The Burlingame Voice

Peanuts and Vince Guaraldi in B'game

The B'game Historical Society had standing room only on Wednesday at the Lane room for a presentation about the history of the Mendelson/Melendez production company and the Charlie Brown TV specials.  Voice readers know the company is born and bred Burlingame and may recall when Lee Mendelson himself did a presentation back in 2013 here.

This time around Lee's sons, Sean and Jason, focused in on the music that accompanied the various TV specials.  The driving force behind the music was local composer and jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi who passed away in 1976.  After the sons did some archival digging in various places, the original tapes of the Peanuts music were located, remastered and repressed (on bio-vinyl no less!).  It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown! is the current release.  Originally recorded in the famous Wally Heider Studios in EssEff, it was the twelfth Peanuts score by Guaraldi.  I won't attempt to tell the whole story that can be found in the liner notes, but Linus continues the proselytizing that began with A Charlie Brown Christmas in 1965.

The story Sean told about how the Christmas special came about was pure local gold.  The TV sponsors (mainly Coca-Cola) had turned down another of Lee Mendelson's shows but offered him a chance to fill a Christmas slot if he could give them a script in a couple of days.  He rushed back to his partner Bill Melendez and to Charles Schultz who pulled the script together over a weekend.  Guaraldi put the music together and Lee added the lyrics on the back of a napkin.  The Coke execs were unimpressed, but Lee told them to let their families decide if they liked it and the classic was born.  That's the short version.  To get the long version, you hadda be there.

Avenew update: Bye bye pavers

We haven't addressed any changes on The Avenue recently although there has been bits of news and commentary.  So here goes.  Burlingame native turned San Franciscan, Peter Hartlaub of the SF Chronicle, did a piece this week titled "Nostalgia and progress are a tough balance. This Bay Area downtown gets it right." that was highly complementary of the San Mateo downtown.  He likes the B Street closure and all of the restaurant choices down there.  Regarding his hometown Avenue, not so much:

The Peninsula has changed so much since I grew up in Burlingame in the 1970s and ’80s that I sometimes wonder whether I imagined the whole thing.

All of my favorite South Bay movie theaters, comic book stores and sandwich shops are long gone. Marine World Africa USA’s dolphin shows and waterslides were replaced by Oracle headquarters. Main drag Burlingame Avenue turned from a haven of small businesses catering to the middle class to a Boulevard of Things I Can’t Afford.

On that "boulevard" the city has finally thrown in the towel on some of the pavers that are cute, almost nostalgic in a faux cobblestone sort of way, but a maintenance headache.  The replacement project was scheduled to be complete last night:

Several downtown Burlingame Avenue intersections will be under construction from March 24 through March 27. At the intersection of Burlingame Avenue and Primrose Road and the intersection of Burlingame Avenue and Lorton Avenue, the City will remove existing pavers and install new asphalt concrete, which will reduce the maintenance required for the pavers. At the intersection of Burlingame Avenue and Park Road, pavers will be replaced both in the intersection and in the crosswalks.

I just walked through the busy core intersection of Primrose and The Avenew where a few loose pavers are hanging on.  Maybe they stay for historic reasons?  Or the project is just going slower than planned.  Be on the asphalt alert.  Right at that crossroad, Joe and the Juice is closing "for maintenance".  The windows were being papered over this morning.  I admit being surprised a coffee and juice place of that spacious size can survive on the Ave with all the coffee competition.  It never looks even half full, but they say they will be back.  Maybe Hartlaub will stop by Broadway on his next journey down the Peninsula?

Brutalism in Burlingame

Empty buildings in B'game make me nervous.  I envision the Claw showing up some day and the whole structure being gone in a couple of days.  Many of the replacements are sterile.  It happens all over town in both commercial and residential areas.  That's why I got nervous after seeing our only local Brutalist building appearing to be empty.  It sits at 1825 Magnolia behind The Trousdale and Burlingame Plaza.  Borrowing from Wikipedia, we learn:

Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era.  Brutalist buildings are characterized by minimalist constructions that showcase the bare building materials and structural elements over decorative design. The style commonly makes use of exposed, unpainted concrete or brick, angular geometric shapes and a predominantly monochrome colour palette; other materials, such as steel, timber, and glass, are also featured.

Descending from the modernist movement, brutalism is said to be a reaction against the nostalgia of architecture in the 1940s. Derived from the Swedish phrase nybrutalism, the term "new brutalism" was first used by British architects Alison and Peter Smithson for their pioneering approach to design.  In the United Kingdom, brutalism was featured in the design of utilitarian, low-cost social housing influenced by socialist principles and soon spread to other regions around the world, while being echoed by similar styles like in Eastern Europe.

