But this is Chico, too

Bay Area architects Allan Jacobs and Elizabeth Macdonald always have such nice things to say about The Esplanade.

It’s featured prominently in their book about multiway boulevards. The Esplanade’s efficiency and aesthetic appeal contributed to their decision to create 21st century versions of this type of roadway, which had not been built in more than 50 years.

Earlier this year, when they visited Chico and led a tour of The Esplanade, they talked about a project in San Francisco they had designed. They had transformed four blocks of Octavia Street into a multiway boulevard just like The Esplanade, with a main thoroughfare and two side streets.

For almost 30 years, this stretch was the northernmost spur of the city’s Central Freeway. But after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, it was closed to traffic and later torn down. The boulevard treatment was completed in 2005. It’s supposed to serve as a transition between the freeway, which now ends at Market Street, and the city’s grid of surface streets.

The main selling point of multiway boulevards is that they are movement multitaskers. Their main thoroughfares are intended to bustle with traffic, while their side streets are to serve as pleasant retreats for pedestrians, bicyclists and drivers who live in the neighborhood.

I was anxious to take a look at their project. I wanted to be charmed by it. I wanted to say “Wow, this is just like The Esplanade."

A couple of weeks ago, I had an opportunity to visit San Francisco. I walked along Octavia between about 8:30 and 9 a.m. on a Monday morning.

It was a miserable experience.

Traffic was so gridlocked that drivers trying to enter Octavia from the cross streets were unable to get past the intersections before the lights turned red.

This meant I had to wade through a wall of cars whenever the traffic light at my crosswalk was green. As I attempted to work my way between the narrow gaps in the wall I had no idea how much time I would have before the drivers seized their chance to lurch forward to get through the intersection.

I was annoyed at how long the lights at the side street intersections remained red. These byways are supposed to beckon pedestrians, but the lights along Octavia were ordering me to stay put to give the vehicles as much time as possible to make their way onto the main thoroughfare. My needs had to take a back seat to those of the drivers.

One of the reasons the traffic flow along Octavia is so bad is that when motorists get off the freeway and cross Market Street they must deal with a street that is only four blocks long. They can’t keep going straight. A small park between Fell and Hayes streets blocks the way. It’s a pretty spot, but it’s a maddening obstacle for drivers who might find it more convenient to travel the three blocks that remain of Octavia before having to turn onto a cross street.

Aside from the traffic, another bad feature of the project is that it has compromised the fabric of the neighborhood. Construction of the boulevard required the tearing down of all of the buildings on the east side of Octavia, which left a long narrow strip of land in their wake. Buildings that face the street are essential to creating a pleasant cityscape, but it’s hard to picture how these awkward parcels could be redeveloped. You’d have to put up some incredibly skinny buildings.

I admire San Franciscans for thumbing their noses at freeways. I would have hated to see concrete juggernauts cutting through Golden Gate Park and dividing long-established neighborhoods.

I think the tearing down of the Central Freeway spur after the earthquake was the right move. It triggered the revitalization of the surrounding Hayes Valley neighborhood.

But deciding you can get along without a lot of freeways doesn’t make the traffic go away. Building a boulevard with a freeway at one end and a traffic deadend at the other has created a mess. Granted, I chose to take a look at Octavia during rush hour, but why design a street that fails to do its job at precisely those times when it’s most desperately needed. Keep in mind that this stretch replaced a freeway. The redesigned roadway has to be up to the task of handling a huge number of vehicles during peak commuting times.

I’m still a fan of multiway boulevards. The Esplanade works just fine. But Octavia Street is unable to bear its traffic burden. It’s not a pleasant place to drive or walk.

Posted by Steve Brown at 11:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Curiosity about whether John Bidwell fathered children with Indian women has persisted into the 21st century.

The subject has come up in two 21st century books about the Bidwells. The late Lois McDonald, in her biography of Annie Bidwell, concludes that Bidwell was the father of Amanda Wilson and George Clements, and that each of them had a different mother.

She bases this on the apparent gravity of Bidwell’s confessions in a letter to his future wife. McDonald writes: “To what length did Bidwell go that winter evening when the dam burst and he released confidences detailing his sins? Did he then tell her of his liaisons with at least two Indian women and the children that had resulted? Could she have accepted that news and still felt the glow of affection toward him. Yes, in this biographer’s opinion, she could do so and did.”

