I am sorry to report I missed Wednesday evening’s planning fest for fixing what ails the city’s State Street underpass. Apparently more than 100 people showed up at the Community Arts Workshop on Garden Street, which was all about what kind of art would be cool in the underpass. By all accounts, a good time was had by all. Participants are reportedly still giddy with exhilaration from the experience. And how many times can that be said? Lots of ideas. Positive suggestions on how to make the underpass cool, hip, and mellow. Flashing lights that track motion. Murals. You name it. Everything but a choir of accordion players at one end and bagpipers at the other.
The point is to connect the stretch of lower State Street where the dirty book store–tattoo parlor–nail salons live with the even lower part of the street where the new Hotel Californian has just erupted. And, of course, there’s the always throbbing heart of the Fun(k) Zone, where the good times roll almost as freely as all the upscale artisanal libations. City administrator senior assistant Nina Johnson is trying to figure out how to maintain the flow from the bottom of the street — where the action is — to the upper portions — where the action decidedly isn’t. Even though the State Street underpass — built in the 1990s by Caltrans — is wider than the rest of State Street, it functions as a pinch point and doesn’t encourage the flow of human traffic from points A to B. Conspicuously absent from Wednesday night’s gathering was any exhumation of Pearl Chase’s ghost or any creatures out of Santa Barbara’s historical closet, red tiles or white stucco.
Johnson was the guiding hand behind the Wednesday night shindig, and most strategically and unusually — as in never before in human history — she got an anonymous donor to donate some wine. No doubt everyone would have been there anyway. No doubt they would have all been just as engaged. But it didn’t hurt. Next time, bring beer and I’ll show up too. The bigger point to applaud is that this was a gathering to talk about what people affirmatively want to see fill the void rather than yet another group gripe about the homeless, the street people, and da bums who are turning State Street into the Second Coming of Calcutta.