EIR evaluation. The city council endorsed the
Depot Park plan on Oct. 23, 2001, even though Ms. Lehmann's report
on the Cross Roads is dated Nov. 1, eight days after the council's
approval.
Dismayed by the lack of city interest, I started contacting my
friends from the Santa Cruz High Class of 1954 and included some
of their remembrances in a piece for the Op-Ed pages of the Santa
Cruz Sentinel newspaper. Cut from its original 3,000 words to
1,500, it’s titled “Save Our Happy Days” and was
published in November and put on-line in December at:
http://www.santa-cruz.com/archive/2001/December/22/edit/edit.htm
I also posted information about plans to demolish the building
on one of the alumni web sites, asking former SCHS students from
the era to send email or postal mail to City Hall and the local
newspaper telling what role the Cross Roads had played in their
young lives. As letters started pouring in, the newspaper decided
to cover the story, and in January 2002 published an illustrated
front page article headlined “Bringing Back The Diner--Group
Wants To Save Former Cross Roads Bar-B-Q From The Wrecking Ball.”
That story is on-line at:
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2002/January/16/local/stories/02local.htm
Shortly thereafter, one of the local TV
stations--KSBW in Salinas, Calif.--gave me my 15 minutes of fame
with an on-site interview at the Cross Roads. (Actually, the
whole report, including comments from a city spokesperson, lasted
only about three minutes.)
In April 2002, the Washington, D.C.-based National Trust for
Historic Preservation became interested, and one of their writers
also interviewed me. It was the National “Story of the Week”
on May 3. Titled “At A Crossroads: A California City Longs
For Its Small-Town Past.” It’s on-line at:
http://www.nationaltrust.org/magazine/archives/arch_story/050302.htm
None of the articles made any impact on the city’s decision
to tear down the building and build a new museum in its place,
although the consultant hired by the city to evaluate the building
may have had some second thoughts, as reported in the National
Trust article.
Ms. Lehmann had concluded that the building didn’t merit
protection under the state law: “It was my contention that
to really consider it historic, it should really have more integrity.
The thing that made it the drive-in that it was, was the sign
on it.”
But Ms. Aratin, who had first “discovered” the building’s
origins, disagreed strongly with Ms. Lehmann’s conclusion,
citing several characteristics that define 1950s' drive-in architecture:
windows that slant inward, the flagstone stonework, and the building's
octagonal shape.
"If there's a constituency saying something is worth saving,"
she is quoted, "that should be taken into consideration."
Ms. Lehmann, the National Trust story continues, told the city
that if the Cross Roads constituency shows ample support for
preserving the structure, the city "should consider further
research and documentation to determine if the structure should
be added to its Historic Building Inventory.”
It never happened.
Ms. Aratin left the Santa Cruz planning department and took a
similar position in a nearby city, but she wanted her former
employer to know the city had made a mistake in denying any consideration
for the Cross Roads as a historical building. In a May 8, 2002,
letter to the city, she wrote:
“It appears that the conclusion regarding eligibility for
inclusion (of the Cross Roads Drive-In) in the State Register
of Historic Places has been misconstrued and misinterpreted by
the City of Santa Cruz.
"It is also apparent that the building is eligible for inclusion
in the Santa Cruz Historic Building Survey . . . which would
give the building protection under the California Environmental
Quality Act.
"It has become obvious, through letters to the Planning
Director, the City Council, and the Editor of the Santa Cruz
Sentinel, that there is significant public interest in the preservation
of the Cross Roads building, yet the draft EIR does not include
any consideration for further research to determine the eligibility
of this building for inclusion in the local survey.
"Flippant decisions by the City of Santa Cruz regarding
historic resources within their jurisdiction is disheartening
to see because once an historic resource is lost, there is no
recapturing it.
"The City of Santa Cruz has been charged with stewardship
over the city’s historic resources, and to discount the
experiences of people who lived in Santa Cruz in the 1950s simply
because research into the structures remaining on the Depot Site
was not conducted until late in the master planning process is
ludicrous."
The Cross Roads
Drive-in remained a special place in the memories of Santa Cruz
High School alumni of the late 1940s through early 1960s as evident
in the letters they wrote. Here are excerpts from a small portion
that were copied to me:
Miriam Agostini (1949), Salinas, Calif.: “So little remains
of the old landmarks of those times that it seems a shame to
once and for all erase one of the last of the popular ‘hangouts,’
which was enjoyed by many residents of Santa Cruz County as teenagers.”
Thelma Watkins (1950), Belen, N.M.: “As
one of the drive-in's first employees in 1947 . . . I was a waitress
and a carhop . . . I may well have been the first local teenager
to work for the Klempnauers and would like to point out that
the Cross Roads was one of the few places where teens could find
employment in Santa Cruz in those days.”