Mike Magliari and the late Mike Gillis, in their biographical anthology of John Bidwell, wrote that if his political opponents had heard anything about alleged liaisons with Indian women they would have used it against him. Magliari and Gillis write that “no documented evidence has ever been found to corroborate claims that Bidwell ever married or cohabited with Nopanny (Bidwell’s housekeeper) or any other Native American woman.”

Then there are the claims of Arlene Ward, a member of the local Mechoopda tribe, who says she is a descendant of John Bidwell. She is the great-granddaughter of George Clements. When I did a profile on her for a story in the style section of the Enterprise-Record a couple of years ago, she told me Bidwell’s relationships with Indian women and the children he fathered with them are “accepted as fact in the Indian community.” She also said that in her family “this is old news.”

Who’s to say what the truth is? There’s no way to find out. As well-bred Victorians, the Bidwells didn’t talk about such things in public. In their book, Magliari and Gillis write that “John and Annie’s extant papers are silent on the subject.”

In her book, McDonald writes about Annie’s reported reply to a “vicious-tongued” lady: “One version told is that she did not deny the facts of her husband’s alliance, but stated, ‘Before I came into his life, he had no choice but to choose from what there was. And he always chose the best.’”

McDonald calls the story “folklore.”

The stigma of having children out of wedlock and pursuing sexual relationships with a person of a different ethnic background has diminished since the 19th century, but even today many public figures would hesitate to disclose such intimate details about their personal life.

Indeed, most of us still have secrets we take pains to guard from public scrutiny. Thank God for that. Our fascination for celebrities and gossip and our penchant for writing tell-it-all memoirs and blogs and appearing on reality TV shows is threatening to turn us into a nation of emotional flashers.

It seems to me that the Victorians showed uncommon good sense in being reticent about their private lives. They championed some values that we would do well to emulate. The Bidwells made sure that the truth about John's relationships with Indian women was a subject they'd take with them to their graves.

Posted by Steve Brown at 12:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Once upon a time, back in the 19th century, Chico had two downtowns. The one between First and Fifth streets was and still is called downtown. The one bounded by Eighth and Main streets and Broadway and Humboldt and Park avenues was called The Junction. Its businesses — saloons, restaurants, a hotel, a laundry, a grocery store — served travelers of the Humboldt Wagon Road, which connected Chico to Susanville and points east.

This walk around the block starts at the northeast corner of Main and Ninth streets with a reminder that traces of the past have an overwhelming tendency to vanish.

This applies not only to the Junction as a whole, which now has businesses — a natural foods store, a car dealership, a gas station, motels — that serve 21st century needs, but to a location as specific as the south of wall of this corner building.

When I took photos of the block for this blog last summer, the bicycle mural by Scott Teeples was still on the wall, but now it’s been painted over.

Head north along the last stretch of Main that has pedestrian-oriented buildings until you reach Fifth Street and you’ll pass by Jedidiah’s Neighborhood Grill, a new business that moved from Humboldt Avenue a couple of years ago, and Pullins Cyclery, which has been around forever.

Turn right on Eighth. Just beyond the Pullins building is the Little Red Hen Therapeutic Plant Nursery, a business that benefits disabled people. This is a relatively new enterprise, but its plantings, including those in the parkways between the sidewalk and the street, have already turned this part of the block into a green and pleasant land.

Turn right on Wall Street and enjoy the quadrant of this block that has a mixture of houses and businesses. This is a part of Chico I think of as “funky.” In an earlier blog, I tried to describe what I mean by “funky,” but it’s easier for me to say I know it when I see it, and this is it. On the east side of Wall is Satava Art Glass, a business that occupies a house.

Turn right on Ninth. This corner is occupied by Little Red Hen, Too, the growing grounds for the nursery. It reminds me of the title of this blog, which is an outgrowth of my Enterprise-Record column, “But this is Chico.”

At the end of the block, we come full circle (or full square) and stand in front of the corner building with the now-blank wall. The corner business is an antiques store, a reminder that as traces of the past vanish objects that were once necessary may become collectible. This goes for old buildings and neighborhoods as much as for household goods.

Posted by Steve Brown at 02:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)