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Art, Commerce and the Metropolis: The Revitalization of Downtown Pomona, 1992-2002 By Michael Reibel and David Levitan Art, Commerce and the Metropolis: The Revitalization of Downtown Pomona, 1992-2002 By Michael Reibel and David Levitan This study was made possible by a grant from the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation. Copyright 2002. All rights reserved. The authors gratefully acknowledge the personal assistance of Dave Armstrong, David Bergman, Michael Bufalino, Meenaxi Panakkal, Dwight Richards, Ed Tessier, Evie Tole, Barbara Way, Robert Wise, and everyone else who consented to be interviewed for this study or answered our questions. Any errors are solely the responsibility of the authors. We would also like to acknowledge the assistance of Pomona Central Business District Organization and the following departments and offices at Cal Poly Pomona: the Cal Poly Pomona Downtown Center, the Center for Geographic Information Systems Research, the Department of Geography and Anthropology, The College of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences, Cal Poly Pomona Foundation, and the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs. Finally, the authors would like to thank the good people at Taco Nazo, without whose fish tacos this work would not have been possible. 2 Table of Contents Page Chapter One: A Brief History and Geography of Pomona ……….…………………………….4 Chapter Two: Downtown Decline and Strategies for Downtown Revitalization………………17 Chapter Three: Comparable Settings and Strategies………………………………………...….37 Chapter Four: Current Revitalization Strategy and Initiatives in Downtown Pomona…………….………..…………….56 Chapter Five: Analysis…………………………………………………………………………..71 Map Section…………………………………………………………………………...Click Here Chapter Six: Summary and Findings……………………………………………………………82 Recommendations………………………………………………………………………………..88 Sources Cited…………………………………………………………….………………………89 About the Authors………………………………………………………………………………..93 3 Chapter One: A Brief History and Geography of Pomona The City of Pomona is located 28 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, on the westernmost part of the vast inland plain (called the inland Empire) that contains urbanized San Bernardino and Riverside. This area, sometimes called the Pomona Valley, is separated from the San Gabriel Valley by the Puente Hills that rise along Pomona’s western edge. Because Pomona is in Los Angeles County, however, it is sometimes considered part of the San Gabriel Valley. It is believed that the area was first inhabited around 500 B.C., when Native Americans of Shoshonean heritage moved westward into the region. The Indian population of the San Gabriel Valley had reached about 5,000 by the time the Spanish began arriving in 1769, led by Franciscans eager to colonize ‘Alta California’ and convert the native population to Christianity. Two years later, the Franciscans began construction of Mission San Gabriel, in present-day Montebello. The mission controlled approximately 1.5 million acres of land along a 22-mile strip that extended 42 miles south to San Pedro and 62 miles east to the Muscupaibe Range. Pomona was named in 1875 after the Roman goddess of fruit, which can be seen as both homage to the past and a prophecy of the future. The first grove of 400 orange trees was planted in 1804 by the Franciscans, as well as hundreds of apple and peach trees. For the first 70 years of the 19th Century however, cattle would dominate the region’s economy. By 1834, the last year of Franciscan rule, 16,500 cattle grazed on mission lands. It was then that, having gained its independence from Spain twelve years earlier, the land was secularized and redistributed by the independent nation of Mexico via the Secularization Act of 1834. Most of what is now Pomona was granted to two Mexican ranchers from Los Angeles, Ignacio Palomares and Ricardo Vejar. The cattle industry flourished for these Mexican rancheros, especially in the late 1840’s when the discovery of gold in Northern California saw beef prices soar. This period of affluent Mexican ranchos would be short-lived, however, as the annexation of California to the United States in 1848 via the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo would soon change life in the Pomona region and across California. One year later, the California Board of Land Commissioners was created to investigate and pass on land titles. Many Mexicans lost their land when they could not prove ownership, but Palomares and Vejar were 4 granted their land, based on a partition that had taken place in 1846 that included a third partner, Los Angeles merchant Henry Dalton. Yet, while they were able to keep their land, both Palomares and Vejar accrued a large amount of debt while taking out high interest loans to cover the higher taxes that accompanied the transition to American rule in the 1850’s. This was followed by several years of intermittent floods and drought during the 1860’s, which resulted in a 71% decline in the number