Brutalism has been polarizing historically; specific buildings, as well as the movement as a whole, have drawn a range of criticism (often being described as "cold"). There are often public-led campaigns to demolish brutalist buildings. Some people are favorable to the style and in the United Kingdom some buildings have been preserved.

I asked around a bit and some think it was built as the Teachers Association headquarters (now a few blocks away) and was later a bank.  The good news is that rather than being empty, an on-line search shows it is owned by the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association, also known as "The City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, which is based in Ukiah.  The parking lot must be chained when not in use.  I think the building is oddly cool and worth taking a moment or two to appreciate.  Here is it

History: Two new Washington Park plaques

I'm a bit behind with this post as the unveiling of two new historical plaques in Washington Park was a couple weeks ago.  The plaques were made possible by donations from two BHS Class of '62 members, Bill Walsh and Fred Hawley, and the services of the B'game Historical Society for the content and Park & Rec staff for the installation.  One at the entrance to the high school driveway covers the history of the school.  The other is deep in the park near the rose garden and covers the history of the Gunst mansion that stood on the site.

Mr. Walsh is on the left and Mr. Hawley is in the middle flanked by three Historical Society board members--from the left, Joanne Garrison, Jennifer Pfaff and my lovely wife Cathy.  Check out these new historical additions to our town when you are in the park.  Hopefully there are more to come.

Merry Christmas, B'game

I have a simple wish for everyone in our sweet little town and it is perfectly illuminated by this great photo from a regular Voice reader and his trusty phone.  Merry Christmas, B'game.  I hope it's peaceful.  What's that star at the top?

Retro Cool Ice Cream in B'game

Mercury News reporters Linda Zavoral and Jessica Yadegaran put on some miles (and possibly some pounds) while building a list of the 10 beloved Bay Area ice cream shops, from the classic to the eclectic.  From Orinda and Pleasanton to San Jose to B'game where they noted Preston's celebrated its 75th anniversary last year:

RETRO COOL: Preston’s Candy & Ice Cream, Burlingame

The vintage signs outside and the checkerboard floor inside are reason enough to put Preston’s on any list of beloved ice cream parlors. It’s a look that transports you to yesteryear. New owner Javier Santiago, a career chocolatier, bought the iconic shop recently from longtime owner Irene Preston and vowed to keep making her customers’ nostalgic favorites — honeycomb, peanut brittle, pecan turtles — while making a name for himself with his contemporary chocolate bars under the Javier Confectionery brand.

Santiago is also keeping the ice cream tradition alive. The shop scoops 20 to 30 flavors of Loard’s ice cream ($4.95 for a small cone or cup, $5.95 medium), and he’s making the often-requested Presti Bars ($5.65), ice cream sandwiched between two freshly baked cookies and covered in chocolate. The bars come in several flavors, including vanilla, burgundy cherry and espresso.

The scoop: The top seller is the Mint Chip ice cream, and it’s easy to see why. Preston’s makes the mint chocolate candy, then Loard’s uses that to create this custom flavor for Preston’s.

My first paycheck job was at Friendly's where I was a short order cook, washed dishes, mowed the lawn and, yes, scooped a lot of ice cream.  Black raspberry was my favorite.  I'll have to stop into Preston's and see if they have some!  Kudos to Javier on a nice press hit.

Stylistic Gems of El Camino Real

Jennifer Pfaff, the president of the Burlingame Historical Society, has penned the front-page article for this quarter's society newsletter titled "Overlooked Gems of El Camino Real".  It's a real gem of a piece, too.  You all should be members and get your own hardcopy mailed to you, but for those who have not yet joined I am going to pluck out just the architectural styles mentioned as "gems".  As part of the ECR project, Caltrans engaged a team of architectural historians from AECOM.  That's the source of this list:

• Bungalow Style single -- family homes found all over B'game but not nearly as many as we originally had.
• 1920 Mission Revival commercial automotive architecture - the C & D auto shop tucked away on the south end of ECR (see below).
• European Eclectic Revival - apartment building with arched windows and Flemish parapet end walls.
• Stucco Box apartment buildings - the technical term for our post-WWII flat-roofed structures.
• Podium Style - like The Viking building by Danish architect Mogens Mogensen.
• International Style - like our 8-story Burlingame Towers
• New Formalism Style - like Arcamino West on Arc Way.

This is quite a list for a three-mile stretch of historic road. It seems AECOM might have missed the Art Deco Adeline Market on the list.  Wouldn't it be nice if some of these had some historical protection?

