Pullman cars, boosters and boomers best describe the founding of Santa Monica, the little town that has grown from its meager 417 residents in 1880 into a city of 90,000. The completion of the Santa Fe line in 1886 was the spark that ignited the real estate explosion in Southern California and attracted both the speculative and adventurous class-men like Col. Robert S. Baker and Sen. John P. Jones. Having already made their fortunes, Baker in cattle and sheep ranching, and Jones in silver, they turned their attention to development, which they hoped would be spurred on by establishing Santa Monica as the main port of Los Angeles. Despite the two men’s politicking and arm-twisting in the 1870s, their dream of a port city ultimately failed and they turned to developing tourism and recreational opportunities. By 1874, the ‘bubble of expectation’ was full-blown. The township of Santa Monica was founded in 1875 and centered around Second and Third Streets. The first commercial buildings appeared on Second Street and moved up to Third Street by the early 1890s. While Santa Monica was still a town of unpaved streets, and deflated by overripe economic fancies by 1887, a rate war between the Southern Pacific and Santa Fe railroads precipitated a flow of new residents rushing madly to Southern California and setting off a real estate boom. According to California historian Carey McWilliams, the railroad-inspired land booms attracted an unusual type of settler. ‘Unlike other western settlements, Southern California drew settlers from diverse and distant places rather than from neighboring states and territories since they came in Pullman cars instead of covered wagons, they came from cities as well as rural areas and they were merchants, bankers and the uprooted professional man. Many were drawn west by the excitement and novelty of a train trip at cheap rates.’ The Santa Monica Conservancy, an advocacy and education organization founded in 2002, has developed a weekly walking tour researched and designed by Ruthann Lehrer and Carol Lemleim, that traces the history of the city through clues revealed in the commercial buildings intermixed in the four-square blocks between Second and Fourth and Broadway and Arizona. The town’s first business district was initially centered around the current Third Street Promenade. Early street names consisted of both numbers and the names of western States; however Utah eventually became Broadway and Oregon became Santa Monica Boulevard. Logically, the walking tour begins every Saturday at the Rapp Saloon at 1438 Second, the sole survivor from the year Santa Monica was born in 1875. This 250-sq.-ft. brick ‘miniature’ building was constructed by William Rapp, and promoted as a ‘Los Angeles Beer Garden with fresh Los Angeles beer always on hand.’ Although this one-story utilitarian building was made of locally available materials, the ‘architecture’ reflected an incoherent choice of styles with no relationship to the unique subtropical environment of Southern California. The Hotel Carmel, across the street at 1451 Second, reflected the Beaux Arts style, popularized by the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, which took Classical, Renaissance and Baroque traditions as design models. Rising from street level, the four-story edifice is sectioned into three parts: base, midsection and cornice. The stucco cladding is scored to simulate cut stone, and the cornice at the roofline is accented with terracotta lion heads. Still a popular hotel today, in its heyday the Carmel was a favorite retreat for Hollywood film stars. A hint of this elegance is still visible in the lobby, which retains the original 1928 Spanish Baroque fireplace and columns with their highly elaborated surfaces featuring plaques, helmets and curlicues characteristic of the style. Another popular turn-of-the-century architectural style, Romanesque Revival, inspired by early medieval European churches and castles, is splendidly well preserved in the 1893 Keller Block, 1460 Third Street. A major milestone in the downtown’s development, it was the largest building at three stories and helped to establish Third Street as the heart of the commercial center. The original owner H. W. Keller inherited the Malibu land grant from his father, Don Matteo Keller, and built his home on Ocean Avenue. Shops and a restaurant were on the ground floor, with the 45-room Hotel Jackson upstairs. Its brick and rusticated stone corner tower and arched windows are hallmarks of the Romanesque Revival, while the rich detail in the brickwork and the tall narrow windows reflect Victorian tastes. One of the most flamboyant buildings on the tour is the 1927 Builder’s Exchange on Fourth Street, just south of Santa Monica Boulevard. Designed by Eugene Durfee, the Builder’s Exchange beautifully displays the skills of the building tradesmen professionals noted in the highly decorative Churrigueresque style. Churrigueresque is a variant of Spanish Revival named for a family of Spanish architects who transformed the Spanish Baroque into a style of exuberant, abundant and dense ornamentation that became very popular in Mexico. During the restoration of the building, following the 1994 earthquake, the original plans were discovered and indicated the use of ornamental wrought iron, which had never been added to the original facade. So restorers completed the original by adding the wrought-iron decorative touches above the storefronts. Santa Monica’s first true skyscraper with its distinctive clock tower has been a striking landmark since it first rose over the city in 1929. A classic example of Art Deco, the Bay Cities Guaranty and Loan Association, 221-225 Santa Monica Blvd., soars upward 12 stories to a vertical clock tower. Stylized zigzag geometric decoration occurs in the upper portions of the building between the piers, and is restated in the cornice. The building was designed by prominent Los Angeles architects Walker and Eisen, who also designed numerous landmarks such as the Oviatt and Fine Arts Buildings in downtown Los Angeles. Improvements in transportation helped establish the western parts of Los Angeles. In the 1890s, rail service from down L. A. to Santa Monica was about 20 minutes, certainly an improvement over the five- to-six- hour ride by oxcart. By 1911, the Pacific Electric became the largest operator of interurban electric railway passenger service in the world, with more than 1,000 miles of track. Cyclical economic setbacks continued to plague Santa Monica, most notably during the Depression and again in the mid-1960s, when the Santa Monica Freeway dispersed consumers away to outlying shopping centers. But the city remains a mecca for both residents and businesses drawn by the benign climate and the Pacific Ocean. The Third Street Promenade public space with its mix of entertainment, restaurants and retail has made Santa Monica a model for cities everywhere. Walking tours of Santa Monica are held every Saturday at 10 a.m. To make a reservation, call (310) 496-3146 or visit dwt@smconservancy.org. Payment ($5 for Conservancy members, $10 for nonmembers) can be made at the start of the tour.