Bob Sherbourne (1951), Brookings, Ore.: “In 1951 (I was
only 17) as I sat in a foxhole in Korea eating a C ration can
of lima beans, I tried to imagine I was at the Cross Roads having
a Coke, fries and a hamburger there.”
Jack Samuelson (1952), Santa Cruz, Calif.: “I was planning
on referring some of my high school buddies who no longer live
in the area to the [newspaper] story because we hung out at the
Cross Roads during our teenage years.”
Richard Montgomery (1953), Geneva, Switzerland: “Don't save
the Cross Roads only for my generation. Save it also for yourselves
and the youth of today. The Cross Roads is a bit of history that
represents a past way of life. And, believe me, it was as much
a part of Santa Cruz culture as the Boardwalk and beach parties.”
Lorraine Voight (1954), Santa Cruz, Calif.: “It's difficult
to believe that no one at City Hall knew that Lighthouse Liquors
had once been a drive-in restaurant, especially since John Filice,
who owned the liquor store property when the city bought it,
had once been a dish washer at the Cross Roads during his youth.”
Diane Strong (1955) of Birmingham, Ala.: “I realize that,
as we advance in years, we reminisce about the days of youth,
often memorializing the past as more glamorous than it really
was; however, my memories as a 1955 SCHS senior would never be
complete without incorporating the Cross Roads Drive-In as an
integral part of that memory. The ‘drive-in/carhop’
phenomena have captured the imagination of Hollywood, Broadway
and television in years past and continue to do so. I heard my
first Fats Domino record at the Cross Roads, made dates over
a Coke, and "spun-a-U" in the parking lot in my '41
Chevy more times than I can tell.”
(Strong has moved back to Santa Cruz since sending in that quote.)
Nancy Rader (1956), Branson, Mo.: “The night times in Santa
Cruz were filled with cruisin', going from the 5-Spot to the
Cross Roads and back again, just to see who was hangin' out.
The good, clean fun that I remember cannot be forgotten . . .
When a landmark such as the Cross Roads goes, it is gone forever.”
John Lute (1957), San Jose, Calif.: “I spent almost every
Thursday night after the Naval Reserve meeting there. A group
of us would gather there to talk and check out the girls and
cars that came in. It seems a shame that anyone would want to
tear down history to erect a historical museum.”
Leroy DeCamara (1958), Vancouver, Wash.: “I urge you to
reconsider and not destroy one of the few remaining symbols of
1940s' and 1950s' Americana. Our past is not being preserved
enough in this country. Think of something from the past you
might have visited recently and consider that it wouldn't have
been there for you to enjoy had not someone done something to
save it.”
Susan Jackson (1959), San Simon, Ariz.: “Do I remember the
Cross Roads Drive-In? My lord, I lived across the street at the
Pacific Courts . . . I got many calls from girlfriends asking
if their current boyfriend was at the drive-in.”
Alice Dogherra (1960), Visalia, Calif.: “This place is an
old haunt of many people in the '50s and '60s . . . It was a
local hangout, and my mom always could find me there. I moved
from Santa Cruz last year (2000), but whenever I drove down to
the wharf or Boardwalk with my children and then grandchildren,
I would point out the old Cross Roads and tell them stories of
carhops, great food, etc. Of course they wanted to know what
a carhop was.” [Alice Dogherra died in 2003.]
But one other letter stand outs, written by Sharmon Nash, a Santa
Cruz High School history teacher from 1951-1985:
“Although a couple of years past teenager
in the 1950s, I fully empathize with the Santa Cruz High students
of that decade who have written to the Santa Cruz City Council
and the Sentinel asking that the former Cross Roads Drive-In
in the Depot Park development be preserved. Truly symbolic of
mid-20th Century teenage culture and verifiably typical of drive-in
restaurant architecture of that era, the Cross Roads ought to
be designated as a local historical landmark.
“. . . Santa Cruzans genuinely interested in maintaining
vestiges of ALL definable cultures and eras of our local heritage
for future generations to experience and enjoy should want this
singular remnant of the '50s preserved. Too often one culture's
icon becomes the next culture's rubble.
“. . . I was a frequent customer of the Cross Roads, whose
owners displayed an uncanny knack for hiring personable and efficient
young employes--some of whom were my students at Santa Cruz High
School.”
The Cross Roads
building is still standing, serving as a retail outlet for the
Santa Cruz Homeless Garden Project since the city bought it.
Although much of Depot Park has been developed, there is not
enough money available to construct the national history museum.
Why the City of Santa Cruz doesn’t consider incorporating
the Cross Roads building as part of the museum complex is hard
to fathom. Maybe they could save a few bucks.
My fighting days are over. I may not have won, but in the long
run it will be the City of Santa Cruz that is the loser.
©2006 by Len Klempnauer. This column
first posted Jan. 19, 2006.
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