The next Historical Society walking tour is August 6th when the Willborough neighborhood gets the spotlight turned on it.  Learn about the 22 Tudor style homes by joining tour guide Joanne Garrison at 1pm where Palm Dr. meets Willborough Rd.  Here's our Mission Revival shop

B'game History thru Gabriel Moulin's lens

It was standing room only for the quarterly Burlingame Historical Society meeting Tuesday night in the Lane Room.  More than 100 people showed up to hear local historian Joanne Garrison describe photographer Gabriel Moulin's documentation of the early days of the Easton Addition as part of the effort to sell building lots around Hillside Dr.  The genesis of the presentation was a book of said photographs that was donated to the Society.  That kicked off Joanne's effort to take current day matching photos to show the similarities and the changes.  Over 50 minutes, she added details about the Mills, Easton and Howard families--the original land owners in B'game.

The crowd included 17 descendants of Moulin, some of whom travelled from as far away as San Diego, plus a number of local residents of the Hillside-Summit-Canyon area.  Ms. Garrison was able to locate several houses that still exist on Cortez and Cabrillo, but the sad news that an important one on Hillside is schedule for scraping and sub-dividing was the downer of the night.  As the saying goes, "You'll miss it when it's gone".

It was great to see so many people come out to learn about and appreciate B'game history.  Here are the tram tracks going up Hillside drive that carried potential buyers.

Podcast: Hear About the Voice in Our Own Words

This is one of the most exciting posts in the history of the Burlingame Voice because it is about the history of the Voice.  Man-about-town and now podcaster-about-town, Mark Lucchesi, who we wrote about two years ago when he "retired" from Mollie Stone's, has trained his microphone on Russ and me.  You can listen to a number of "Mark at the Mic" podcasts that he has gone for the Burlingame Historical Society by searching that moniker on YouTube.

Russ and I were happy to be asked and had a blast talking about the Voice past and present for about 45 minutes.  The direct link to our podcast is HERE.  You will hear about how we started, who was involved early on, what each of us thinks about some local issues (hint:  we don't always agree and that is half the fun).  I describe some of the "Principles of the Voice" but I didn't get to all of them during our conversation, so here's the list as it sits currently:

• Respect the Law of Unintended Consequences
• There are Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics (popularized by Mark Twain, maybe Benjamin Disraeli)
•               Corollary:  A numerator without the denominator is useless
• There is no Free Lunch, somebody is paying.
• Always do cost/benefit assessments
• Does it pass the “Shoe on the other foot” test?
• People get interested when the pothole is in front of their house.
• A cat seldom changes its stripes.
•               Corollary: “When someone shows you who they are believe them” Maya Angelou

The session was also video recorded, so you may get to see our mugs in the future if and when that version is posted to YouTube.  In the meantime, enjoy the podcast. 

The History and Innerworkings of Local Newspapers

The Burlingame Historical Society drew a good crowd to its quarterly meeting especially considering it was right before the Super Bowl.  This quarter's topic was the How the News is Made with guest speaker Jon Mays from the Daily Journal.  Society president Jennifer Pfaff provided an overview of the various early newspapers that existed in the area before Jon spent almost an hour on the innerworkings of the news business.  I had already watched local podcaster Mark Lucchesi's episode with Jon that you can find on YouTube here.

There was some overlap between the two presentations so the podcast will give you some of what you missed by not being at the meeting.  I'll just add three observations.  Jon described how the business model has changed, mostly for the worse, because of the changing advertising and classified ad business.  The subsequent reduction in staffing levels precludes covering events like the local crab feed the way they were done back in the day.  In a sense, that is what I am doing as a citizen journalist with this post.  Noting something that wouldn't otherwise be covered.

Jon also described a recent instance of the Law of Unintended Consequences when he noted the impact of AB5 (the controversial gig worker bill) on his delivery team.  The people who deliver local newspapers don't just deliver one paper; they deliver most--maybe all-- of the papers in the area simultaneously.  My SF Comical comes bundled with my Wall Street Journal everyday which I find amusing.  AB5 disrupts the ability of the drivers to work four jobs at once--literally at once as they make their rounds.  Jon noted that the forces behind AB5 don't understand his business.  That's an understatement since I don't think they understand many businesses at all.

Lastly, Jon described the student journalist program that the DJ operates after school with a kid from each of the local high schools.  This is the classic internship model with hands-on-overseen by professionals work experience.  It's good stuff and has been the origin of a few careers in the news business.  As the grandson of a newspaper editor, Jon gets it naturally.  Notice the Advance Star office on the screen.