In Los Angeles, there is no shortage of vintage clothing stores. A quick drive down Melrose reveals a plethora of shopping choices for the vintage junkie. From T-shirts to jeans to jackets, hats and shoes, cast-off old threads have become one-of-a-kind treasures coveted by hip and trendy Angelenos. However, in a city rank with vintage clothing shops, one store stands out among the rest. Palisadian Esther Ginsberg (known in town as Esther Eden) has owned and operated Golyester (136 S. La Brea), an amazing vintage and antique clothing boutique, for over 25 years. She has been collecting vintage since the 1960s, and many of her pieces have been displayed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Pacific Asia Museum and the Fashion Museum at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising. Recently she and her husband, Harry Eden, an engineer with the Aerospace Corporations, attended the opening of Gaillierock, a retrospective of fashion designer Jean Charles de Castelbajac at the Galliera Museum in Paris where three of Ginsberg’s robes were on loan. Then they traveled to Amsterdam to visit the Tropen Museum’s ‘Beauty and the Bead’ exhibit, where several of Ginsberg’s antique beaded garments were on display. ‘I call myself the dinosaur of vintage clothing, having been around for so long in this field that has recently gained so much public interest,’ Ginsberg said. Ginsberg’s passion for vintage began around 1966 when she set off from Texas, where she was working as an art teacher, to become a craft designer for ‘Good Housekeeping’ magazine in New York City. While there she also worked for a toy company designing preschool toys. She arrived with little more than $500 and settled in the East Village, a neighborhood rich with artistic culture. ‘I was incredibly poor and started buying and wearing vintage clothing because it was 25 cents,’ Ginsberg said. Her frugality soon turned into a collecting hobby. She would scour second-hand stores in New York searching for cheap but interesting clothing that she could fix up using her sewing and embroidery skills. Items she didn’t wear, she used in her artwork. Ginsberg was most interested in garments that had a handmade element-items with intricate beadwork or stitching done by hand-that were truly one of a kind. Her first major obsession was turn-of-the-century Victorian and Chinese lace, a treasure she simply couldn’t get enough of. In 1974, after her job designing for a toy manufacturer folded, she moved to Venice Beach and opened an art studio, where she created sculptures using antique textiles, old purses and even cocktail dresses, on what is now Abbot Kinney Boulevard. Her collection of vintage threads was growing rapidly so she began displaying some of her favorite pieces in the front window of her studio and people started stopping in to buy them. Soon, her studio was shrinking as her storefront was growing and Golyester was born. It gained its name from a comment she heard frequently. ‘Golly, Esther!’ her friends would exclaim when she would show them her massive collection of vintage garments. Eventually, Ginsberg moved her store out of Venice and onto Melrose and later to her current location on La Brea. Through the years, she has continued to hone her vintage treasure-hunting skills, and she has hand-selected nearly every item in her store. ‘Each piece has to have something of interest or some appeal,’ she said. ‘I have to scour L.A. and the countryside, but it amazes me that after 30 years I still see things I have never seen before.’ A visit to Ginsberg’s store is proof that she has an expert eye for vintage. Everything in the store is truly fantastic, from the hand-made Romanian dance boots at the front of the store to the hand-embroidered shawls and beaded dresses in the back. Even more amazing things are hidden in Ginsberg’s workspace behind the counter at the back of the store, where she keeps the pieces she’s not quite ready to part with, including a beautiful silk Chinese robe with embroidered animals so intricate that they look as if they were painted; a leather jacket from the beginning of the punk era, personalized with paint and metal studs by its original owner; and one of her favorite recent finds, a small 1940s woman’s hat, small, white with a red flower and reminiscent of something one of Dr. Seuss’s characters might wear. With each piece more interesting than the last, it is easy to get lost in the merchandise, wondering where each item came from or who had already worn it. Still, some of the clientele come in, not for a new (to them) and unique outfit, but for inspiration. Although Ginsberg is too humble to drop names, some very famous fashion designers have been known to frequent her store. ‘It’s fun to be in on the creative part, working with these genius minds,’ she said. Ginsberg frequently recognizes new fashions and trends that have been inspired by items that were once a part of her collection and she always seems to know what the next big trend might be. However, some of the items she collected would never get the chance to inspire any designers. In October 2002, an arson fire was set in the space next door to Golyester. Every item in her store was damaged, either by smoke from the fire or flooding from the neighboring sprinkler system, and Ginsberg was forced to replace her entire inventory. She re-opened in February 2004, and was able to look at the situation positively. ‘It’s been an adventure,’ she said, ‘that confirmed I really wanted to be doing this.’ When not at the store, Ginsberg is usually out exploring the city. She is always on the lookout for something she has never seen before, whether it be a vintage piece to add to her collection, a new restaurant, tour or show. She recently discovered a place downtown called Pinata-Land, a big warehouse full of pi’atas and candy, and last week she visited the Moscow Cat Circus, where trained cats perform tricks. She also loves walking her big gray dog Tooey Bear around the Palisades with her husband.