of cattle in Los Angeles County during the decade. By 1864, Vejar was forced to sell his land and Palomares had died, and Pomona was beginning to change rapidly. As the first transcontinental railroad to reach Los Angeles, the Southern Pacific Railroad was extremely influential in determining the development patterns of Southern California in the latter part of the 19th Century. Concerned that the railroad would bypass Los Angeles in favor of San Diego, Los Angeles County voters approved a large subsidy to Southern Pacific to encourage them to build 25 miles of track eastward from Los Angeles. Almost immediately, land values in areas adjacent to the railroad’s route rose in values and town sites were surveyed in anticipation of the expected population boom. By 1875, a Southern Pacific line that would eventually reach Yuma, Arizona had made it to what is now present-day Pomona. A year earlier, a small group of Southern California men had created a new organization called the Los Angeles Immigration and Land Co-Operative Association. By April 1875, the group had arranged to purchase much of the former Vejar property from the current owner Louis Phillips, consisting of about 2,500 acres that lay just south of the railroad route. The area was surveyed and staked out in July of that same year, and by August an approved map had been filed with the Los Angeles County Recorder. By early 1876, the roads had been paved, a reservoir had been built, and several businesses, including a hotel, a grocery store, and a drug store, had been established. The association held a land auction in late February, which generated land sales of approximately $19,000. However, years of drought and a disastrous fire reduced the population of Pomona to just 130 by 1880, and in 1881 the land was returned to Louis Phillips. The town was revived with the arrival of Cyrus Mills and M.L. Wicks in 1882, whose Pomona Land and Water Company bought out the interests of everyone in town and the surrounding areas, amassing over 12,000 acres. By 1887, water rights had been secured, and the 5 town began to take shape with the construction of several schools, banks, churches, hotels, grocery stores, and fruit canneries. By January of the next year, the City of Pomona had been incorporated, with a total of 213 businesses. As the city began to take shape, a rate war between the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific Railroads helped attract hundreds of farmers fleeing Midwestern winters with hopes of finding a piece of the fertile land. Grapes became the first fruit to flourish in the area, and by the end of the 1880’s winemaking was the largest industry in town. This was partially due to problems faced by the region’s orange growers, which included disputes with the railroads over cooling and refrigeration techniques and shipping costs, which caused Eastern markets to dry up and prices to plummet. By 1894, many of these issues had been addressed by the creation of the California Fruit Growers Association, which handled quality control, advertising, and publicity for the area’s growers. Newly organized, citrus production would explode in Pomona, located in the middle of the “Citrus Triangle” region that produced $2 billion in income from citrus between 1890 and 1940. By 1916, more than 5,000 acres in and around Pomona were devoted to citrus production, and the San Antonio Fruit Exchange, located in Pomona, accounted for over a third of the entire shipment of the California Fruit Growers Exchange. With jobs plentiful in the fields and factories, Pomona reached a population of 10,000 by 1913. The city also experienced a brief surge in its Hispanic population, following the 1911 Mexican Revolution that encouraged thousands to flee north. Citrus prices dropped immediately following World War I, but were able to recover by the early 1920’s, and several new citrus-related enterprises were opened by the end of the decade. The Great Depression, however, saw agricultural prices drop by 65% nationwide, and helped bring about a major change in the demographic makeup of the region. Thousands of Mexican agricultural workers were “voluntarily” repatriated during the 1930’s, and were soon replaced by white farmers escaping the Midwest’s Dust Bowl conditions and extremely high unemployment. With the outbreak of World War II, the citrus industry was greatly aided by 6 large government purchases for military use. This was a temporary solution, however, as these purchases would end in 1946, when America’s soldiers returned from abroad. Population growth in Pomona surged in the period immediately following World War II. The United States Chamber of Commerce named Pomona as one of the two fastest growing communities in 1946, and by 1950 the city had over 17,000 residential units, with many built on abandoned orchards. Job opportunities did not grow as quickly as the population, however, and many of the city’s residents were forced to commute 15 to 30 miles to work, mostly to Alhambra and Pasadena.

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