Remembering the Way State Street Was

by Linda Wade Williams

For years, even before the world shut down in 2020, many good articles have run locally about the state of State Street, the huge 4 + story buildings whose developers skillfully work around local building limits and past the recommendations of our Architectural Board. I have attended Pearl Chase meetings where the members were asked how many were unhappy with the way State Street looks and operates today. With about a hundred people attending at the Alhecama, every single hand in the room went up. Similar response with practically anyone you talk to about it who is over 40 and really sees the big picture, or knows what a gem of a downtown corridor it once was.

Entire organizations dedicated to bringing cars back to Downtown offer business-promoting sound economic sense to the reasons why State Street was better when cars moved up and down the corridor. Remember when you could get around town in seven minutes, to any destination: East side, West side, San Roque, Hope Ranch, Montecito? Now, whole streets are blocked off, from Sola on the East side to Robbins on the West (to name just two of many).

We would often ask about those making the decisions for such drastic changes to our once graceful traffic flow. We surmise that they’re fresh out of civil engineering classes from some of our local colleges, full of political/philosophical rationale, given the green light (emphasis on “green”) by the local city government, who, with a few exceptions, march to the same civil ideology.

All these smart articles, the pushback, the attendance at endless City Council meetings to protest articulately and knowledgably, especially about building excesses and the downtown corridor, mostly go unheeded. And we know that as we reflect upon the dismal vestiges of our former downtown, which appeals now mostly to tourists. We see the huge cranes looming over all the two-story downtown buildings remaining in compliance with traditional policy.

But what I really want to address is yet another business demise: this one on Figueroa that closed on Valentine’s Day this year.