Palisadian Margaret Slattery received Marymount High School’s ‘Outstanding Scholar Award’ and delivered the valedictorian address at the school’s 83rd Commencement on May 26. Earlier in the year, Miss Slattery had been designated as a National Merit Scholar, and had also been awarded the Bank of America Plaque for her achievement in the Liberal Arts. Other Pacific Palisades residents receiving Gold Medal academic awards at graduation were Stephanie Fowlkes in Mathematics, Alexis Hoffman in Science, Cyra Kang in English and Isabel Parkes in Spanish. Also among the 30 Palisadians out of the 101 graduates were Madison Akerblom, Breanna Baraff, Michelle Barrett, Kendall Bird, Kelsey Bjelajac, Hannah Boyle, Kirsten Crowe, Alexi deVogelaere, Marlene Feil, Caitlin Gallo, Katherine Hinds, Kelly Irvin, Kate Jameson, Kira Keating, Ani Mardirossian, Margaret MacDonald, Jessica Mead, Elizabeth Mullan, Bonnie Ogilvie, Olivia Parkes, Kristen Partipilo, Erica Sanborn, Johanna Spooner, Christine Takacs, Elizabeth Tauro and Madison Wojciechowski. The graduates were given an inspiring send-off by commencement speaker Lee Woodruff, co-author with her husband, ABC correspondent Bob Woodruff, of ‘In an Instant ‘A Family’s Journey of Love and Healing.’ The book recounts the family’s harrowing experience as Mr. Woodruff recovered from a near-fatal brain injury incurred while he was covering the war in Iraq in January 2006. In her speech, Ms. Woodruff shared her personal insights on being a woman thrown into an unimaginable crisis and her conviction that her young audience will also meet similar challenges if necessary. ‘I know that if you ever find yourself up against an unexpected wall, seemingly with no way out, you too will discover a self that was waiting for the right moment– the right instant–to emerge.’ Marymount graduates from the Palisades will attend the following colleges and universities: The American Musical and Dramatic Academy, University of Arizona, Boston University, Brown, Dartmouth, Duke, University of California (at Berkeley, San Diego, Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz), Colorado, Drew, Emory, Fairfield, Penn, University of San Francisco, Santa Clara, USC, Southern Methodist, Vanderbilt, Villanova, Virginia, Washington University in St. Louis, Wesleyan, Wisconsin and Yale.

Professor and religions studies scholar Jeffrey Kripal will sign ‘Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion’ on Saturday, June 9 from 4 to 6 p.m. at Village Books, 1049 Swarthmore. Founded in the 1960s as a center for the human potential movement, the Esalen spa perched on a cliff in Big Sur has drawn illustrious guests, countercultural figures and world leaders over its 40-year history. In his book, Kripal describes it as ‘a utopian experiment creatively suspended between the revelations of the religions and the democratic, pluralistic and scientific revolutions of modernity. He gives in considerable detail both the gossip and the intellectual developments at Esalen since it founding as ‘ a center to explore those trends in the behavioral sciences, religion and philosophy which emphasize the potentialities and values of human existence,’ as the first brochure put it. The Esalen Institute had considerable intellectual seriousness and was unexpectedly influential in global affairs, with leaders like Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev having some connection. Co-founded by Michael Murphy and Richard Price, Esalen enlisted the support of Susan Sontag and Norman Mailer in helping to bring the Soviet Writers’ Union into International PEN. It was also of use to the C.I.A., which spent a lot of money looking into ESP, with experiments involving ‘ the laser physicist turned C.I.A. psychic spy turned American mystic’ Russell Targ, who gave parapsychology lectures at Esalen. Kripal gives particular emphasis to the work of co-founder Michael Murphy, whose family happened to own the seaside real estate, 150 acres of beauty and abundant natural hot springs. Murphy is the author of a considerable body of philosophical writing or pop-mystical tracts such as ‘Golf in the Kingdom,’ which has sold more than a million copies and made a culture hero of its protagonist, Scottish golf pro Shivas Irons. ‘Esalen’ recounts in intimate detail how the co-founders sought to fuse the spiritual revelations of the East with the scientific revolutions of the West. In this religion of no religion, the natural world was as holy as the spiritual one. It is a prehistory of our current fascination with Asian religions. Today Esalen is at the center of the human potential movement, whose basic claim is that human beings possess immense untapped reserves of consciousness and energy that cultures have repressed in different ways.